Cj Dufficy's Reviews > Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

Certainly a disappointment when compared to Sapiens. The insights were generally already well presented in the earlier book. The section on animal lives is not convincingly warranted for inclusion but more obviously just a passion for the author leading me to feel I was being preached too. His criticism of Dawkins et al although correct could be equally pointed at himself. The universe will move from hot to cold regardless of quantum mechanical randomness at the quanta scale and equally at our barely greater scale (in universal terms) the path of the universe need not worry about human probabilistic behaviour, our free will is irrelevant to the progress of the universe. The fact that it is buried in our consciousness where language based thought is absent is hardly surprising as without it we could never have arrived at language based thought.

All living things will die (even if capable of life spans we can't comprehend now) something terminal eventually happens to everything. As finally when the universe is so cold nothing can happen, long after this proton decay will plant the last nail in all coffins. Dr Hariri is no different to a WW1 general asking people to sacrifice some of their one and only life to benefit some unknown present or future person or animal with zero guarantees the sacrifice pays off but 100% certainty of the personal cost. Technology won't replicate humans, why would anyone want to copy such an imperfect organism when so many better options would be available?

He admits, to paraphrase Dr King, that the arc of history is towards justice. The future is not a destination we choose any effort to dictate global outcomes never succeeds and this book is just another "I know best contribution" that will soon be forgotten.

Generally the book feels as a world view supported selectively and not the wonderful voyage of discovery presented in Sapiens. Like Dawkins hating God though not believing, the author to object to humanism sneers at humans. No one ever said humans should act justly towards anything as a result of evolution but wth curiosity, generosity and empathy we have achieved a lot and are headed to achieve more although doomed anyway either in the long or short term. He fails completely to demonstrate any logic for a human that is mortal caring the exact length of time left to the species and acting altruistically as a result, and so totally unaware his action would have a measurable affect. If Mr Schickelbach hadn't changed his name to Hitler how different would the 20th century have been? What is the possibility of picking out causal events like these or knowing preventing them offers a better present. Everyone alive today must selfishly accept all of the great or horrible past or simply not exist.

I'm happy I read it just a little deflated that so little eye opening left field explanations are in it and so many unsupported claims are made.

To sum up he reminds me of the experimenter that forgets he is part of the experiment and can never not be.