"This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language."
"Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies?"
"Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world."
"This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions."
"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."
"Our computers have trouble understanding how Homo sapiens talks, feels and dreams. So we are teaching Homo sapiens to talk, feel and dream in the language of numbers, which can be understood by computers."
"Hierarchies serve an important function. They enable complete strangers to know how to treat one another without wasting the time and energy needed to become personally acquainted."
"Christians and Muslims who could not agree on religious beliefs could nevertheless agree on a monetary belief, because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something."
"Worse still, even when subject peoples were successful in adopting the imperial culture, it could take decades, if not centuries, until the imperial elite accepted them as part of 'us'."
"Just as Atlantic slave trade did not stem from hatred towards Africans, so the modern animal industry is not motivated by animosity. Again, it is fueled by indifference."
"Each year the US population spends more on diets than the amount needed to feed all the hungry people in the rest of the world."
"Manchester United fans, vegetarians and environmentalists are other examples. They, too, are defined above all by what they consume."
"However, in order to understand macro-historical processes, we need to examine mass statistics rather than individual stories."
"Still, it's nice when modern research - bolstered by lots of numbers and charts - reaches the same conclusions the ancients did."
"When we try to guess or imagine how happy other people are now, or how people in the past were, we inevitably imagine ourselves in their shoes. But that won't work because it pastes our expectations on to the material conditions of others."
"Money, social status, plastic surgery, beautiful houses, powerful positions - none of these will bring you happiness. Lasting happiness comes only from serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin."
"As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how."
No comments:
Post a Comment