Our bodies and minds evolved and were adapted for hundreds of thousands of years for tasks like climbing a tree and picking apples, or hunting rabbits, or looking for mushrooms in the forest. They were not adapted to the very gruelling work that is involved in field work - ploughing, harvesting, bringing water, digging weeds - things like that.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how human evolution is suited for natural tasks rather than modern, labor-intensive work.
Yuval Noah Harari emphasizes that the physical and mental capabilities of humans have been shaped over countless generations for activities that connect us to nature, such as foraging and hunting. In contrast, many of the strenuous agricultural tasks we perform today are not a natural fit for our evolved abilities, suggesting a disconnect between our evolutionary past and the demands of modern labor.
In practice
In a discussion about the modern work environment, this quote can highlight the disconnect between our evolutionary design and current labor demands.
We control the world basically because we are the only animals that can cooperate flexibly in very large numbers. And if you examine any large-scale human cooperation, you will always find that it is based on some fiction like the nation, like money, like human rights.
I titled the book 'Homo Deus' because we really are becoming gods in the most literal sense possible. We are acquiring abilities that have always been thought to be divine abilities - in particular, the ability to create life. And we can do with that whatever we want.
The notion of superhumans is using bioengineering and artificial intelligence to upgrade human abilities. If they use the power to change themselves, to change their own minds, their own desires, then we have no idea what they will want to do.
Techno-humanism aims to amplify the power of humans, creating cyborgs and connecting humans to computers, but it still sees human interests and desires as the highest authority in the universe.
The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be, 'What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans?'
Take Google Maps or Waze. On the one hand, they amplify human ability - you are able to reach your destination faster and more easily. But at the same time, you are shifting the authority to the algorithm and losing your ability to find your own way.
You've got to learn to accept the law of life, and face the fact that we disintegrate slowly.
Meek Walton's heavenly memory.
We all want things we can't have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.
The secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away.
The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.
War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.