21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Similar to human morality, our sense of justice is not a modern phenomenon, but also has evolutionary roots. One of the primary ancestral conditions that surrounded human evolution is that humans were hunter-gatherers. Thus, our sense of justice evolved in this condition. It was structured to cope with challenges related to small human groups living in an area of a few square miles.

There is a mismatch between this ancestral condition and our modern environment. Humans now must understand cause-and-effect relations that impact millions of people, something that most find overwhelming. For example, some individuals might argue that by buying clothes from a name brand retailer in the US, individuals are contributing to the injustices of child labor in sweatshops in developing countries. While our hunter-gather ancestors knew where their food and clothing came from, the interconnectedness of our modern global community means it is increasingly difficult for modern humans to answer these same questions. To Harari, the structure of our global system intentionally makes finding answers to these questions challenging.

One solution to this modern dilemma is adopting a “morality of intentions” (231) perspective. Intent over actions and outcomes is what matters. Yet, this perspective has and continues to fuel some of the worst injustices. A postmaster in Nazi Germany helped deliver racist propaganda and orders to the local SS branch simply by being outstanding at their job. While the postmaster’s intent was not to help the Nazis, this was the outcome from their actions. Humans need to make a more sincere effort to know all of the relevant facts, “but what counts as ‘a sincere effort to know’?” (231). Harari suggests that moral certainty might be beyond modern human’s reach without the benefit of hindsight.

Most contemporary injustices result not from individual prejudices, but large-scale structural biases. The large-scale size of these injustices makes it impossible for humans to understand these major moral problems. Harari argues that humans resort to four methods to try and comprehend and judge these large-scale moral dilemmas: downsizing the issue; focusing on a single human story that they then equate to the whole conflict; creating conspiracy theories that a group of wealthy, megalomaniacs are behind all global conflicts; and creating a religious or ideological dogma that offers a safe haven from the complex reality by providing intellectual comfort and moral certainty. These methods are all faulty, however, because they prevent humans from uncovering the truth about these modern moral dilemmas.

Humans today are repeatedly told that we live in a “post-truth” era, where alternative facts replace actual facts and feelings and hunches outweigh evidence. To Harari, the post-truth era is not new. Rather, humans are a “post-truth species, whose power depends on creating and believing fiction” (238). Our unique ability to create and spread fiction, such as religious traditions, national mythologies, and commercial firms’ branding, bring people together, which, in turn, makes large-scale cooperation possible. Often the more absurd the story the better it is at uniting people. While many fictions are inspiring and beautiful, some have also been harmful and worthless. Blood libels, or the centuries-old false stories that Jewish people murder Christians for rituals, are one example. These fictious stories led to anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Europe.

Not everyone agrees with this perspective that humans cooperate strictly because of fictions and myths. Instead, they suggest its possible for humans to cooperate through consensual agreements. For example, money is one such consensual convention. Humans are united in their belief that the dollar is valuable. Harari argues, however, that money and other consensual conventions are another version of fiction. Money is not truly real, because it is of human origin.

The truth, according to Harari, is that humans prefer power to truth. Power requires spreading fictions, whereas truth requires renouncing these fictions and therefore power. As a species, we spend more time trying to control the world, rather than trying to understand it. One of the worst outcomes of believing fiction is that it causes human suffering. Because of this, Harari argues that “it is the responsibility of all of us to invest time and effort in uncovering biases and in verifying our sources of information” (248). He offers two rules of thumb to help distinguish truth from fiction. The first is that humans need to pay for reliable information and the second is to read relevant scientific literature (i.e., peer-reviewed articles and books) for issues that are of interest. 

Art plays a key role in shaping how people understand the world around them. More people watch science fiction movies and television shows than read scientific articles on bioengineering or artificial intelligence. Thus, to Harari, the most important artistic genre in the 21st century is science fiction. Because people turn to this genre to understand scientific realities, it means that science fiction needs to be more responsible in how the genre depicts these issues.

One of the “worst sins of present-day science fiction is that it tends to confuse intelligence with consciousness” (251). This confusion results in most science fiction focusing on conflict between robots and humans, “when in fact we need to fear a conflict between a small superhuman elite empowered by algorithms and a vast underclass of disempowered Homo sapiens” (251).

Science fiction provides greater insight into how technology might manipulate and control humans. Often though the ends of movies and tv shows that explore this theme do not discuss its full implications. They assume that humans have an authentic self that remains untouched by technological manipulations. Authenticity, however, is a myth. Humans are afraid of being trapped inside a box created by algorithms, yet we are already locked within our own mind and body. There is no such thing as victory of mind over matter. The mind is never free of manipulation. Rather, it is constantly being shaped by biology and history. One of the best recent depictions of this human condition, to Harari, is Inside Out, where viewers discover that the main character, an 11-year-old girl named Riley, has no authentic self and never makes any free choices because she is managed by a collection of biochemical mechanisms.