CityReads│Survival Guide for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari

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Survival Guide for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari

Those who control the data control the future of life.

Yuval Noah Harari, August 2018. 21 Lessons for the 21^st Century, Penguin.

Sources: http://www.ynharari.com/book/21-lessons/

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/features/2017/oct/5-things-to-know-about-21-lessons/

Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari is going to publish his third book in August 2018, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Yuval Noah Harari. Photograph: Daniel Thomas Smith

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/06/sapiens-author-harari-new-book-to-cover-global-warming-god-and-nationalism

His previous books are both global phenomena: in Sapiens he writes about the past, and in Homo Deus he writes about the future. In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, he looks at the here and now, helping us to focus our minds on the essential questions we should be asking ourselves today.

The cover of the new book features a painting of an iris by contemporary visual artist Marc Quinn. One might infer that the iris compliments the fingerprints on Sapiens and Homo Deus as a form of identification, or perhaps an observing eye, making a commentary on the world as we know it – and indeed whereas Sapiens told us where we came from, Homo Deus showed us a terrifying possible future – 21 Lessons for the 21st Century guides us through the here and now, a time where humanity may need some guidance more than ever.

If Sapiens was about the past, and Homo Deus was about the future and distant future of humankind, the new book is about the present, and what we need to do to prepare ourselves for the coming revolution of the 21st century. From envisioning what the future of the workforce will look like to dealing with the threat of terrorism and examining why liberal democracy is in crisis, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century offers advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we live in now.

It is a survival guide for the 21^st century.

In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power. Censorship works not by blocking the flow of information, but rather by flooding people with disinformation and distractions. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century cuts through these muddy waters and confronts some of the most urgent questions on today’s global agenda.

Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Is God back? Is a new world war coming? What does the rise of Donald Trump signify? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news? Which civilization dominates the world – the West, China, Islam? Should Europe keep its doors open to immigrants? Can nationalism solve the problems of inequality and climate change? What should we do about terrorism? What should we teach our kids?

Religion, terrorism, war, politics, fake news, human migration, the environment, nationalism—Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books for a probing investigation into the big subjects we confront on a daily basis in the media and in our lives.

The book would examine “some of the world’s most urgent issues, including terrorism, fake news and immigration”, as well as looking at more individual concerns such as resilience, humility and meditation. He will, said the publisher, “help us to grapple with a world that is increasingly hard to comprehend, encouraging us to focus our minds on the essential questions we should be asking ourselves today”. By presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, the book invites the reader to consider values, meaning and personal engagement in world full of noise and uncertainty.

What is the most important question human faces today?

Who owns the data?

Those who control the data control the future of life. Because today data is the most important asset in the world. In ancient time, land was the most important asset. Politics was the struggle to control the land. If too much land was concentrated in a few hands, society split into aristocracy and commoners. In the last two centuries, machine and factory became more important than land. Political struggles focused on controlling the machinery. If ownership of machinery became concentrated into a few hands, society split into capitalists and proletarians. In the 21^st century, however, data will eclipse land and machinery and become the most important asset. Politics will be the struggle to control the flow of data. If data become concentrated into a few hands, humankind might split, not into classes, but into different species.

Why is data so important?

Because we have reached a point where we can not only hack into computers, but also human beings and other organisms. Actually, we are entering an era of hacking human beings. What you need in order to hack a human being? You need two things: a lot of computing power and a lot of data, especially biometric data, data about what’s happening inside the body and the brain. Up until now, we don’t have enough computing power and not enough data to hack a human being. But soon we will have enough of both. Advance in computer sciences, especially the machine learning and artificial intelligence, are giving us the necessary computing power. At the same time, advance in biology sciences are giving us the necessary understanding of what the biological process inside the body and brain of a human being. When you merge the revolutions of the infotech and biotech, you have the ability to hack human beings. Perhaps the key invention of merging infotech and biotech is the biometric sensor, which converts biological processes into electronic information. Computer can store and analyze giving enough information and enough computer power. External system can hack all your feelings, decisions and opinions. They can know exactly who you are. They can know you better than you know yourself. If we are not careful, we will soon be living under digital dictatorship.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg awaits to testify before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Washington. Picture: Getty Images

On politics

The book tackles “the phenomenon of the rise of Donald Trump, and what it means in the greater context of the crisis of liberal democracy”. It will look at the events of the last 30 years and, specifically, “the 1990s, with all the talk about the end of history and the conviction that liberal democracy had won the ideological war, and how it would eventually spread and the entire world would come to look like Denmark or something”.

“Looking back, it sounds extremely naive,” Harari said. “On the one hand the big question is what went wrong and on the other the big question is, ‘OK, this didn’t work out very well, so what next? What’s going to replace this vision for the world as Denmark?

 “What’s happening now, not just with Trump but with many other political crises especially in the western world, is that the political system is no longer capable of producing meaningful visions for the future, so you see nostalgic fantasies about going back to the past,” he says. “This definitely is not going to work, because nostalgic fantasies by their very nature don’t provide us with answers to the real questions we are facing. It’s kind of a transitory phase until somebody manages to come up with a new meaningful vision for the future. So people hold on to these fantasies.” Harari warned that the “meaningful vision for the future” may well “not necessarily be a very nice vision”, referring to past visions such as fascism and communism.

On religion

Religion, he said, was still extremely relevant. “Technology doesn’t make religion less relevant, it just poses new questions. … “If you are an engineer in Silicon Valley and you think you’re shaping the future of humankind, then you are right to some extent – your inventions are changing the agenda of everybody – but you’re wrong if you think you’re going to be the person who will decide what to do with your invention. It could very well be some ayatollah or some pope or some ideologue who would decide what to do.”

With his trademark clarity and vision, Harari takes us on a thrilling journey into today’s most urgent issues as well as turning to more individual concerns. The golden thread running through this exhilarating new book is the challenge of maintaining our focus and attention in the face of constant and destabilizing change. Ultimately what we and our children will need is mental stability, compassion, resilience and reason. This is a crucial part of our ongoing education in the 21st Century.

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