Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 228  | Añadido el lunes 16 de septiembre de 2019 11H08' GMT

It takes a tribe to raise a human.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 344-47  | Añadido el lunes 16 de septiembre de 2019 11H57' GMT

Whichever way it happened, the Neanderthals (and the other human species) pose one of history’s great what ifs. Imagine how things might have turned out had the Neanderthals or Denisovans survived alongside Homo sapiens. What kind of cultures, societies and political structures would have emerged in a world where several different human species coexisted?
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 711-13  | Añadido el martes 17 de septiembre de 2019 10H23' GMT

‘ancient commune’ theory argue that the frequent infidelities that characterise modern marriages, and the high rates of divorce, not to mention the cornucopia of psychological complexes from which both children and adults suffer, all result from forcing humans to live in nuclear families and monogamous relationships
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1407-8  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 06H59' GMT

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1540-42  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 08H12' GMT

The numerical success of the calf’s species is little consolation for the suffering the individual endures. This discrepancy between evolutionary success and individual suffering is perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the Agricultural Revolution.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1607-9  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 08H40' GMT

Until the late modern era, more than 90 per cent of humans were peasants who rose each morning to till the land by the sweat of their brows. The extra they produced fed the tiny minority of elites – kings, government officials, soldiers, priests, artists and thinkers – who fill the history books. History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1747-54  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 10H22' GMT

Advocates of equality and human rights may be outraged by this line of reasoning. Their response is likely to be, ‘We know that people are not equal biologically! But if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.’ I have no argument with that. This is exactly what I mean by ‘imagined order’. We believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society. Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively. Bear in mind, though, that Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: ‘I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.’
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1788-90  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 10H34' GMT

How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1802-3  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 10H38' GMT

Most Westerners today believe in individualism. They believe that every human is an individual, whose worth does not depend on what other people think of him or her. Each of us has within ourselves a brilliant ray of light that gives value and meaning to our lives.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1805-8  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 10H39' GMT

In modern architecture, this myth leaps out of the imagination to take shape in stone and mortar. The ideal modern house is divided into many small rooms so that each child can have a private space, hidden from view, providing for maximum autonomy. This private room almost invariably has a door, and in many households it is accepted practice for the child to close, and perhaps lock, the door.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1822-24  | Añadido el martes 24 de septiembre de 2019 10H43' GMT

‘Follow your heart.’ But the heart is a double agent that usually takes its instructions from the dominant myths of the day, and the very recommendation to ‘Follow your heart’ was implanted in our minds by a combination of nineteenth-century Romantic myths and twentieth-century consumerist myths.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 1991  | Añadido el miércoles 25 de septiembre de 2019 09H40' GMT

quipus
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 2307-8  | Añadido el miércoles 2 de octubre de 2019 21H55' GMT

How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, Culture forbids.’
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 5514-16  | Añadido el viernes 13 de diciembre de 2019 22H52' GMT+00:00

For it breaches countless generations of human social arrangements. Millions of years of evolution have designed us to live and think as community members. Within a mere two centuries we have become alienated individuals. Nothing testifies better to the awesome power of culture.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 5854-59  | Añadido el sábado 14 de diciembre de 2019 12H36' GMT+00:00

is that happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations. If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before.
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Yuval Noah Harari)
- Subrayado Pos. 6007-9  | Añadido el sábado 14 de diciembre de 2019 13H18' GMT+00:00

So perhaps happiness is synchronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction. This is quite a depressing conclusion. Does happiness really depend on self-delusion?
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