Sannidhi’s Reviews > Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind > Status Update

For close to 4 billion years, every single organism on the planet evolved subject to natural selection. Not even one was designed by an intelligent creator.

We can congratulate ourselves on the unprecedented accomplishments of modern Sapiens only if we completely ignore the fate of all other animals.If we accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history. When evaluating global happiness, it is wrong to count the happiness only of humans.

Racism was replaced by culturism. Today’s elites usually justify superiority in terms of historical differences between cultures rather than biological differences between races. We no longer say, ‘It’s in their blood.’ We say, ‘It’s in their culture.’

They noticed that the earliest Sanskrit speakers, who had invaded India from Central Asia more than 3,000 years ago, had called themselves Arya. The speakers of the earliest Persian language called themselves Airiia. European scholars consequently surmised that the people who spoke the primordial language that gave birth to both Sanskrit and Persian (+ Greek, Latin, Gothic &Celtic) must have called themselves Aryans.

Columbus didn't believe that the Bible could have missed half the world.
In error believing that Amerigo Vespucci had been the person who discovered it, Waldseemüller named the continent in his honour – America.There is poetic justice in the fact that a quarter of the world, two of its seven continents, are named after a little-known Italian whose sole claim to fame is that he had the courage to say, ‘We don’t know.’

Columbus didn't believe that the Bible could have missed half the world.
In error believing that Amerigo Vespucci had been the person who discovered it, Waldseemüller named the continent in his honour – America.There is poetic justice in the fact that a quarter of the world, two of its seven continents, are named after a little-known Italian whose sole claim to fame is that he had the courage to say, ‘We don’t know.’

This explains why in ancient Greece, surgery was considered lower on the totem pole. I remember our Greek tour guide saying "because they worked with their hands" which was lower skilled than internal medicine where herbs could heal a person's soul.

"The first anaesthetics entered in the middle of the 19th century. Soldiers were held down &..

surgery required little more than knowing your way with knives and saws."

Scientists studying the inner workings of the human organism have found no soul there. They increasingly argue that human behaviour is determined by hormones, genes and synapses, rather than by free will – the same forces that determine the behaviour of chimpanzees, wolves, and ants.

How many Indians today would want to call a vote to divest themselves of democracy, English, the railway network, the legal system, cricket and tea on the grounds that they are imperial legacies?

If an extreme Hindu nationalist were to destroy all the buildings left by the British conquerors, such as Mumbai’s main train station, what about the structures left by India’s Muslim conquerors, such as the Taj Mahal?

.. money is the apogee of human tolerance. Money is more open-minded than language, state laws, cultural codes, religious beliefs and social habits. Money is the only trust system created by humans that can bridge almost any cultural gap, and that does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, age or sexual orientation.

.. the economic history of humankind is a delicate dance.