Homo Deus

A Brief History of Tomorrow

Paperback, 513 pages

English language

Published July 29, 2017 by Vintage Books.

ISBN:
978-1-78470-393-6
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4 stars (54 reviews)

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Hebrew: ההיסטוריה של המחר, English: The History of the Tomorrow) is a book written by Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari, professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The book was first published in Hebrew in 2015 by Dvir publishing; the English-language version was published in September 2016 in the United Kingdom and in February 2017 in the United States. As with its predecessor, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Harari recounts the course of history while describing events and the individual human experience, along with ethical issues in relation to his historical survey. However, Homo Deus (from Latin "Homo" meaning man or human and "Deus" meaning God) deals more with the abilities acquired by humans (Homo sapiens) throughout their existence, and their evolution as the dominant species in the world. The book describes mankind's current abilities and achievements and attempts to paint an …

7 editions

Accesible brain food

4 stars

Where "Sapiens" explores trends and tendensies of humanity throughout history. This book tries to go a step further and asks the question where the course of said human history will lead us in the coming decades and centuries. It's an easy read while still trying to be a scientificly based work. Of course the topics in this book are not as in depth as they can or should be as this would probably make it less readable. In all it's a great read for people who like to think about philisophocall themes but generally don't enjoy meaty nonfiction works.

Review of 'Homo Deus' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This book was marketed badly.
On the surface you would expect it to talk about humanities future, and only about it. (If you are only interested in that, just read this book's prologue).
If you are intrested in what this book is actually about, it is split into three parts:

The first part is just a summary of Sapiens,
The second part discusses the power of sapiens to coordinate using religeon (and ideologies),
and the final part is just the author ranting about how AI and data will replace humanity.

A religious tract for self-worshipping tech bros

1 star

Harari says the problems of famine, war and pestilence have been largely solved. How can he not be bothered by climate change and the threat of nuclear war? He deftly taxonomises reality into three forms - objective, subjective and inter-subjective, then fails to apply his specious system to his own dogma. He declares the ideas of techno-fascist Peter Thiel to be worthwhile simply because Thiel is rich. He equates emotions to algorithms, as if a parent's love for their child could be reproduced as a slider in a character creation page in The Sims video game.

These are the ideas of delusional trans-humanists who think they will be able to use their money to turn science fiction ideas into reality and buy immortality.

I give him one star for two reasons: his ideas on inter-subjective reality are actually quite powerful if applied judiciously. Also, there's a killer sentence: the line …

Review of 'Homo Deus - A Brief History of Tomorrow' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

My brain was churning in place, but this book made me feel like the churn might go somewhere. Frameworks, definitions, speculations, and ideas are presented in a way that they can be used and considered without demanding to be the final word. A launch pad that invites you to aim for your own landing.

Review of 'Homo Deus' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

"Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow" by Yuval Noah Harari is a good companion to Harari's "Sapiens" in that takes some of the seeds sown in that book and allows them to grow up into a tangled jungle. In fact, feels like a continuation or variation on a theme from the first book. You do not need to read "Sapiens" but it is interesting to see an author take larger idea and repackage them for different arguments. And this is not a pretty package. "Homo Deus" is the kind of book that can keep you up at night with existential dread. Once you read it, you cannot unlearn it and you begin to see Harari's analysis everywhere.

Like its predecessor, this is a macro-history that weaves together big ideas over thousands of years. But "Homo Deus" is more focused on a singular premise. His basic argument is that the …

Review of 'Homo Deus' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I liked this book even more than the prior book, Sapiens. However, it was much less focused on the future than I would have expected. Only about the last third of the book talked through the future of humanity; the first two thirds focused on history and present day.

One minor gripe I have is with the way Bostrom's philosophy was presented. I would think that a book that mentions Bostrom in a book on the future of humanity would dedicate at least a subchapter to his ideas. The few sentences that Yuval uses makes Bostrom's ideas seem comical whereas providing proper background would show how important and logical his ideas are. Though I should mention that Bostrom's "Superintelligence" is in my opinion the best and most important book on the future of humanity/technology.

Review of 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

In this sequel to [b:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind|23692271|Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind|Yuval Noah Harari|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420585954s/23692271.jpg|18962767][b:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind|23692271|Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind|Yuval Noah Harari|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420585954s/23692271.jpg|18962767] Yuval Noah Harari explores what could be the future of humanity, as charted from where we come.
It is a worthy companion to the first book, in my opinion. As it introduces a very powerful reflection around what are the plausible effects of technology into our culture going forward. One of the most intriguing ideas on Harari's line of questioning is for me the importance of intersubjective reality for human societies. This comes down to the stories we tell ourselves and the institutions, symbols, religions and even corporations that come out of them. From there Harari illustrates how we got to our "humanist" (at least in theory) society and where could we go from here. What does a "post-humanist" world look …

Review of 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Powerful, insightful look at the past and speculation into our future. Harari makes some bold claims but does support them. He may be writing for Elon Musk, but it's useful for all of us to see the long view of the future.
His historical interpretation is sound and that gives credibility on the future.
The idea that humans could be farmed like pigs is concerning, but I think that's the point. While we may think we'd never make such a trade off, Harari points out that past decisions were made for us collectively. With the agricultural revolution we gave up meaning for power, I think most people would not have made the trade off. The future trade off maybe submission to AI or the IoT in exchange for happiness and longevity.

Review of 'Homo Deus' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

An insightful, intelligent and witty book.
Yoval Noah Harari suggests that as science is converging on an all-encompassing dogma, which says that organisms are algorithms and life is data processing, human nature will be transformed because intelligence will be uncoupled from consciousness. The advances in sciences, more specific to neurosciences, nanotechnology and computer science, will change fundamentally the society, politics and our daily lives.

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