Metadata
- Author: Yuval Noah Harari
- Full Title: Sapiens
- Category:
Highlights
Animals are said to belong to the same species if they tend to mate with each other, giving birth to fertile offspring. (Location 117)
In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2–3 per cent of total body weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of other apes require only 8 per cent of rest-time energy. (Location 185)
And, indeed, compared to other animals, humans are born prematurely, when many of their vital systems are still under-developed. A colt can trot shortly after birth; a kitten leaves its mother to forage on its own when it is just a few weeks old. Human babies are helpless, dependent for many years on their elders for sustenance, protection and education. (Location 205)
! Humans are born prematurely relative to their mammal counterparts
Humans emerge from the womb like molten glass from a furnace. They can be spun, stretched and shaped with a surprising degree of freedom. This is why today we can educate our children to become Christian or Buddhist, capitalist or socialist, warlike or peace-loving. (Location 212)
The appearance of new ways of thinking and communicating, between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago, constitutes the Cognitive Revolution. (Location 371)
According to this theory Homo sapiens is primarily a social animal. Social cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction. (Location 392)
! Humans are social beings
The alpha male usually wins his position not because he is physically stronger, but because he leads a large and stable coalition. These coalitions play a central part not only during overt struggles for the alpha position, but in almost all day-to-day activities. Members of a coalition spend more time together, share food, and help one another in times of trouble. (Location 439)
But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things can no longer work that way. You cannot run a division with thousands of soldiers the same way you run a platoon. Successful family businesses usually face a crisis when they grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent themselves, they go bust. (Location 462)
Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. (Location 466)
an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. (Location 542)
since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google. (Location 548)