Sapiens just gets worse the more I read.
The theme of the most recent section can be summarized as: “Unless you can prove a moral principle or element of civilizational organization is a direct expression of some unquestioned aspect of human biology, it has no basis in reality, and is therefore arbitrary, and therefore cannot be justified.”
Which is a fun bit of nihilism, and further confirms my read that Harari has a fundamental hatred for humanity: everything humanity has done as a species from the point we started to express traits unique (or unique in degree) to humans has been a mistake, and a tragedy – not only for all other species, not only for the planet as a whole, but for humanity itself. Agriculture, industry, complex social organization, property, specialization, technology as a whole, culture as a whole, civilization as a whole: all bad ideas, any cherry-picked “benefits” far overshadowed by their pervasive negative consequences.
I know I’ve criticized Sagan here, but Harari is his philosophical inverse. Sagan may have smugly dismissed what he considered unscientific or irrational views and those who hold them, but he didn’t breezily discredit everything that makes us human and the entire legacy of human history.
Which makes me wonder if “technocratic” is really a suitable adjective for Harari…