Homo deus [sound recording] : a brief history of tomorrow / Yuval Noah Harari, New York times bestselling author of Sapiens.
Material type: SoundPublisher number: UACD 7114 | Harper AudioLanguage: English Original language: Hebrew Publisher: [New York] : Harper Audio, [2017]Edition: UnabridgedDescription: 13 audio discs (15 hr.) : CD digital ; 4 3/4 inContent type:- spoken word
- audio
- audio disc
- 9780062657305
- 0062657305
- 909.83 23
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book on CD | Bedford Public Library Non-Fiction Books on CD | Audiobook | CDS 909.83 HAR | Available | 32500002058148 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens , returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.
Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style thorough, yet riveting famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.
What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This isHomo Deus.
With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.
"Title from container.
Translation of: Hismoryah shel ha-ma%ar.
Read by Derek Perkins.
Examines the civilized world's achievements in controlling famine, disease, and war while making provocative predictions about the evolutionary goals of the twenty-first century.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Harari (history, Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) recaps the cognitive, agricultural, industrial, and scientific revolutions from Sapiens, his previous best seller, to highlight a shift in the locus of divinity, from shared beliefs about nature to gods to social systems and, ultimately, to humankind itself. He posits that current efforts to cure disease, disability, and death will result in biological augmentation that creates a human species beyond Homo sapiens and that this will necessarily happen along socioeconomic lines. Humanistic systems currently holding sway, such as capitalism or socialism, will disappear if humans no longer are subject to scarcity or disease. Accepting the current idea that all change is controlled by deterministic algorithms (social, biological, or computational), Harari foresees a future of data-driven -technological utilitarianism if we continue to off-load decision-making responsibility to artificial intelligence. This work is speculative, obviously, and posits that if something is technologically -possible, we will try it, not that we will succeed. It leaves readers with questions about consciousness and conscience and whether unrestricted data flow will necessarily lead to wisdom. VERDICT While still appealing to those of a political, historical, or anthropological bent who enjoyed Sapiens, this title will be equally thought provoking to biologists and technological futurists. [See Prepub Alert, 8/8/16.]-Wade M. Lee, Univ. of Toledo Lib. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
Harari (Sapiens), professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, provocatively explores what the future may have in store for humans in this deeply troubling book. He makes it clear that it is impossible to predict the future, so claims to be offering "possibilities rather than prophecies"-and builds a strong case for a very specific outcome. The future to which he affords the greatest probability is, in many ways, a dystopian world in which humanism has given way to "dataism"-the belief that value is measured by its contribution to information transfer-and humans play an insignificant role in world affairs or have gone extinct. The roles humans play are diminishing, Harari argues, because increasingly our creations are able to demonstrate intelligence beyond human levels and without consciousness. Whether one accepts Harari's vision, it's a bumpy journey to that conclusion. He rousingly defends the argument that humans have made the world safer from disease and famine-though his position that warfare has decreased remains controversial and debatable. The next steps on the road to dataism, he predicts, are through three major projects: "immortality, happiness, and divinity." Harari paints with a very broad brush throughout, but he raises stimulating questions about both the past and the future. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.CHOICE Review
Careful observers of current human history and keen thinkers on the human predicament have reflected on what the future holds. Michio Kaku published his ideas on how science will shape human destiny by 2100, in Visions (CH, May'98, 35-5030). Homo Deus is another fascinating projection into the future. Historian Harari (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem), author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (CH, Jul'15, 52-5967), discusses various aspects of the 21st century's dominant technologies and their potential impacts on human civilization and survival. His many conjectures include the manufacture of life and brains, the emergence of a useless class, the disappearance of democracy, and the merger of mankind with machines. However, some of Harari's comments on science and religion seem naive, if not unacceptable. For example, he asserts that science has nothing to do with secularism and tolerance because it arose in 16th-century Europe where religious persecution was widespread, and that liberalism is another religion because liberals believe in free will. He also says that religion is interested in order and science is "interested above all in power," and that technology's agenda is to control our inner voices. Nevertheless, this best seller is worth reading and discussing. The validity of its prophecies can be known only a few decades from now. Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries. --Varadaraja V. Raman, Duke UniversityBooklist Review
Humanity has never been less violent, susceptible to plague, or at risk of famine than it is right now, asserts historian Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 2011). So what will Homo sapiens strive toward next? According to Harari: immortality, by way of death-conquering drugs; bliss, via biochemical manipulations engineered to induce everlasting pleasure; and divinity, which we will achieve through biotechnology enhancements and the brave new religions of Silicon Valley. He also tackles the time bomb of modern humanism, which, along with the liberal package of individualism, human rights, democracy and the free market, may be the seeds of humanity's undoing. Careful to classify his arguments as possibilities rather than prophesies, Harari's many predictions about the future of humanity toggle between solemn and starry-eyed, depending on the reader's perspective. It's sometimes hard to tell what kind of book it is, given the array of disciplines Harari covers in depth. But like humanity itself, it's an intelligent, panoramic, if sometimes messy assemblage of where we've been and what's to come. Best for readers who crave big ideas.--Comello, Chad Copyright 2017 BooklistAuthor notes provided by Syndetics
Yuval Noah Harari received a PhD in history from the University of Oxford. He lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in world history. He has written several books including Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind which became a 2016 New York Times Bestsellers.(Bowker Author Biography)