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For those that find this kind of history interesting, I strongly recommend the book “Sapiens” by Yuval Harari. Its distillation of the complexities of human ev

For those that find this kind of history interesting, I strongly recommend the book “Sapiens” by Yuval Harari. Its distillation of the complexities of human evolution while being careful to admit things we don’t know and not over-assume make for a truly great read (so far*, Im not yet done with it!)

josefresco 3y ago
> “Sapiens” by Yuval Harari I was looking forward to this book but found it to be almost unreadable. I don't remember my specific issues, just that I was discouraged after several attempts and gave it up which rarely happens with me. I believe I had just read a few other novels about human evolution/ancient civs and found some of Yuval's assertions to conflict (IMHO) with what I read elsewhere, most likely The Dawn of Everything (not certain).
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- abfan1127 3y ago
  what other books have you read? I'd be interested in that list.
  - josefresco 3y ago
    I looked back, my issue was with another Yuval book: Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow Maybe I'll try Sapians it give Yuval another try. My recent list: The Half Known Life Born a Crime American Prometheus Operation Mincemeat Leonardo Da Vinci Powers and Thrones The Icepick Surgeon Destiny of the Republic The River of Doubt Red Famine Under the Banner of Heaven In Order to Live The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream Homo Deus The Confidence Men The Bomber Mafia Calypso Termination Shock Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor The Dawn of Everything The Secret Life of Groceries The Hidden Life of Trees
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  I think Sapiens may be a product of it's time. It may still true today, but I think this became really popular during the Joe Rogan era prior to covid. This type of content was taking off then. Lots of shrewd observations that seem to point in a convenient direction. Then you realize that most of these things were never really meaningful, if they were even true to begin with. Just a collection of interesting annectdotes at best. Bunch of interesting factoids that are patched together, with no real meaning.
sethammons 3y ago
I read Guns, Germs, and Steel right before reading Sapiens. While I've heard that some of the ideas of GGS were not well received, I really enjoyed it. Sapiens felt more like a tech bro hand waving and jumping to conclusions that he thought was obvious and I thought was suspect. Edit: Two takeaways I did enjoy (can't recall from which book): Humans were pray animals that quickly became dominant predators, not allowing us to develop the confidence of "real" predators, so we are still scared of the dark and everything else. Humans were able to stay in practically the same state for 40k years in Australia. After killing some megafauna of course. In the last 1k years, we've upset the apple cart and may destroy the world as we know and need it. We _can_ coexist in our environment without utterly destroying it in 40k years - but we are not.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Ironically, the reason some of the ideas of Guns, Germs, and Steel were poorly received is that it, too, is perceived by experts in the relevant fields as rather egregiously engaging in handwaving and jumping to conclusions.
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- yywwbbn 3y ago
  > In the last 1k years, we've upset the apple cart and may destroy the world as we know and need it. We _can_ coexist in our environment without utterly destroying it in 40k years - but we are not. It’s extremely unlikely that whatever we do to the environment will decrease QoL in developed countries below that which was experienced by the Australian aboriginals (when measured by child mortality, life expectancy, access to stuff etc.) though.
  - geph2021 3y ago
    That strikes me as incredibly confident that humanity (and developed countries), will avoid even some of the pessimistic consequences of climate change, let alone some of the potentially dire scenarios. Please share why you are so confident. I could use a mood boost on this friday... :)

josefresco 3y ago

> “Sapiens” by Yuval Harari I was looking forward to this book but found it to be almost unreadable. I don't remember my specific issues, just that I was discouraged after several attempts and gave it up which rarely happens with me. I believe I had just read a few other novels about human evolution/ancient civs and found some of Yuval's assertions to conflict (IMHO) with what I read elsewhere, most likely The Dawn of Everything (not certain).

deleted 3y ago
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abfan1127 3y ago
what other books have you read? I'd be interested in that list.
- josefresco 3y ago
  I looked back, my issue was with another Yuval book: Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow Maybe I'll try Sapians it give Yuval another try. My recent list: The Half Known Life Born a Crime American Prometheus Operation Mincemeat Leonardo Da Vinci Powers and Thrones The Icepick Surgeon Destiny of the Republic The River of Doubt Red Famine Under the Banner of Heaven In Order to Live The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream Homo Deus The Confidence Men The Bomber Mafia Calypso Termination Shock Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor The Dawn of Everything The Secret Life of Groceries The Hidden Life of Trees
P_I_Staker 3y ago
I think Sapiens may be a product of it's time. It may still true today, but I think this became really popular during the Joe Rogan era prior to covid. This type of content was taking off then. Lots of shrewd observations that seem to point in a convenient direction. Then you realize that most of these things were never really meaningful, if they were even true to begin with. Just a collection of interesting annectdotes at best. Bunch of interesting factoids that are patched together, with no real meaning.

sethammons 3y ago

I read Guns, Germs, and Steel right before reading Sapiens. While I've heard that some of the ideas of GGS were not well received, I really enjoyed it. Sapiens felt more like a tech bro hand waving and jumping to conclusions that he thought was obvious and I thought was suspect. Edit: Two takeaways I did enjoy (can't recall from which book): Humans were pray animals that quickly became dominant predators, not allowing us to develop the confidence of "real" predators, so we are still scared of the dark and everything else. Humans were able to stay in practically the same state for 40k years in Australia. After killing some megafauna of course. In the last 1k years, we've upset the apple cart and may destroy the world as we know and need it. We _can_ coexist in our environment without utterly destroying it in 40k years - but we are not.

dragonwriter 3y ago
Ironically, the reason some of the ideas of Guns, Germs, and Steel were poorly received is that it, too, is perceived by experts in the relevant fields as rather egregiously engaging in handwaving and jumping to conclusions.
deleted 3y ago
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yywwbbn 3y ago
> In the last 1k years, we've upset the apple cart and may destroy the world as we know and need it. We _can_ coexist in our environment without utterly destroying it in 40k years - but we are not. It’s extremely unlikely that whatever we do to the environment will decrease QoL in developed countries below that which was experienced by the Australian aboriginals (when measured by child mortality, life expectancy, access to stuff etc.) though.
- geph2021 3y ago
  That strikes me as incredibly confident that humanity (and developed countries), will avoid even some of the pessimistic consequences of climate change, let alone some of the potentially dire scenarios. Please share why you are so confident. I could use a mood boost on this friday... :)