{"id":1559,"date":"2018-01-22T16:08:53","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T16:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.overbrookpublishing.com\/BackStory\/?p=1559"},"modified":"2018-01-22T16:08:53","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T16:08:53","slug":"book-review-homo-deus-a-brief-history-of-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/book-review-homo-deus-a-brief-history-of-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Homo Deus, a Brief History of Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Homo<\/a>Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow<\/a> by Yuval Noah Harari<\/a>
\nMy rating: 5 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

Homo Deus is an engaging and well-written book that explores the rise and perhaps imminent fall of humans (by our own collective design) in a quest for immortality. The author discusses the inevitability of sharper class distinctions between humans that can afford superhuman enhancements versus a vast majority of people that cannot. We\u2019ve read a comparable argument in another excellent book published in 2005 called Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau. In fact, both books even reference similar, if not the same, ground-breaking experiments, such as the one involving Belle, the owl monkey, in Garreau\u2019s book.
\nHomo Deus, however, focuses more on the historical development of humans and where our current trajectory may lead. Despite Harari\u2019s subtle wit, his most dire prediction on p. 325 is that \u201cIn the twenty-first century we might witness the creation of a massive new unworking class: people devoid of any economic, political or even artistic value, who contribute nothing to the prosperity, power and glory of society. This \u2018useless class\u2019 will not merely be unemployed \u2013 it will be unemployable.\u201d
\nThese implications are not subtle, nor easy to dismiss when Harari backs them up with credible case studies, as well as historical, political and economic examples.
\nThe author also makes a strong argument for non-organic, not-(yet)-conscious algorithms that are already making better decisions than humans\u2014and promise to do so at exponentially faster rates. Ultimately, the questionable relevance of humans in a couple generations\u2019 time seems to be the overarching theme of Homo Deus, a book about humans achieving godly status. This book gets five stars not because I agree on all points, but because Harari raises issues we need to consider in order to make meaningful changes for our future. It is well worth the read.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari My rating: 5 of 5 stars Homo Deus is an engaging and well-written book that explores the rise and perhaps imminent fall of humans (by our own collective design) … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,150,155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors","category-book-reviews","category-yuval-noah-harari"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Homo_Deus_2_designist_LR_grande.jpg?fit=599%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1566,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosadeberryking.com\/BackStory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}