21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Yuval Noah Harari, “21 Lessons for the 21^st Century,”  Spiegel & Grau, 2018, 372 pp.

What I particularly like about books like “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” is that they stimulate thinking.  The historian Yuval Noah Harari's previous best-sellers, “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus,” covered the past and future respectively, this new book is all about the present. The trick for putting an end to our anxieties, he suggests, is not to stop worrying. It’s to know which things to worry about, and how much to worry about them. As he writes in his introduction: “What are today’s greatest challenges and most important changes? What should we pay attention to? What should we teach our kids?”

The author proposes three main worries for the 21^st Century: Nuclear war; Climate Change; Artificial Intelligence; and, a fourth worry: the resulting irrelevance of many people.  There are chapters on work, war, nationalism, religion, immigration, education and 15 other matters. 

The book's title is a misnomer, there are few lessons--the author is more interested in defining the terms of the discussion and giving you historical and philosophical perspectives.  Nevertheless, he does have one important lesson: today’s competition among nations “actually represents an astonishing global agreement.” And that global agreement makes it easier to cooperate as well as compete. Keep this in mind the next time you start to doubt whether we can solve a global problem like climate change. Our global cooperation may have taken a couple of steps back in the past two years, but before that, we took a thousand steps forward.

My Notes:

Pg. xvi:  This book begins by surveying our current political and technological predicament.  At the close of the twentieth century, it appeared that the great ideological battles between fascism, communism, and liberalism had resulted in the overwhelming victory of liberalism.  Democratic politics, human rights, and free-market capitalism seemed destined to conquer the entire world.  But as usual, history took an unexpected turn, and after fascism and communism collapsed, now liberalism is in trouble.

This question is particularly poignant because liberalism is losing credibility exactly when the twin revolutions in information technology and biotechnology confront us with the biggest challenges our species has ever encountered.  The merger of InfoTech and biotech might soon push billions of humans out of the job market and undermine both liberty and equality.  Big Data algorithms might create digital dictatorships in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of elites while most people will suffer not from exploitation but from something far worse—irrelevance.  The creation of a massive new ‘useless class,’ leading to social and political upheavals that no existing ideology knows how to handle. (p. 18).

Pg. 4f:  Since the 2008 global financial crisis, people all over the world have become increasingly disillusioned with the liberal story.  Walls and firewalls are back in vogue.  Resistance to immigration and to trade agreements is mounting.  Ostensibly democratic governments undermine the independence of the judiciary system, restrict the freedom of the press, and portray any opposition as treason.  Strongmen in countries such as Turkey and Russia experiment with new types of liberal democracies and outright dictatorships.  Today few would confidently declare that the Chinese Communist Party is on the wrong side of history.  The year 2016—marked by the Brexit vote in Britain and the rise of Trump in the US—signified the moment when this tidal wave of disillusionment reached the core Western liberal states. (And don’t forget the Yellow Vests in France)

Pg. 5:  In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from—Communism, Fascism, and Liberalism-- in 1968 just two, and in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail.  In 2018 we are down to zero.  To have one story is the most reassuring situation of all.  To be suddenly left with no story is a bit like the Soviet elite in the 1980s, liberals don’t understand how history deviated from its preordained course.

Pg. 9:  Perhaps in the twenty-first century popular revolts will be staged not against an economic elite that exploits people but against an economic elite that does not need them anymore.  

Pg. 11f:  Most of the people who voted for Trump and Brexit didn’t reject the liberal package in its entirety—they lost faith mainly in its globalizing part.  They still believe in democracy, free markets, human rights, and social responsibility, but they think these fine ideas can stop at the border.  Indeed, they believe that in order to preserve liberty and prosperity in Yorkshire or Kentucky, it is best to build a wall on the border and adopt illiberal policies toward foreigners.

Pg. 22:  Two particularly important nonhuman abilities that AI possesses are connectivity* and updatability.

*Connectivity:  think of two fully computerized autonomous cars traveling toward each other; they are able to communicate in real-time with each other and avoid a collision.  Updatability: think of how AI can be instantly and universally updated on all devices.

Pg. 31:  On December 7, 2017, a critical milestone in Artificial Intelligence (AI) was reached when Google’s AlphaZero program defeated the Stockfish 8 program, the world’s computer chess champion for 2016.  The defeated Stockfish 8 had access to centuries of accumulated human experience in chess, as well as decades of computer experience.  It was able to calculate seventy-million chess positions per second.  In contrast, the challenger, AlphaZero performed only eighty thousand such calculations per second, and its human creators had not taught it any chess strategies—not even standard openings.  Rather, the challenger AlphaZero used the latest machine learning principles to self-learn chess by playing against itself.  It took AlphaZero only four hours to go from utter ignorance to creative mastery, without the help of any human guide.

Pg. 38:  Expected unemployment caused by AI replacing up to 46% of all existing jobs by 2050 has incited conversations about Universal Basic Income to subsidize the resulting unemployed, irrelevant people—while this may take the form of money or services, the universal is usually confined to a nation and this will just not do the job.  (This paragraph is my paraphrasing and additions to the book's presentation.)

Pg. 44:  The liberal story cherishes human liberty as its number one value.  It argues that all authority ultimately stems from the free will of individual humans, as expressed in their feelings, desires, and choices.  In politics, liberalism believes that the voter knows best.  It, therefore, upholds democratic elections.  In economics, liberalism maintains that the Customer is always right.  Therefore it hails free-market principles.  In personal matters, liberalism encourages people to listen to themselves, be true to themselves and follow their hearts—as long as they do not infringe on the liberties of others.  This personal freedom is enshrined in human rights.

However, today the term liberal is used to denote those who support specific causes such as gay marriage, gun control, and abortion rights, (as well as: identity politics, nationalized medicine, strong regulation, etc…)

Pg. 47:  The liberal belief in the feelings and free choices of individuals is neither natural nor very ancient.  For thousands of years, people believed that authority came from divine laws rather than from the human heart and that we should, therefore, sanctify the word of God rather than human liberty.  It is only in the last few centuries that this belief in divine laws abated.

Pg. 48:  We are now at the confluence of two immense revolutions.  Biologists are deciphering the mysteries of the human body, and in particular of the brain and human feelings.  At the same time, computer scientists are giving us unprecedented data-processing power.  When the biotech revolution merges with the InfoTech revolution it will produce Big Data algorithms that can monitor and understand my feelings much better than I can, and then authority will probably shift from humans to computers. 

Pg. 77:  If we want to prevent the concentration of all wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, the key is to regulate the ownership of data.  In ancient times the most important asset was a struggle to control the land, now it is data.

Pg. 107:  In 1016 at least a third of all children died before reaching adulthood, and average life expectancy was far below fifty; this was the same world-wide.

Pg. 123:  The author sees an unprecedented existential crisis from three problems—nuclear war (terrorists getting a device), ecological collapse (climate warming), and technological disruption (AI).  These three are likely to reinforce and compound one another.

Pg. 126:  In previous centuries national identities were forged because humans began to face problems and opportunities that were far beyond the scope of local tribes and which only countrywide cooperation could hope to handle.  By the twenty-first century, nations find themselves in the same situation as the old tribes; we now need a new global identity because national institutions are incapable of handling a set of unprecedented global predicaments.  We now have a global ecology, a global economy, and a global science—but we are still stuck with only national politics.  The author is not advocating a world government but he does believe an organization structured as religions are today when they cross borders, is needed.

Pg. 161:  Terrorists kill relatively few people but nevertheless manage to terrify billions.  Since 9/11/2001 each year terrorists have killed about 50 people in the European Union, about 10 people in the US, about 7 people in China, and up to 25,000 people elsewhere in the globe (mostly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria).   In contrast, each year traffic accidents kill about 80,000 Europeans, 40,000 Americans, 270,000 Chinese, and 1.25 million people altogether. 

Pg. 173:  In early agricultural societies human violence caused up to 15 percent of all human deaths; in the twentieth century, 5 percent; and today only 1 percent.  Yet since the global financial crisis of 2008, the international situation is rapidly deteriorating, warmongering is back in vogue and military expenditures are ballooning. 

Pg. 190:  Scientists nowadays point out that morality has deep evolutionary roots predating the appearance of humankind (and the bible) by millions of years.  All social mammals, such as wolves, dolphins, and monkeys, have ethical codes adapted by evolution to promote group cooperation.  Then, of course, for morality nowadays we have:  Deuteronomy 20:16 King James Version (KJV) “But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.”  The first recorded instance in human history when genocide was presented as a binding religious duty.

Pg. 203:  The idea that we need a supernatural being to make us act morally assumes that there is something unnatural about morality. 

Pg. 208f:  The most important secular commitment is to the truth, which is based on observation and evidence rather than on mere faith.  Secularists strive not to confuse truth with belief.  Faith does not prove that the story is true.  Often, strong beliefs are needed precisely when the story isn’t true.  Secular people sanctify the truth wherever it may reveal itself—in ancient fossilized bones, in images of far-off galaxies, in tables of statistical data, or in the writing of various human traditions.  

Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.  When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news.  When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that’s a religion and we are admonished not to call it ‘fake news’ in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath).  (Yet, faith in fiat currency, like dollars, is what makes that work).

Pg. 266:  Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should reevaluate current teaching emphasis and begin teaching ‘the four Cs”—critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, learn new things, and preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations.

Pg. 304:  Our choices and creations are the product of billions of neurons exchanging biochemical signals.  If we understand that our desires are not the magical manifestations of free choice but are rather the product of biochemical processes (influenced by cultural factors that are also beyond our control), we might be less preoccupied with them.  It is better to understand ourselves, our minds, and our desires than to try to realize whatever fantasy pops into our heads.

Pg. 318:  Science finds it hard to decipher the mysteries of the mind largely because we lack efficient tools.  Many people tend to confuse the mind with the brain, but they are really very different things.  The brain is a material network of neurons, synapses, and biochemicals.  The mind is a flow of subjective experiences, such as pain, pleasure, anger, and love.  Biologists assume that the brain somehow produces the mind, and that biochemical reactions in billions of neurons somehow produce experiences such as pain and love.  Yet, so far, we have no explanations for how the mind emerges from the brain.  The only current method for observing the mind is meditation.