In order to survive in a very small tribe, you needed to know how to do lots of things for yourself: how to make your tools, how to get food, and how to make your clothes - things most of us today don't need to know. The only thing I need to survive is to know history.
Interpretation
Survival requires a diverse skill set, but understanding history is essential for thriving in modern society.
In the past, survival in small communities depended on individual skills like tool-making, food acquisition, and clothing production. Today, while many of these skills are unnecessary for survival, the ability to understand history provides a crucial foundation for navigating the complexities of contemporary life and decision-making, emphasizing that knowledge and awareness of the past are vital for the future.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of historical context in decision-making.
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.
I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.
From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward.
I hate to see anybody sink. I hate to see anybody lose their dream, lose their home, something like that.
The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little before we begin to discern.
I once heard someone say that prayer is more than words. It's a stance you take, a position you claim. You throw your body against the door to keep the demons from advancing and stay put until they go away.
The beauty of getting older is the surprise of what else you can do to make the world a better place with the wisdom that you've accrued over those years.
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