Quote (BardOfXiix @ Mar 15 2017 06:26pm)
Looking forward to the "share more" aspect of this. Never heard of the guy, so hit me with who he is and what he's all about, and why I should read him over someone else.
He is a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his book Sapiens explores what makes humans the dominate species of the planet starting with the beginning of humanity. His conclusion is that humans are the only species capable of cooperating intelligently on a large scale because of our ability to be true believers in abstractions. I found the book to be very entertaining and informative (I haven't read much history, and have never much interest in studying it). Also he questions if our happiness has increased and personally believes the agricultural revolution to be a "fraud". I disagree on this but he presents a compelling argument on utilitarian grounds. I just started his 2nd book Homo Deus, which looks at out future with AI. So far humanity has been separated by class, however so far we are still equal biologically. This has the possibility to change for the wealthy elite thanks to genetic engineering and robotics, and if we use our track record on how lesser beings are treated by us, this is a very bleak outlook for humanity.
I've been very busy lately
I can go more in-depth if anyone is interested. I greatly enjoyed reading this book, and I usually hate reading. I suspect people such as IceMage wouldn't enjoy him very much.
This post was edited by nobrow on Apr 2 2017 08:25am