Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the suffering of animals throughout history, emphasizing the cruelty found in industrial farming practices.
Yuval Noah Harari's quote draws attention to the plight of animals as they have been consistently oppressed and exploited throughout human history. He specifically emphasizes the horrific treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms, suggesting that this systematic cruelty represents one of the greatest moral failings of our civilization.
In practice
During a speech on animal rights, one might use this quote to emphasize the moral implications of our food systems.
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.
Let the voice of the people be heard!
Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
Small acts of decency ripple in ways we could never imagine.
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not... with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
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