3 ms·

Sapiens was a good book overall - it put together the high-level facts fairly well into a coherent and entertaining story. However, that story was also very zei

Sapiens was a good book overall - it put together the high-level facts fairly well into a coherent and entertaining story. However, that story was also very zeitgeist-y and ideologically skewed, he really tried hard to work the "Out of Eden" story whereby the human race has fallen from our great past into our miserable modern life. In fact, he had to contradict himself to push that story. In one case, he describes how agriculture is worse for the farmer, because he was sedentary and if the crops failed, he could not move and faced a famine, whereas hunter-gatherers could move. In an earlier part of the book, he describes how hunter-gathers moved over a relatively small area (20x30km IIRC?). But of course, if there was a drought in a world of hunter-gathers and they had to move, they would just move where there is another tribe already, so the drought would cause war, rather than famine. That was never mentioned, it's just assumed there was random free land everywhere. But the biggest weakness of the book seemed to be his very weak appreciation of the physical sciences, ie he tried to tell the 75,000 year history of humanity, without bothering to spend any time on the context. Much of history is tightly coupled to ecology, advances in tech, demographics etc and his just glides over that. In one particularly idiotic part, he seems to imply that one day, someone just randomly invented math for no particular reason. Hard to tell if he was being glib or actually believes it. I'll probably give his one a go as well, even though it'll probably suffer from the same issues. For example, it's very in-vogue to view the development of intelligent systems as inventions of capitalist who seek power over the people, rather than the discoveries about the nature of reality. I find the latter much more interesting.

qrendel 10y ago
It's not a bad book, but imo it starts off very strong and then quickly goes downhill throughout. This was the general (and unsolicited) criticism from most everyone I've shared it with. The stuff from prehistory, up to the agricultural revolution, seems to cover a lot of recent discoveries and is both fascinating and informative. The rest is, as the parent comment states, a very simplified summary of the author's favorite topics, a few paragraphs spent on each one, and clearly showing certain cultural biases (it honestly felt optimized for appeal to a TED audience). A good assigned read for early high schoolers, less useful to many beyond that point. By the time you're at part four, on the current era and emerging technologies, it literally reads like a bunch of newspaper clippings from the Science section of the NYT. While I'm hoping his new book will fix those (perceived) problems, it seems unlikely to contain better or more profound commentary regarding trends in changing humanity and emerging technology than books like Superintelligence, Age of Em, etc. At best perhaps a "lite" version of the same concepts sanitized for a broader audience. Of course I look forward to, upon publication, hopefully having been mistaken about it.
- nahumfarchi 10y ago
  >(it honestly felt optimized for appeal to a TED audience) Funny that you should say that because TED is extremely popular here in Israel (the book was originally published in Hebrew a couple of years before the English translation). >While I'm hoping his new book will fix those (perceived) problems... Don't get your hope up. It's basically: - the singularity is near and that's not necessarily a good thing - free will does not exist - reiterating stuff from the previous book That being said, it's a fun pop science read.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>For example, it's very in-vogue to view the development of intelligent systems as inventions of capitalist who seek power over the people Uhhh it is? Also, I was not under the impression Harari was some kind of anticapitalist.
zem 10y ago
if you haven't read it yet, I think you'll enjoy bronowski's "the ascent of man". older book, but still well worth checking out.

qrendel 10y ago

It's not a bad book, but imo it starts off very strong and then quickly goes downhill throughout. This was the general (and unsolicited) criticism from most everyone I've shared it with. The stuff from prehistory, up to the agricultural revolution, seems to cover a lot of recent discoveries and is both fascinating and informative. The rest is, as the parent comment states, a very simplified summary of the author's favorite topics, a few paragraphs spent on each one, and clearly showing certain cultural biases (it honestly felt optimized for appeal to a TED audience). A good assigned read for early high schoolers, less useful to many beyond that point. By the time you're at part four, on the current era and emerging technologies, it literally reads like a bunch of newspaper clippings from the Science section of the NYT. While I'm hoping his new book will fix those (perceived) problems, it seems unlikely to contain better or more profound commentary regarding trends in changing humanity and emerging technology than books like Superintelligence, Age of Em, etc. At best perhaps a "lite" version of the same concepts sanitized for a broader audience. Of course I look forward to, upon publication, hopefully having been mistaken about it.

nahumfarchi 10y ago
>(it honestly felt optimized for appeal to a TED audience) Funny that you should say that because TED is extremely popular here in Israel (the book was originally published in Hebrew a couple of years before the English translation). >While I'm hoping his new book will fix those (perceived) problems... Don't get your hope up. It's basically: - the singularity is near and that's not necessarily a good thing - free will does not exist - reiterating stuff from the previous book That being said, it's a fun pop science read.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>For example, it's very in-vogue to view the development of intelligent systems as inventions of capitalist who seek power over the people Uhhh it is? Also, I was not under the impression Harari was some kind of anticapitalist.

zem 10y ago

if you haven't read it yet, I think you'll enjoy bronowski's "the ascent of man". older book, but still well worth checking out.