“There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens brain has actually decreased since the age of foraging.5 Survival in that era required superb mental abilities from everyone. When agriculture and industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new ‘niches for imbeciles’ were opened up. You could survive and pass your unremarkable genes to the next generation by working as a water carrier or an assembly-line worker.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.”
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
― Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
HPL Reads Book Club
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This is the online book club for the Houston Public Library. We are a dynamic public library that serves one of the largest service areas in Texas – m ...more
Underground Knowledge — A discussion group
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This global discussion group has been designed to encourage debates about important and underreported issues of our era. All you need is an enquiring ...more
Damodar’s 2025 Year in Books
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