21 Lessons for the 21st Century Paperback – August 20, 2019

I did a cover-to-cover preview, having received my copy of it late yesterday afternoon. I actually spent about two hours, reading short excerpts and getting a feel for how the writer marshals his facts and crafts his arguments. From there, I previewed the enumerated topics of the book, following the flow of argument and the evidence Yuval Noah Harari refers to make his point. The main thing about this book is to understand that the 21st century is going to be unlike anything humankind has experienced in the past. Our prior experience will not necessarily be a trustworthy guide to our future as a species. Harare is an Israeli Jew who came to knowledge of the world rather late. Growing up he mentions that his education Israel was utterly devoid of knowledge of European and world history, nor was he aware of the historical developments that characterized the Middle Ages, the Age of Exploration and European conquest of the non-European world. He knew of European history only in so far as it gave him an understanding about how he and his forebears ended up in the Land of Israel. Coming onto the subject cold, this new cornucopia of knowledge offered him certain advantages insofar as you learn to take nothing for granted or at face value. For people who emigrate to a new land, with different attitudes and customs from those they have known, there is the painful process that all immigrants experience in figuring out who they are, and how quickly they need to learn how to survive in this new environment. Harari is perhaps among the most incisive and farseeing writers I have encountered in recent times. He holds a PhD from Oxford University (no mean feat), and for someone who apparently spent his early years speaking and writing a non-Western language (Hebrew), his ability to translate his thoughts into English, and writing as well as he does, is an accomplishment that is beyond the reach of most other recent immigrants I have encountered in my lifetime. He must've spent an enormous amount of time with the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language!It is clear to me that Harari is onto something. The strangeness that people feel when they run up against stuff they don't know, and have difficulty figuring out what to do, is going to be far beyond the cultural and linguistic barriers that recent immigrants typically experience. With English, there are thousands of words that have more than one meaning, and thousands of words that have shared meanings, depending upon context, and intent.Harari is telling his readers to experience the strangeness that he must've felt speaking, writing, and using the English language for the first time. Most Americans are not used to learning foreign languages, because people come to America where relatively few people other than recent immigrants routinely converse and whatever other languages they happen to be trained in, or learn from infancy.Briefly, the outline of this book is as follows.In Part 1, Harari begins with a discussion of what he terms, "The Technological Challenge"., Followed by the head note reading, "Humankind is losing faith in the liberal story that dominated global politics in recent decades, exactly when the merger of Biotech and Infotech confronts us with the biggest challenges humankind has ever encountered."He starts with, "Disillusionment; The End of History Has Been Postponed". Basically, Harari argues that humankind, having conquered the world, is vulnerable to technology that turns out to be an insidious threat to what it means to be human. He states that liberalism, as it used to be practiced at large in the world has reached something worse than just simply being a dead end, its consequences are becoming perverse. But conservatives should take no comfort from liberalism's embarrassment; nobody really wants to live in an authoritarian or fascistic state.In today's world, 'work' is purposeful activity that society finds to be commercially useful, and worthy of paying money to people to perform whatever it is they do to make work productive. Harari says that work as we know it may become scarce because the skills that people acquire over a lifetime to make themselves productive enough to earn a living out of those activities, may be taken over by Artificial Intelligence, in which jobs that are not only repetitive, but includes those that require some form of judgment and discretion may become subsumed in the kind of tasks that AI can do more cost-effectively than people can. Undoubtedly, there will be numerous fixes that will be attempted to preserve jobs, but their prospects are likely to be some form of a rearguard action to delay the introduction of AI into those workspaces. Those worst off will likely be unskilled laborers were currently employed in Third World countries overseas at minimum wages. They will find that their labor is superfluous when a high tech companies in Silicon Valley, California, and elsewhere figure out how to harness 3D printers and comparable technologies to accomplish end-to-end production lines from concept to finished product for just about anything that is manufactured overseas.So how do ordinary people earn money to meet their needs? How are they to be supported if they are not working in the private sector, for wages or salaries, and how much money will they need to survive. We are looking at Nth-degree consequences of a world in which machines and computer bots can manufacture whatever is needed to sustain human life. Programs of education and training need to be right-sized to meet the needs of the society as it exists nominally at the time of its inception, but for a generation or two down the road as school children mature into maturity, and thereafter into old age.Political liberty and freedom are also on the auction block. What we experience today is freedom of choice, and how choices are arrived at, comes relatively recently in human history. Decision-making follows a well-trodden path where alternatives are weighed and measured, until the final choices made; what happens when humans are influenced by outside forces that they cannot fathom some of the choices they make benefit someone else, rather than themselves? What is to be said about 'free will' in the face of an AI algorithm that simulates human thinking and emotion? What can we say about 'Equality', when all meaningful data are owned by other people or corporate entities?I'll leave the review here at this point, because having laid out some of the basic questions that Yuval Noah Harari writes about, I'll invite readers to find out for themselves by reading this highly provocative book.

I have read with great satisfaction all 3 of Yuval Harari's major books and found "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" to be the most compelling and important of all. Harari's books take a very specific spin on the history of mankind, and it is easy for me to imagine that his spin is the most interesting and informative available, with the emphasis on "imagine". I do not find any of Harari's opinions comforting or reassuring...quite the contrary, in fact. But I do find him to be more open minded about the nature of reality than most.For those with a need to explain reality in an "objective" manner, i.e., attach themselves to a specific belief system that either reinforces their existing prejudices or answers life's essential questions with dogmatic theories, assertions, and sacred texts, Harari's approach to reality will not help much. But for anyone looking to be dazzled by the sheer brilliance of Harari's mind, a mind that is unique and astonishing, then I would highly recommend this book. Whether or not Harari convinces the reader that his version of human history is accurate, or whether his predictions about the future of mankind are more likely to come true than others, prepare to be enlightened and highly entertained. Yuval Noah Harari is well worth reading.

Our dentist recommended Harari’s “Sapiens” to my wife, which she read and so taken continued through his second book “Homo Deus,” and went on to his “21 Lessons” which she commended to me. While I usually have my own reading agenda, I eventually got around to completing the book and glad I did as it clearly and succinctly outlines the major challenges of our times.While I do not agree with all of Harari’s characterizations or proposed solutions, I have to appreciate the directness and honesty in his delivery. Since his books are so popular and numerously reviewed, I only briefly refer to the content of Harari’s book and concentrate more on aspects that I found more or less useful.Within the book, Harari’s progresses through 5 parts to present his “21 Lessons.” In Part I, he conveys “The Technological Challenge” resulting from developments such as in life and computer sciences including (1) Disillusionment, (2) Work, (3) Equality, and (4) Liberty. Continuing in Part II, the author discusses “The Political Challenge” that ensues from these occurrences consisting of (5) Community, (6) Civilization, (7) Nationalism, (8) Religion, and (9) Immigration. Within Part III, Harari deals with the “Despair and Hope” resulting in society involving (10) Terrorism, (11) War, (12) Humility, (13) God, and (14) Secularism. For Part IV, the author wrestles with the difficulties in getting at the “Truth” entailed in (15) Ignorance, (16) Justice, (17) Post Truth, and (18) Science Fiction. Finally, in Part V, he takes up “Resilience” and ways to continue to function and advance with (19) Education, (20) Meaning, and (21) Meditation.Overall, I am impressed with Harari’s sweep as well as his ability as a historian to be a “disruptive thinker” and put important emerging issues into clear relief. His descriptions compare favorably with books such as Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes, Barrett’s How Emotions Are Made and Lanier’s Who Owns the Future? in expressing the complexity in these topics and their extensive ramifications. The author’s discussions also remind me of those contained in Brooke Gladstone’s The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time.On the other hand, Harari’s skepticism and pessimism in questioning prevailing views can seem a little too fatalistic; his views, at times, do not seem to offer someone like me with enough alternatives and options with which to advance or at least take next steps in coping beyond meditation----although perhaps that’s the place from which they come. A contrasting foil might be the optimism in Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress where he puts more stock in reason, science and humanism (see my review of this book and others mentioned).Despite my criticism, Harari is very much worth reading for the way he portrays current human problems and those coming over the horizon that require our attention now and into the future.

I read a bit then have to pause and enjoy the intelligent and thought provoking writing. Harari explains complex ideas in ways that make sense and are able to be understood.

This book is good!