The Costco Connection - December 2018

e live in overwhelmingly compli-
cated times, bombarded with
too much information and not
enough context. Oxford-educated
Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari knows
how to make the pieces fit and distills
complexity into comprehensibility. The
author explores our past and offers predic-
tions for our future in two books, Sapiens:
A Brief History of Mankind and Homo
Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

The tomes make for powerful reading.

Harari charts the evolution of Homo sapiens,

which he says has evolved to achieve great things while at the same time wiping out a majority of flora and fauna and moving toward obsolescence through the ascension of artificial intelligence.

It’s not all dire news, however. He also highlights how humankind has managed to work together positively throughout the millennia to survive and progress. How?

By the stories we tell ourselves.

“In ancient Egypt millions of people cooperated to build the pyramids because they all believed in the same stories about gods and demons,” explains Harari. “In the modern economy millions of people cooperate to build cars and computers

W

because they all believe in the same stories
about corporations and money. Just like the
Egyptian gods, modern corporations exist
only in the strange stories invented by our
powerful priests, which we call ‘lawyers.’ …
‘Corporations’ are not corporeal at all. They
have no bodies, and you cannot see or touch
them, but you are still willing to work all
your life in their service.”
The author’s work has gained him
international acclaim and awards. He is a
lecturer in the History Department at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has given
three TED Talks and addressed the World
Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos
earlier this year. His writing is always a work
in progress and inspires deep discussion.

“All my books were written through a dialogue with students, colleagues and readers,” says Harari. “It took me about eight years to write Sapiens, three years to write Homo Deus. So maybe I am getting better at this.” His writing can inspire us to be better too.