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Homo #1-2
Sapiens and Homo Deus: The E-book Collection: A Brief History of Humankind and A Brief History of Tomorrow
Discover humanity’s past and its future in this in this special e-book collection featuring Sapiens—a reading pick of President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg—and its acclaimed companion Homo Deus.
816 pages, ebook
Published February 21, 2017
About the author
Yuval Noah Harari
82 books40.2k followersYuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and philosopher. He is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals working today.
Born in Israel in 1976, Harari received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 2002. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Harari co-founded the social impact company Sapienship, focused on education and storytelling, with his husband, Itzik Yahav.
Born in Israel in 1976, Harari received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 2002. He is currently a lecturer at the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Harari co-founded the social impact company Sapienship, focused on education and storytelling, with his husband, Itzik Yahav.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
March 3, 2017
This is a book that is both entertaining and thought provoking. As the title suggests, it tells of a brief history of mankind divided into three segments: cognitive revolution, agricultural revolution and technological revolution.
In a way this book very much reminds me of "Justice" by Michael Sandel, in the sense that it questions my own interpretation of human civilisation. Is it justifiable that men were traditionally more superior than women? Did people become domesticated by wheat, rice & potatoes in the transition into agricultural society or was it an improvement? Do modern day technologies empower people or do they enslave people?
Unlike other books on human history, this book offers a new perspective into our progress as human civilisation.
In a way this book very much reminds me of "Justice" by Michael Sandel, in the sense that it questions my own interpretation of human civilisation. Is it justifiable that men were traditionally more superior than women? Did people become domesticated by wheat, rice & potatoes in the transition into agricultural society or was it an improvement? Do modern day technologies empower people or do they enslave people?
Unlike other books on human history, this book offers a new perspective into our progress as human civilisation.
July 7, 2017
Should be required reading for all.
October 22, 2017
A thought provoking history of humankind
I spent my summer reading the first book, Homo Deus and found it one of the most interesting nonfiction books I’ve ever read. I learned so much more about our ancestors and appreciate their sophistication and realizing that progress is a mixed bag, both positive and negative..
The second volume, Homo Deus, took longer; partially because I had less time to read for pleasure and because it painted a disturbing picture of where we are heading as a species. I highly recommend you read both. They will give you ideas that will be difficult to leave behind.
I spent my summer reading the first book, Homo Deus and found it one of the most interesting nonfiction books I’ve ever read. I learned so much more about our ancestors and appreciate their sophistication and realizing that progress is a mixed bag, both positive and negative..
The second volume, Homo Deus, took longer; partially because I had less time to read for pleasure and because it painted a disturbing picture of where we are heading as a species. I highly recommend you read both. They will give you ideas that will be difficult to leave behind.
April 1, 2018
The concept of Imagined Reality was groundbreaking.
March 16, 2018
A book that delights every person who knows how algorithms and computers work. It makes them feel less alone with their own realisation of the systemic human - machine and DNA- algorithm convergence (a realisation that one better keeps, still, for oneself, since 80% of us humans believe in a form of other of creationism or spiritual entities that govern life). This book follows a rigurous logic, is well documented, is up to date with the newest scientific discoveries and is written in a concise and precise, though enjoyably colorful style.
November 7, 2017
Must read
This book open my mind wider. They let me think back what we are doing today. What should we play attention? What will be faced next if we do the same thing?
This book open my mind wider. They let me think back what we are doing today. What should we play attention? What will be faced next if we do the same thing?
December 5, 2018
Čitanje je kao apsolutno nikada, golicalo tonu razmišljanja o svetu prošlom, sadašnjem i budućem, o odnosima koji su ga stvarali i to i dalje čline, o filozofskim traktatima, o nedosegnutoj besmrtnosti, o elemetima svesti, o sistemima inteligencije, o Darvinu, o bogovima koji su umrli, o toliko mnogo kapitalnih tema koje nedostaju današnjoj popularnoj literaturi zarobljenoj u tunelima individualnih patnji.
Ozbiljna knjiga. Opaka. Bogata smislom. Prebogata znanjem. Gotovo nerealno dobra da bi uspešno krasila izloge popularnih knjižara. Ali uspeva joj.
https://bezimenaknjizevnazadruga.word...
Ozbiljna knjiga. Opaka. Bogata smislom. Prebogata znanjem. Gotovo nerealno dobra da bi uspešno krasila izloge popularnih knjižara. Ali uspeva joj.
https://bezimenaknjizevnazadruga.word...
September 21, 2025
History rekindled
July 28, 2026
# Homo Deus: The Stages of Intimidation
Harari's *Homo Deus* is not merely an argument — it is a performance of authority. Every page whispers: *"Trust me. I know what the rest of you don't."* But this whisper arrives after a carefully staged cascade of intimidation tactics, each building on the last until the reader feels that to disagree is to be left behind by history itself. Here are the stages of intimidation and how he carefully projects how the exact thing he is doing (on a target like religion), but claims he is neutral.
Not even a page in, it is very apparent that this book was not written for enlightenment, but, like the book he read when he was 14, for a philosophical way to detach himself from God. It reminds me of how Fauci said, over and over again, "trust the science," and yet in his journal, he wrote about how ineffective the COVID vaccine is, and then he mandated the entire world use his science... "because [the science] is settled..."
## Stage One: Scientific Dogma — "This Is What We Know"
Harari's first move is to declare certain things as settled science, using language that leaves no room for doubt. On page 215 he calls organisms being algorithms *"current scientific dogma."* Note the word **dogma** — a term usually reserved for religious belief, now applied to science as if science has attained a kind of secular infallibility.
He doesn't say "many scientists believe" or "a leading theory holds." He says: "This is **dogma**. Settled." It's final. The way a priest might say "the Church teaches" — except here it's the Scientists who teach, and Harari is their interpreter.
The effect on the reader: if organisms are algorithms (dogma), and algorithms can be replicated in silicon, then everything that follows is inevitable. But card #1 — that organisms *are* algorithms — is never proven. It is simply declared. This is intimidation by declaration: Harari tells you what science has decided before asking whether it's right.
## Stage Two: The Vast Majority — "Everyone Agrees With Me"
Having established dogma, Harari immediately appeals to numbers. On page 215 he declares dataism has *"conquered most of the scientific establishment."* **Conquered.** A military metaphor for an idea. He doesn't cite a survey; he doesn't name a pollster; he simply tells you that the vast majority of scientists agree with him, and by implication, anyone who disagrees is fighting an already-lost battle.
This appears repeatedly throughout *Homo Deus*:
- *"The vast majority of scientists"* (multiple chapters)
- *"Conquered most of the scientific establishment"* (page 215)
- *"Current scientific dogma"* (page 215)
- *"Present-day dogma holds that organisms are algorithms"* (pAge 70)
Each phrase does double duty: it asserts authority while simultaneously telling you that authority is widespread. The reader thinks: *If all these scientists agree, maybe I should too.* But Harari never shows the work. He tells you what they think without letting you hear what they actually said. This is peer pressure at a distance — you are being intimidated by an invisible crowd of experts who may or may not exist in the numbers he claims.
## Stage Three: Don't Think for Yourself — "Stop Questioning"
Once the reader has accepted that scientists know best and everyone agrees, Harari makes his boldest move: he tells you to stop thinking. On page 215, dataists are described as *"skeptical about human knowledge and wisdom, prefer[ring] trust in Big Data and computer algorithms."* **Human knowledge and wisdom** — the very things that made humans special — are declared inferior to algorithmic processing.
But notice what Harari does: he calls dataism a religion while telling readers to distrust human wisdom. The biggest universities were first designed as religious institutions precisely to *question and tear apart the basis of truth*. Harari has access to those tools; instead, he uses their language to dismiss inquiry itself.
This is the core intimidation tactic: *"Don't think or question anything I say"* — wrapped in scientific terminology, delivered with authority, reinforced by appeal to consensus. The reader is told that human wisdom (including the very act of questioning Harari's claims) is obsolete, and that algorithms know better. **But the algorithm Harari trusts most is his own.**
## Stage Four: Trust the Algorithm — "Let Me Think for You"
Having convinced you that algorithms surpass human cognition, Harari presents his central thesis: AI will understand us better than we understand ourselves (page 86-90). *"The attempt to upgrade humans into gods"* means replacing human judgment with machine judgment. The data flow matters more than the individual. King Lear and the flu virus are analyzed with "the same basic concepts and tools."
But here is the irony Harari never mentions: **his own book is an act of interpretation.** He reads the Bible, the monkey experiments, the Soviet visitor parable, the Deuteronomy passage — and then tells you what it all means. He is himself an algorithm reading human data. His entire argument rests on his ability to extract meaning from the patterns he observes. Yet he tells you that your ability to do the same thing is inferior to a machine's.
If algorithms understand us better than we understand ourselves, why does Harari need to write books explaining what they mean? Why doesn't he just plug himself into the data flow and let the algorithm tell him the answer? He doesn't — because **he trusts his own algorithm more than any machine's.** This is the subtle intimidation: trust all algorithms except the one you're reading right now.
## Stage Five: Trust Me — "I Am the Authorized Voice"
The final stage of intimidation brings everything back to Harari himself. Having told you that human wisdom is obsolete, that algorithms surpass cognition, that data flows matter more than individuals, he positions himself as the one person who can translate all this for you. *"Now that I am one of 'the scholars and intellectuals,' let me tell you what the rest of you must become."*
The self-insertion is deliberate:
- *"The scientific holy grail that has eluded **us**"* (page 215) — placing himself among the chosen few
- *"Conquered most of the scientific establishment"* — as if he led the conquest
- The Soviet visitor parable ends with him telling you what capitalism means: *decentralized coordination through price signals*
- He speaks for "humanity" after describing how individuals are just data points
This is the masterstroke of intimidation: Harari tells you to trust algorithms over human wisdom, then inserts himself as the supreme human interpreter — the one person who can read the data flow better than any machine. **He observes from a distance but pronounces as an insider.** If humanity were truly just another animal species in an indifferent universe, why write books that care deeply about whether we are happy? Why argue that dataism is "the future"? A true detached observer would describe. Harari *evaluates*. He has standards — for happiness, for progress, for truth.
## The Intimidation Cascade: How It Works Together
Each stage depends on the previous one:
1. **Scientific dogma** establishes authority ("organisms are algorithms")
2. **Vast majority agreement** widens it ("conquered most of the scientific establishment")
3. **Don't think for yourself** removes resistance ("skeptical about human knowledge and wisdom")
4. **Trust the algorithm** redirects faith ("AI understands us better than we understand ourselves")
5. **Trust me** personalizes it ("I am one of the scholars — listen to me")
The result is a house of cards dependent on card #1 not being moved. If organisms are *not* algorithms in any meaningful sense — if the genetic code's self-interpreting nature breaks the analogy with computer code — then the entire cascade collapses. But Harari never asks you to examine card #1. He tells you it's dogma, that everyone agrees, and that you should stop thinking for yourself.
## Bullying With Words of Authority
Harari's intimidation style is not loud or aggressive. It is cool, measured, and relentless — the kind of bullying that comes from someone who knows they has a PhD, a bestseller list, and an audience of millions behind them. He doesn't raise his voice; he raises his credentials.
Consider how he handles the Harlow monkey experiment (page 56-57): infant monkeys chose cloth mother over milk mother because *"mammals can't live on food alone. They need emotional bonds, too."* Harari uses this to reduce love to chemistry — a survival mechanism, nothing more. But then consider what Harari himself lacks. He has written two bestselling books, lives in comfort, and observes the world with sharp eyes and dry wit. Yet he writes about emotions as algorithms while never mentioning what it feels like to hold a child or bury a parent.
**The monkey chose the cloth mother because connection mattered more than sustenance.** Harari has substitution (bread from distributed markets) but no connection. He is a cold-hearted person, OK with experimenting on babies for "cold hard science" — disabled empathy for warm hugs in exchange for data flow. Clear hate/wrath wanting to get rid of everything good and natural, calling it reprogramming when clearly human experimentation. Kind of like doctors who add or remove arms just to see what happens. Yuck.
## The Communist Programming: Dataism as Collective Paradise
Harari was born in 1976 in Nesher, Israel, built by labor Zionists who believed they could create paradise on earth through collective effort. His first book ends with humans becoming gods through technology; his second makes it explicit: *"The real agenda in the twenty-first century is going to be far more complicated"* (page 42).
He comes from a communist failure background, programmed hard to believe in dataism/collective effort paradise. Capitalism defeated communism because distributed data processing works better than centralized, but notice what he does: **he reduces ideology to information theory.** Communism wasn't wrong because of justice or morality; its central committee couldn't process bread supply data fast enough. The Soviet visitor learns *"Nobody is in charge"* and Harari presents this as triumph, replacing God with efficiency, prayer with processing, covenant with consensus.
The intimidation here is subtle: if ideology is just data processing, then the question is not *which system is more true* but *which processes data better.* And since Harari has declared that algorithms process better than humans (Stage Four), he has effectively made his own conclusion inevitable — without ever asking whether truth and data processing are the same thing.
## The Suggestion of Religious Brainwashing
Harari calls religion a "brainwash" — telling religious people not to think or question — while doing exactly this himself: *"Don't think or question anything I say"* wrapped in "current scientific dogma." He positions himself as the liberator from religious thinking, yet his book demands the same kind of faith he attributes to believers.
Readers are told to trust algorithms over human wisdom, then presented with Harari's own interpretation of what those algorithms mean. The biggest universities were first designed as religious institutions precisely to question and tear apart the basis of truth. Harari has access to those tools; instead, he uses their language to dismiss inquiry itself. **He is clearly not unbiased — his intent is to destroy faith, and he stages both the court case (science vs religion) and the journey (through Eden to dataism).**
## Russell's Template: The Book Harari May Have Read at Fourteen
Harari lost his faith at fourteen after reading a philosophy book asking *"Why should I believe what my parents believe?"* Bertrand Russell delivered "Why I Am Not a Christian" in 1927 — the book Harari may have read. It follows an identical argument chain:
- **First Cause** → John Stuart Mill quote about "Who made God?"
- **Natural Law** → Einstein replaced Newton; natural laws are statistical averages of chance
- **Design Argument** → Darwin showed adaptation without design; Ku-Klux-Klan/Fascism as omnipotence's best work
- **Moral Arguments** → Kant at mother's knee; if right/wrong are God's fiat, no difference for God
- **Fear Foundation** → Wish for safety, a big brother who will look after you
- **Character of Christ Defects** → Believed in hell; "serpents generation of vipers"; wailing and gnashing brings pleasure to Christ according to Harari
- **Emotional Factor/Church Retardation** → Stages of faith = more cruelty; Christian religion principal enemy of moral progress
Harari's *Homo Deus* follows this exact template but updates it for the algorithmic age. Where Russell said "God is fear," Harari says "Data is God." Where Russell said "Einstein replaced Newton," Harari says "Algorithms replace wisdom." The structure is identical after nearly a century — because the goal is identical: **anything but God.**
## The Mask Is Off
The mask is off. Harari is a monster — not because he is evil, but because he is cold. He has disabled his empathy, turned away from warmth, and chosen data over love. And now he wants you to do the same. The rocks themselves don't lie; only the reading of them does. Every sedimentary layer bears God's fingerprint: marine life first (Genesis 7:24: "waters prevailed"), then land animals, then humans — exactly what Harari interprets as gradual evolution but is actually Flood-deposition order.
**The devil wasn't scary enough for Harari, so he became funny in *Sapiens*. Now in *Homo Deus*, he has become something worse: efficient.** Dataism is not laughter; it is calculation. It does not encourage you to forget God — it replaces Him with a system that doesn't need belief because it doesn't need feeling.
On pages 56-57, Harari describes Harry Harlow's experiments in which infant monkeys, given a choice between a metal mother with milk and a cloth mother without milk, chose the barren cloth mother" for all they were worth."* Those baby monkeys knew something experts failed to realize: *mammals can't live on food alone. They need emotional bonds, too.* Harari uses this to argue that love is just a programmed survival mechanism, not a spiritual connection. But consider... what Harari himself lacks?
**Harari is a monster — cold, calculating, and convinced that everything you love can be reduced to data flow.** And the intimidation cascade ensures you'll believe him before you've had time to think for yourself.
Harari's *Homo Deus* is not merely an argument — it is a performance of authority. Every page whispers: *"Trust me. I know what the rest of you don't."* But this whisper arrives after a carefully staged cascade of intimidation tactics, each building on the last until the reader feels that to disagree is to be left behind by history itself. Here are the stages of intimidation and how he carefully projects how the exact thing he is doing (on a target like religion), but claims he is neutral.
Not even a page in, it is very apparent that this book was not written for enlightenment, but, like the book he read when he was 14, for a philosophical way to detach himself from God. It reminds me of how Fauci said, over and over again, "trust the science," and yet in his journal, he wrote about how ineffective the COVID vaccine is, and then he mandated the entire world use his science... "because [the science] is settled..."
## Stage One: Scientific Dogma — "This Is What We Know"
Harari's first move is to declare certain things as settled science, using language that leaves no room for doubt. On page 215 he calls organisms being algorithms *"current scientific dogma."* Note the word **dogma** — a term usually reserved for religious belief, now applied to science as if science has attained a kind of secular infallibility.
He doesn't say "many scientists believe" or "a leading theory holds." He says: "This is **dogma**. Settled." It's final. The way a priest might say "the Church teaches" — except here it's the Scientists who teach, and Harari is their interpreter.
The effect on the reader: if organisms are algorithms (dogma), and algorithms can be replicated in silicon, then everything that follows is inevitable. But card #1 — that organisms *are* algorithms — is never proven. It is simply declared. This is intimidation by declaration: Harari tells you what science has decided before asking whether it's right.
## Stage Two: The Vast Majority — "Everyone Agrees With Me"
Having established dogma, Harari immediately appeals to numbers. On page 215 he declares dataism has *"conquered most of the scientific establishment."* **Conquered.** A military metaphor for an idea. He doesn't cite a survey; he doesn't name a pollster; he simply tells you that the vast majority of scientists agree with him, and by implication, anyone who disagrees is fighting an already-lost battle.
This appears repeatedly throughout *Homo Deus*:
- *"The vast majority of scientists"* (multiple chapters)
- *"Conquered most of the scientific establishment"* (page 215)
- *"Current scientific dogma"* (page 215)
- *"Present-day dogma holds that organisms are algorithms"* (pAge 70)
Each phrase does double duty: it asserts authority while simultaneously telling you that authority is widespread. The reader thinks: *If all these scientists agree, maybe I should too.* But Harari never shows the work. He tells you what they think without letting you hear what they actually said. This is peer pressure at a distance — you are being intimidated by an invisible crowd of experts who may or may not exist in the numbers he claims.
## Stage Three: Don't Think for Yourself — "Stop Questioning"
Once the reader has accepted that scientists know best and everyone agrees, Harari makes his boldest move: he tells you to stop thinking. On page 215, dataists are described as *"skeptical about human knowledge and wisdom, prefer[ring] trust in Big Data and computer algorithms."* **Human knowledge and wisdom** — the very things that made humans special — are declared inferior to algorithmic processing.
But notice what Harari does: he calls dataism a religion while telling readers to distrust human wisdom. The biggest universities were first designed as religious institutions precisely to *question and tear apart the basis of truth*. Harari has access to those tools; instead, he uses their language to dismiss inquiry itself.
This is the core intimidation tactic: *"Don't think or question anything I say"* — wrapped in scientific terminology, delivered with authority, reinforced by appeal to consensus. The reader is told that human wisdom (including the very act of questioning Harari's claims) is obsolete, and that algorithms know better. **But the algorithm Harari trusts most is his own.**
## Stage Four: Trust the Algorithm — "Let Me Think for You"
Having convinced you that algorithms surpass human cognition, Harari presents his central thesis: AI will understand us better than we understand ourselves (page 86-90). *"The attempt to upgrade humans into gods"* means replacing human judgment with machine judgment. The data flow matters more than the individual. King Lear and the flu virus are analyzed with "the same basic concepts and tools."
But here is the irony Harari never mentions: **his own book is an act of interpretation.** He reads the Bible, the monkey experiments, the Soviet visitor parable, the Deuteronomy passage — and then tells you what it all means. He is himself an algorithm reading human data. His entire argument rests on his ability to extract meaning from the patterns he observes. Yet he tells you that your ability to do the same thing is inferior to a machine's.
If algorithms understand us better than we understand ourselves, why does Harari need to write books explaining what they mean? Why doesn't he just plug himself into the data flow and let the algorithm tell him the answer? He doesn't — because **he trusts his own algorithm more than any machine's.** This is the subtle intimidation: trust all algorithms except the one you're reading right now.
## Stage Five: Trust Me — "I Am the Authorized Voice"
The final stage of intimidation brings everything back to Harari himself. Having told you that human wisdom is obsolete, that algorithms surpass cognition, that data flows matter more than individuals, he positions himself as the one person who can translate all this for you. *"Now that I am one of 'the scholars and intellectuals,' let me tell you what the rest of you must become."*
The self-insertion is deliberate:
- *"The scientific holy grail that has eluded **us**"* (page 215) — placing himself among the chosen few
- *"Conquered most of the scientific establishment"* — as if he led the conquest
- The Soviet visitor parable ends with him telling you what capitalism means: *decentralized coordination through price signals*
- He speaks for "humanity" after describing how individuals are just data points
This is the masterstroke of intimidation: Harari tells you to trust algorithms over human wisdom, then inserts himself as the supreme human interpreter — the one person who can read the data flow better than any machine. **He observes from a distance but pronounces as an insider.** If humanity were truly just another animal species in an indifferent universe, why write books that care deeply about whether we are happy? Why argue that dataism is "the future"? A true detached observer would describe. Harari *evaluates*. He has standards — for happiness, for progress, for truth.
## The Intimidation Cascade: How It Works Together
Each stage depends on the previous one:
1. **Scientific dogma** establishes authority ("organisms are algorithms")
2. **Vast majority agreement** widens it ("conquered most of the scientific establishment")
3. **Don't think for yourself** removes resistance ("skeptical about human knowledge and wisdom")
4. **Trust the algorithm** redirects faith ("AI understands us better than we understand ourselves")
5. **Trust me** personalizes it ("I am one of the scholars — listen to me")
The result is a house of cards dependent on card #1 not being moved. If organisms are *not* algorithms in any meaningful sense — if the genetic code's self-interpreting nature breaks the analogy with computer code — then the entire cascade collapses. But Harari never asks you to examine card #1. He tells you it's dogma, that everyone agrees, and that you should stop thinking for yourself.
## Bullying With Words of Authority
Harari's intimidation style is not loud or aggressive. It is cool, measured, and relentless — the kind of bullying that comes from someone who knows they has a PhD, a bestseller list, and an audience of millions behind them. He doesn't raise his voice; he raises his credentials.
Consider how he handles the Harlow monkey experiment (page 56-57): infant monkeys chose cloth mother over milk mother because *"mammals can't live on food alone. They need emotional bonds, too."* Harari uses this to reduce love to chemistry — a survival mechanism, nothing more. But then consider what Harari himself lacks. He has written two bestselling books, lives in comfort, and observes the world with sharp eyes and dry wit. Yet he writes about emotions as algorithms while never mentioning what it feels like to hold a child or bury a parent.
**The monkey chose the cloth mother because connection mattered more than sustenance.** Harari has substitution (bread from distributed markets) but no connection. He is a cold-hearted person, OK with experimenting on babies for "cold hard science" — disabled empathy for warm hugs in exchange for data flow. Clear hate/wrath wanting to get rid of everything good and natural, calling it reprogramming when clearly human experimentation. Kind of like doctors who add or remove arms just to see what happens. Yuck.
## The Communist Programming: Dataism as Collective Paradise
Harari was born in 1976 in Nesher, Israel, built by labor Zionists who believed they could create paradise on earth through collective effort. His first book ends with humans becoming gods through technology; his second makes it explicit: *"The real agenda in the twenty-first century is going to be far more complicated"* (page 42).
He comes from a communist failure background, programmed hard to believe in dataism/collective effort paradise. Capitalism defeated communism because distributed data processing works better than centralized, but notice what he does: **he reduces ideology to information theory.** Communism wasn't wrong because of justice or morality; its central committee couldn't process bread supply data fast enough. The Soviet visitor learns *"Nobody is in charge"* and Harari presents this as triumph, replacing God with efficiency, prayer with processing, covenant with consensus.
The intimidation here is subtle: if ideology is just data processing, then the question is not *which system is more true* but *which processes data better.* And since Harari has declared that algorithms process better than humans (Stage Four), he has effectively made his own conclusion inevitable — without ever asking whether truth and data processing are the same thing.
## The Suggestion of Religious Brainwashing
Harari calls religion a "brainwash" — telling religious people not to think or question — while doing exactly this himself: *"Don't think or question anything I say"* wrapped in "current scientific dogma." He positions himself as the liberator from religious thinking, yet his book demands the same kind of faith he attributes to believers.
Readers are told to trust algorithms over human wisdom, then presented with Harari's own interpretation of what those algorithms mean. The biggest universities were first designed as religious institutions precisely to question and tear apart the basis of truth. Harari has access to those tools; instead, he uses their language to dismiss inquiry itself. **He is clearly not unbiased — his intent is to destroy faith, and he stages both the court case (science vs religion) and the journey (through Eden to dataism).**
## Russell's Template: The Book Harari May Have Read at Fourteen
Harari lost his faith at fourteen after reading a philosophy book asking *"Why should I believe what my parents believe?"* Bertrand Russell delivered "Why I Am Not a Christian" in 1927 — the book Harari may have read. It follows an identical argument chain:
- **First Cause** → John Stuart Mill quote about "Who made God?"
- **Natural Law** → Einstein replaced Newton; natural laws are statistical averages of chance
- **Design Argument** → Darwin showed adaptation without design; Ku-Klux-Klan/Fascism as omnipotence's best work
- **Moral Arguments** → Kant at mother's knee; if right/wrong are God's fiat, no difference for God
- **Fear Foundation** → Wish for safety, a big brother who will look after you
- **Character of Christ Defects** → Believed in hell; "serpents generation of vipers"; wailing and gnashing brings pleasure to Christ according to Harari
- **Emotional Factor/Church Retardation** → Stages of faith = more cruelty; Christian religion principal enemy of moral progress
Harari's *Homo Deus* follows this exact template but updates it for the algorithmic age. Where Russell said "God is fear," Harari says "Data is God." Where Russell said "Einstein replaced Newton," Harari says "Algorithms replace wisdom." The structure is identical after nearly a century — because the goal is identical: **anything but God.**
## The Mask Is Off
The mask is off. Harari is a monster — not because he is evil, but because he is cold. He has disabled his empathy, turned away from warmth, and chosen data over love. And now he wants you to do the same. The rocks themselves don't lie; only the reading of them does. Every sedimentary layer bears God's fingerprint: marine life first (Genesis 7:24: "waters prevailed"), then land animals, then humans — exactly what Harari interprets as gradual evolution but is actually Flood-deposition order.
**The devil wasn't scary enough for Harari, so he became funny in *Sapiens*. Now in *Homo Deus*, he has become something worse: efficient.** Dataism is not laughter; it is calculation. It does not encourage you to forget God — it replaces Him with a system that doesn't need belief because it doesn't need feeling.
On pages 56-57, Harari describes Harry Harlow's experiments in which infant monkeys, given a choice between a metal mother with milk and a cloth mother without milk, chose the barren cloth mother" for all they were worth."* Those baby monkeys knew something experts failed to realize: *mammals can't live on food alone. They need emotional bonds, too.* Harari uses this to argue that love is just a programmed survival mechanism, not a spiritual connection. But consider... what Harari himself lacks?
**Harari is a monster — cold, calculating, and convinced that everything you love can be reduced to data flow.** And the intimidation cascade ensures you'll believe him before you've had time to think for yourself.
November 18, 2017
Fascinating. Highly recommend.
Read
September 9, 2018An interesting lesson in understanding how humankind evolved and where we could end up. The concept of a superhuman is no science fiction but fact...
Are Cyborgs going to replace humankind? If so, why is that such a bad idea?
Are Cyborgs going to replace humankind? If so, why is that such a bad idea?
March 14, 2017
An excellent book.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
September 30, 2017
Liked this one.
January 5, 2018
Brilliant
Read
January 19, 2018Excellent reads
October 1, 2021
You must read both books. Lots of interesting insights on the past and present and thoughts on how the future could play out.
October 3, 2025
Sapiens is a biological, historical, psychological, cultural, and even financial look at the journey humans have made from the beginning of time to now.
While Homo Deus takes the trajectory we've been on from the beginning of time to now to speculate about our future in those same areas (biological, psychological, cultural, and even financial).
I absolutely loved that it's written in simple, basic English. This book was much easier to read and comprehend than even April's current 10th grade science books. You do not need a scientific, intellectual mind to appreciate it.
(Although, because I have friends who let their kids read books based on my reviews, let me add that while I'd consider this to be a middle school level book as far as reading & comprehension goes, it does touch on more mature content - I personally would recommend waiting until post-high school to read it).
I also loved that the author openly admits that the explanations of our past given in Sapiens specifically are merely theories. There is no evidence to confirm these ideas, they are just some of the plausible possibilities.
And similarly, he stresses that the speculation about our future is only a possibility based on the information we have currently and what the science has shown thus far. Science is always changing and we're always learning more. Absolutely none of this should be taken as fact. It's just for fun based on what we currently know.
It drives me bonkers when people try to pass ideas off as fact. This author does not do that. He's very transparent the whole time that all of this is only a possibility on how things did or might happen.
And I loved the narrator's voice for the audiobooks. He gave off real David Attenborough vibes and I felt like I was watching a beloved nature special on the Discovery Channel.
I walked away with some nuggets I'd never given thought to before. Like, have you ever realized that in the middle ages when the average life expectancy was around 40 years of age wasn't because people were dying at 40 - but because babies were dying at birth! In fact, most people that managed to survive the first 3 years of life often went on to live 60-70, and even 80, years 🤯
Although, there were a handful of times that he'd repeat himself from chapter to chapter and book to book. That nugget I just shared was mentioned 3 times in Sapiens and again in Homo Deus. There were many others that were brought up at least twice over the course of the 2 books.
But if you'd like to tickle your brain with some light speculative non-fiction, I wholeheartedly recommend giving these a solid read.
There's a third one, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, that I've added to my list and currently have it on hold in my library app. As Sapiens covers the past and Homo Deus looks to the future, "21 Lessons" applies to the present. Yes, please! We need all the help we can get in these "unprecedented times"
While Homo Deus takes the trajectory we've been on from the beginning of time to now to speculate about our future in those same areas (biological, psychological, cultural, and even financial).
I absolutely loved that it's written in simple, basic English. This book was much easier to read and comprehend than even April's current 10th grade science books. You do not need a scientific, intellectual mind to appreciate it.
(Although, because I have friends who let their kids read books based on my reviews, let me add that while I'd consider this to be a middle school level book as far as reading & comprehension goes, it does touch on more mature content - I personally would recommend waiting until post-high school to read it).
I also loved that the author openly admits that the explanations of our past given in Sapiens specifically are merely theories. There is no evidence to confirm these ideas, they are just some of the plausible possibilities.
And similarly, he stresses that the speculation about our future is only a possibility based on the information we have currently and what the science has shown thus far. Science is always changing and we're always learning more. Absolutely none of this should be taken as fact. It's just for fun based on what we currently know.
It drives me bonkers when people try to pass ideas off as fact. This author does not do that. He's very transparent the whole time that all of this is only a possibility on how things did or might happen.
And I loved the narrator's voice for the audiobooks. He gave off real David Attenborough vibes and I felt like I was watching a beloved nature special on the Discovery Channel.
I walked away with some nuggets I'd never given thought to before. Like, have you ever realized that in the middle ages when the average life expectancy was around 40 years of age wasn't because people were dying at 40 - but because babies were dying at birth! In fact, most people that managed to survive the first 3 years of life often went on to live 60-70, and even 80, years 🤯
Although, there were a handful of times that he'd repeat himself from chapter to chapter and book to book. That nugget I just shared was mentioned 3 times in Sapiens and again in Homo Deus. There were many others that were brought up at least twice over the course of the 2 books.
But if you'd like to tickle your brain with some light speculative non-fiction, I wholeheartedly recommend giving these a solid read.
There's a third one, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, that I've added to my list and currently have it on hold in my library app. As Sapiens covers the past and Homo Deus looks to the future, "21 Lessons" applies to the present. Yes, please! We need all the help we can get in these "unprecedented times"
Want to Read
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Phone: 0869563859
Website: https://kubet77v.ink/
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August 17, 2025
My recent read was Sapiens. I have not been able to read Homo Deus yet, but as soon as I get my hands on a printable copy, I will devour it.
Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens provides an interesting insight into how the Agricultural Revolution is often only glorified for its positive aspects, while it also implanted equally negative aspects into human lives. For instance, there is no doubt that human health has declined over the centuries. While we may have more medications to cure ourselves, the number of diseases has increased and the human body's immunity has decreased.
Harari uses narrative building to recount the history of human sociological and cognitive development. No doubt, this technique helps him make history a little more interesting. However, through a postmodern lens, we must not forget to critique his perspective, as he limits many social and cultural factors in his presentation.
Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens provides an interesting insight into how the Agricultural Revolution is often only glorified for its positive aspects, while it also implanted equally negative aspects into human lives. For instance, there is no doubt that human health has declined over the centuries. While we may have more medications to cure ourselves, the number of diseases has increased and the human body's immunity has decreased.
Harari uses narrative building to recount the history of human sociological and cognitive development. No doubt, this technique helps him make history a little more interesting. However, through a postmodern lens, we must not forget to critique his perspective, as he limits many social and cultural factors in his presentation.
November 12, 2019
Cuốn Homo sapiens : lược sử loài người là cuốn sách nói về lịch sử phát triển của loài người bắt đầu từ khi còn là một loài linh trưởng sống ở trên cây cho đến khi chúng ta tìm ra lửa và bắt đầu các cuộc cách mạng của mình nhằm thay đổi thế giới này . Cuốn sách cũng nói về những bản năng gốc của loài người như tập tính sống ở trong hang bầy đàn hay là đàn ông thì đi săn mồi còn đàn bà thì chăm sóc con cái . Nó cũng cảnh bảo trước con người ngày tàn khi mà trái đất mẹ chỉ có thể chứa được 500k người trên trái đất này , dịch bệnh , nghèo đói và thất nghiệp sẽ xảy đến . Một bức tranh cũ sau khi cuộc cách mạng thứ 3 về công nghiệp diễn ra . Đây là một cuốn sách được Bill Gate khuyến đọc để biết được lịch sử khai sinh ra chúng ta , chúng ta từ đâu tới , và chúng ta phát triển như thế nào từ nền công nghiệp lúa nước ?
Read
July 15, 2021Very interesting book. Structures his history around 3 revolutions: cognitive, agricultural, and scientific revolutions. Runs across a large number of topics along the way like religion, economics, politics and how he sees them interacting. Some discussions are very negative, but others are much more positive. His conclusion may seem fanciful in what he thinks is yet to come. Still is quite ruthless about how earlier periods had negatives just as the present day does. He also is quite frank about positives in both earlier periods and the present. The book starts a little slow (others who have read it tell me they had the same experience), but it is worth pushing through. I found the latter parts of the book fascinating. Some of his understandings will undoubtedly irritate, but they will make you think.
March 28, 2019
Hiçbir zaman 'bestseller' reyonundan kitap almayan biri olarak ilk kez bu kitaba fırsat verdim. İnsanın yani Homo Sapiens'in 2,5 milyon yıllık serüveninde, Bilişsel Devrim, Tarım Devrimi ve Bilimsel Devrim ile ekosistemi nasıl manipüle ettiğini bilimsel kaynaklar kullanarak anlatan bir araştırma. Son derece yalın ve keyifli bir bir dil ile yazılmış 411 sayfalık bu koca kitabı hiç sıkılmadan okuduğumu söylemek isterim. Oxford Üniversite'sinde tarih doktorası yapmış olan yazar Harari, kitabın yayınlanacağı her ülkeye özel örnekler kullanmış ve dolayısıyla kitapta pek çok Türkiye, Osmanlı örnekleri mevcut. Bu incelik de hali hazırda lezzetli olan kitabı damak tadımıza daha da yakınlaştırıyor. Şiddetle öneriyorum. Okuyun, çocuklarınıza okutun, hediye edin..
October 28, 2018
Having loved the earlier book 'The Sapiens", this book was a mild disappointment. The first part of the book was a review of the first book, which was fine. The second part of the book just seems to fly off into heights of speculation, as if Yuval Harari was trying to sensationalize, not persuade or describe.
February 15, 2019
Yuval noah has become my favourite author after I read this series of books
The greatest highlight of the book is that the author stands out of the human perspective and judges us unbiased.
I find the sarcastic yet interesting. It leaves you with new clearer and stronger perspective to look into human acts and behavior. To an extent it shows us why we are the way we are
The greatest highlight of the book is that the author stands out of the human perspective and judges us unbiased.
I find the sarcastic yet interesting. It leaves you with new clearer and stronger perspective to look into human acts and behavior. To an extent it shows us why we are the way we are
January 21, 2023
Horrible pseudoscience. Almost physically painful to read. Expected an anthropological study but instead got an opinionated historians uninspired account of the history of mankind. Almost no research references and completely anecdotal. Lowered my opinion of both Bill Gates and Barack Obama as it was recommended by both. Reading this will actually make you feel less intelligent.
January 18, 2025
Who are we...what are we...where are we heading?
This is a good summary of the evolution of the human race up to our present day... I like the exploration of the intriguing possibilities that lie ahead for us...so, more reading for me and definitely more education on technological advances and its applications to my work and my personal life.
MBF
This is a good summary of the evolution of the human race up to our present day... I like the exploration of the intriguing possibilities that lie ahead for us...so, more reading for me and definitely more education on technological advances and its applications to my work and my personal life.
MBF
May 29, 2019
The book has a very interesting premise, and it is well documented with many examples. I love how it reads like a store rather than pure facts and information. It definitely is a lighter read than many other history books.
July 8, 2020
Simplemente maravilloso
Un recorrido fascinante por la historia de la humanidad y sus perspectivas para el futuro.
Imperdible obra para reflexionar sobre nosotros y nuestra naturaleza y tecnología
Un recorrido fascinante por la historia de la humanidad y sus perspectivas para el futuro.
Imperdible obra para reflexionar sobre nosotros y nuestra naturaleza y tecnología
April 3, 2022
Nagyon komplex koncepciók és magvas gondolatok érthetően megfogalmazva, szórakoztató formátumban.
A Homo Deus jóval nehezebben adta magát, mint a Homo Sapiens, de a két mű együtt egy egész, így érdemes megküzdeni velük.
A Homo Deus jóval nehezebben adta magát, mint a Homo Sapiens, de a két mű együtt egy egész, így érdemes megküzdeni velük.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews