21 Lessons for the 21st century

 I bring the book summary of 21 lessons for the 21st century. 

        Chapter 1: disk in movement stories on the topic of information overwhelm hurry makes the point that humans think in stories rather than in facts numbers or equations which spy the communists fascists and liberal stories of the 20th century were so powerful the simple mother story he says the better and listen not only for those of you to clear in political war which is fair to say few of you are but also for those of you in the business and entrepreneurship game it's imperative that you make your stories simple well the 20th century was all about three political systems the 21st century introduces new stories and classes that of humans super humans and artificial intelligence artificial intelligence as AI gets more sophisticated it will create classes of humans super humans who are augmented by technology as any one must be pointed out on a recent episode on the Joe Rogan experience we've already been augmented there's just a disconnect and the date rate is too slow all there's a lot of back against the liberal story today hurry say is that at the end of the day humankind won't abandon the liberal story because it doesn't have any viable alternatives people may give the system and angry kick in the stomach but having no where else to go they'll eventually come back chapter to work harissa is at the better we understand the biochemical mechanisms that underpin human emotions desires and choices the better computer scan get at analyzing human behavior predicting human decisions and replacing human professions such as bankers and lawyers at least in some lines of work it might make all the sense to replace all humans with computers even if individually some humans still do a better job they're machines on automation the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that in 2012 31 percent of fatal crashes involved alcohol abuse 30 percent speeding and 20 percent distracted drivers self-driving vehicles will have none of these wars and eventually we could see the displacement of 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States alone amongst other driving professions rather than in place in humans entirely AI might actually help create new human jobs instead of humans competing with AI they could focus on serving and leveraging AI the job market of the 2050is likely to be characterized by human AI cooperation rather than competition several years and after IBM's deep blue defeated chest at Grandmaster Garry Kasparov human computer cooperation flourished however in recent years computers have become so good at playing chests that the human collaborators lost their value which could be seen as a precursor to what might happen at a more pervasive level another computer program deepmind's alpha0 went from the utter ignorance to creative mastery in under four hours without the help of any human guide to dominate the world's best alpha go players and programs AI and creativity people often say that AI could never feel like a human being that it could never be as creative as a human being on this point chess tournament judges are con we only look out for players secretly getting help from computers one of the ways to catch cheaters we're told is to monitor their the level of originality players display if they play exceptionally creative moves the judges suspect that this cannot possibly be a human move it must be a computer move at least in chess creativity is already the trademark of computers rather than humans by 2050 not just the idea of a job for life but even the idea of a profession for life might seem anti de lluvia however harari insists that many jobs are uninspiring drudgery not worth saving and I tend to agree given all the work I'm doing to help liberate people from plain boring process orientated roles to unlock their potential and help them lead more fulfilling work wise nobodies life dream is to be a cashier say sorry he goes on to say that what we should focus on is providing for people's basic needs and protecting the social status and self-worth universal basic income will protect the poor against job losses and economic dislocation while protecting the rich from populist rage alternatives to uni government could subsidize universal basic services UBS rather than income instead of giving money to people who then shop around for whatever they want the government might subsidize free education free health care free transport and so forth this effectively brings the communist plan to fruition Albert not by revolution hurry warned on the threat on future geographical consolidation of wealth though Eve a 3dprinter takes over from the Bangladesh the revenues previously earned by the South Asian country will now fill the coffers of a few tech giants in California this could pave the way for an even greater wealth gap and the collapse of developing countries some say that the big tech companies should be taxed to cover the shortfall and right they may be in so far as the local distribution of taxes is concerned but hurry points out that the people are unlikely to support the distribution of these funds offshore - place is defined by present Trump as countries if you believe the typical voto will support that says hurry you might just as well believe that Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny will solve the problem happiness equals reality - expectations the problem with you bi or UBS is that human beings aren't just built for satisfaction human happiness depends less on objective conditions and more on our own expectations our expectations adapt to changing conditions including to the condition of other people keeping up with the Joneses when things improve expectations born and consequently even dramatic improvements in conditions might leave us at a dissatisfied as before today's poor live better than yesterday's kings however Americans are taking antidepressants in astounding numbers leading to the current opioid epidemic people need not only the basics but they need to feel like they have enough that their contributions are worth world that they are learning and growing and that they have access to a community chapter 3 is Liberty on democracy and voting hurry shares the following quote you might as well call a nation one flip a side to decide whether Einstein got his algebra right all the passengers boat which runway the pilot should land however he goes on to say that for better or worse elections and referendums and not about what we think they're about what we feel Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst political systemin the world except for all the others rightly or wrongly people might reach the same conclusions about big data to algorithms that may come to run the world they might have lots of bugs but we have no better alternative truth recently on an episode of the Sam Harris podcast Harris and psychologist Jordan Peterson debated for what seemed at infinite the definition of truth hurry points it simply truth today is defined by the top results on the Google search on big data algorithms once we begin to count on AI to decide what to study where to work and who to marry democratic elections and free markets will make little sense psychology and AI in war on 16th of March 1968 company of American soldiers went berserk in the South Vietnamese village of Miley and massacred about 400 civilians this war crime was initiated by the American forces that have been involved in jungle guerrilla warfare for several months it was a fault of human emotions if the US had killed robots in Vietnam the massacre would never have occurred however if the US had killed robots the war could have dragged on for many more years because the American government would have had fewer worries about the morale of soldiers or massive anti-war demonstrations companies today are not only doing more with less such as Netflix which with 5000 or so employees has a market capitalization of more than 60 billion compared to blockbuster with a workforce of 60,000could only muster up a market cap at its peak of about 5 billion these benefits extend to the realm of warfare today whenever Palestinians make a phone call or post something on Facebook or travel from one place to another their high could have be monitored by Israeli microphones cameras drones and software the data is analyzed with the aid of algorithms which helps Israeli security forces pinpoint and utilize potential threats it is therefore surprisingly easy for few Israeli soldiers control about two and a half million Palestinians algorithms and personal finance when you apply to your bank for a loan it's likely that your application is processed by an algorithm rather than a human the bank might refuse to give you a loan and you ask why and the bank requires algorithm said no you ask why did the algorithm say no what's wrong with me the bank requires we don't know no human understands the algorithm because it is based on an advanced machine learning but we trust our algorithm so we won't give you a loan chapter for equality those who own the data are in the future hurry say said unlike land and machines Diana is everywhere and nowhere at the same time it can move at the speed of light and you can create as many copies of it as you want so we had better call upon lawyers politicians philosophers and even poles to turn their attention to this conundrum the key political question of our era is quite possibly how do you regulate the ownership of data this also echoes what many commentators are saying when analyzing the forward march of big tech companies who more often than not spearheaded by people who lacked the fundamentals when it comes to the broader economic political social and philosophical implications of their work we need to solve complex problems by taking a multidisciplinary approach.

        Chapter five community our tech addiction and how its compromised ingenuine human connection and community hurry makes the point that is easier than ever to talk to our cousin in Switzerland but it's harder to talk to his husband over breakfast because he constantly looks at his smartphone instead at him chapter six civilization 10,000 years ago humankind was divided into countless isolated tribes where we knew no more than a few dozen people with each passing millennium these tribes fuse together larger and larger groups creating fewer and fewer distinct civilizations in recent generations the remaining civilizations have been blending into a single global civilization people care far more about their enemies then about their trade partners say sorry if every American film about Taiwan there are probably about 50 about Vietnam the people we find most often are our family members chapter 7 nationalism there is nothing wrong with benign pay trees 'm the problem hurry warns starts when benign patriotism morphs into chauvinistic ultra-nationalism instead of believing that my nation is unique which is true for all nations I might begin feeling that my nation is supreme the environment unless we dramatically cut the emissions of greenhouse gases in the next 20 years average global temperatures will increase by more than two degrees Celsius resulting in expanding deserts disappearing ice caps rising oceans and more extreme weather such as hurricanes and typhoons it isn't a coincidence that skepticism about climate change tends to be perverse of nationalists right say sorry you really see left-wing socialist tweet that climate change is a Chinese hoax when there is no national answer but only a global answer to the problem of Corman some nationalist politicians prefer to believe the problem does not exist to counter this the advent of unconventional technologies might help for example clean meat this might sound like science fiction but the world first clean hamburger was grown from cells and then eaten in 2013 it costs three hundred and thirty thousand dollars for years of research and development brought the price down to eleven dollars per unit and within another decade clean meat is expected to be cheaper than slaughtered meat which can count for a lot towards ecological rejuvenation when you consider that the water footprint of beef alone is 1,800 gallons per pound of beef three threats facing humanity technological nuclear and ecologic all we now have a global ecology a global economy and global science but we are still stuck with only national politics this mismatch prevents the political system from effectively countering our main problems to have effective politics we must either be globalizing ecology economy and the major science or we must globalized politics global governance hurry size is unrealistic rather took globalized politics means at the political dynamics within countries give far more weight to global problems and interest 

chapter 8 religion harari says that in order to understand the role of traditional religions in the world of the 21st century we need to distinguish between three types of problems number one technical problems hazard farmers in arid countries deal with severe droughts caused by global warming number two policy problems what measures should governments adopt to prevent global warming in the first place and three identity problems should only even care about the problems of farmers on the other side of the world as Karl Marx argued religion doesn't really have much to contribute to the great policy debates of our time Freud really called the obsessions people have about such matters as an assists of small differences on this point I did some research to find out why the Eastern Orthodox and Western Christians religions branched off from each other one of the key points of difference that ultimately split the churches was that most Western Christians use a version of the Nicene Creed that states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father and the son whereas the original Orthodox version doesn't feature and the son that was it perhaps Freud at a point 

chapter 9 emigration to clarify matters hurry defines immigration as a deal with three basic conditions of terms number one the host country allows immigrants in number two in return the immigrants must embrace at least the norms and values of the host country even that means giving up some of their traditional norms and values and number three if they assimilate to a sufficient degree overtime they become equal and for members of the host country they become US precisely because you cherish tolerance sighs hurry you could not allow too many intolerant people in while the tolerant society can change more liberal minorities if the number of such extremes exceeds a certain threshold the whole nature of society changes if you were bringing in too many immigrants from the Middle East you eventually end up looking like the Middle East sighs hurry on culturalist people continue to conduct a heroic struggle against traditional racism without noticing that the battlefront has shifted from traditional racism to culturalist terrorism on terrorists they kill very few people but nevertheless managed to terrify billions and shake huge political structures such as the European Union or the United States their call since September 11 every year terrorists have killed about 50 people in the EU about 10 people in the USA about seven people in China and 25,000 people globally mostly in Iraq Afghanistan Pakistan Nigeria in Syria diabetes in high sugar levels kill up to terrorism is like the flyer that tries to destroy a china shop the fly so weak that it cannot move even a single tea cup how does a fire destroy a china shop ass hurry it gets inside a balzer and starts buzz in the ball goes wild with fear and anger and destroys the china shop this is what happened after 9/11 as islamic fundamentalist got inside the ear of American bull to destroy the middle eastern china shop now they flourish in the wreckage and rereminds us that there is no shortage of a short tempered balls in the world the overreaction to terrorism poses a fargreater threat to our security then terrorists themselves this lesson echoes lessons from the Robert Greene'sdriven decisions and ultimately the wrong move one that you were ready to capitalize on hurry says that asuccessful counterterrorism struggle should be conducted on three fronts number one government should focus onclandestine actions against the terror networks number two the media shouldkeep things in perspective and avoid his Syria theatre as it stands two mediaobsessively report terror attacks because reports on terrorism sell newspapers much better than reports on diabetes orpollution and never through the imagination of each and every one of usterrorists hold our imagination captive and use it against us it is a responsibility of every citizen toliberate his or her imagination from the terrorists and to remind ourselves of the true dimensions of this threatchapter 11 war today information technology and biotechnology are moreimportant than heavy industry when it comes to war today the main economic assets consist of technological andinstitutional knowledge rather than the wheat fields gold mines and even oil fields and you just cannot conquerknowledge through war chapter 12 humility even Apes develop the tendencyto help the poor the needy and the fatherless millions of years before the Bible instructed ancient Israelites todo the same chapter 13 God hurry says that the morality doesn't mean following divinities it meansreducing suffering hence in order to act morally you don't need to believe in any myth or story you just need to develop adeep of suffering in the long run immoral be happy is counterproductive you're notlikely to live in the society where strangers are constantly being raped and murdered not only would you be inconstant danger but you would elect the benefit of trust between strangers which supports trade and economic growth amongother things religious belief can either create compassion in people or just to find stroked their anger especially ifsomeone dares to insult their God ignores his wishes on secularism hereereminds us that the secular code enshrines the value of truth compassion equality freedom courage andresponsibility the secular code isn't an ideal to aspire to rather than socialreality the most important secular commitment is to truth which is based on observation and evidence rather than onmere faith interestingly hurry notes that the strong belief is often required wherethe story isn't true it is the commitment to truth in the modern science which has enabled humankind tosplit the atom decipher the human genome track the evolution of life and understand the history of humanityitself finally secular people cherish responsibility we need not credit any divine protectorwith these achievements the resulting from humans developing their own knowledge and compassion instead ofpraying for miracles we need to ask what can we do to help hurry makes a great point in saying thatas we come to make the most important decision in the history of life I personally would trust more in those whoadmit ignorance than those who claim infallibility as I said in the recent blog post beware of people bearingabsolutes he goes on to say that even we asked you what was the biggest mistake your religion ideology or worldviewcommitted and you don't come up with something serious I for one would not trust you chapter 15ignorance on freewill behavior economists and the evolutionary psychologists have demonstrated thatmost human decisions are based on emotional reactions and heuristics shortcuts rather than on rationalanalysis and that while our emotions and eristic were suitable for dealing withlife in the Stone Age they are woefully inadequate in this second age no individual knowseverything it takes to build a cathedral and atom bomb or an aircraft what gave homosapiens an edge over otheranimals was not rationality but an hour unparalleled ability to think togetherin large groups individual humans no embarrassing would all about the world and as history progressed we came toknow less and less we rely on the expertise of others for almost all ourneeds this is what's even Solman and Philip friend batch referred to as theknowledge illusion the reason we think we know a lot even though individually we know very little is because we treatknowledge in the minds of others as if it were our own if you cannot afford towaste time you will never find the truth most political figures and business moguls are forever on the run yet if youwant to go deeply into any subject you need a lot of time and in particular you need the privilege of wasting time toexperiment with unproductive paths to export it ends to make space for doubtsand boredom to all their little seeds of inside to slowly grow and blossom fakenews when 1000 people believe some made-up story for one month that's fake news when a billion peoplebelieve it for a thousand years that's religion and we had Mohnish not to call it fake news in order to not hurt thefeelings but the faithful for better or worse hurry says fiction is among themost effective tools in humanity's toolkit by bringing people together religious Creed's make large-scale humancooperation possible stories and business besides religious and ideologycommercial firms rely on fiction and fake news to brandine often involves retelling the same fictional story againand again to people become convinced it is truth when I say coca-cola you probably think of young people enjoyingit playing sports and having fun you probably don't think about the overweight diabetes patients lininghospital beds hurry goes on to say that while we certainly need the good science from apolitical perspective a good science fiction movie is worth far more than an article in science or nature chapter 18science fiction in the early 21st century perhaps the most important artistic genre is science fiction because veryfew people read the latest articles in the field of machine learning or genetic engineering but instead movies such asthe matrix and her and the TV series such as Westworld and work mirror shapehow people understand technology and its social and economic impacts this also means that science fiction needs to befar more responsible in the way it depicts scientific realities otherwise it might give people with the wrongideas or focus their attention on the wrong problems perhaps the worst familyin a present-day science fiction is that it attempts to confuse intelligence with consciousness as a result it is overlyconcerned about a potential war between robots and humans when in fact we need to feel a conflict between a small humansuperhuman elite in thinking about the future of artificial intelligence hurry sighs Karl Marx is still a better guidethan Steven Spielberg chapter 19 education much of what kids learn todaywill likely be irrelevant by 2050 which echoes many of my own teachings as partof the lemonade stand children's entrepreneurship program that we've been running for almost threeyears now I'm always maintained during this time that what kids really need to learn is adaptability learning how to learnresilience curiosity critical thinking problem-solving and effectivecollaboration however will learn what hurry and the pedagogical experts thinkshortly hurry say is that the last thing a teacher needs to give her pupils today is more information but they alreadyhave far too much of it instead people need the ability to make sense of information to tell the differencebetween what is important and what is an important and above all to combine manybits of information into a broad picture of the world many pedagogical expertsher essays argue that school should switch to teaching the four C's critical thinking communication collaboration andcreativity echoing my earlier sentiments more broadly schools should downplaytechnical skills and emphasis general-purpose life skills most important of all will be B ability todeal change to learn new things and to preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations again learning howto learn resilience and adaptability if somebody describes to you the world ofthe mid 21st century and it sounds like science fiction it is probably false butif someone describes to you the world of the mid 21st century and it doesn't sound like science fiction it is certainly false say sorry onadapting to change after a certain age harue says that most people just don'tlike to change when you were 15 your entire life has changed by the time youwere 50 you don't want to change and most people have given up conquering the world you prefer stability you haveinvested so much in your skills your career your identity and your worldview that you don't want to start all overagain the harder you've been working on building something the more difficult it is to let go of it and make room forsomething new this shows up in most established organizations today with entrench ways of doing things and seniordecision makers who are unwavering in their desire to maintain the status quo in light of this the best advice Harryhas but today's 15 year olds is not to rely on adults too much most of them mean well but they just don't understandthe world to run fast don't take much luggage with you and leave all your illusions behind they're very heavyTurtles all the way down there is a story of a man who claimed that the world is kept in place by resting on theback of a huge elephant when asked what the elephant stands on he replied that it stands on the back of a large turtleand the turtle on the back of an even bigger turtle and that bigger turtle theman snapped and said don't bother about it from there onwards it's Turtles all the way down going back to theintroductory gambit of stories the most successful stories her essays are open-ended most stories are heldtogether by the weight of the roof rather than by the strength of the foundations in history the roof issometimes more important than the foundations make people believe in your story if you want to make people reallybelieve in some fiction entice them to make a sacrifice on its behalf what doyou think that women ask their lovers to bring them diamond ring size hurry once I'll ever make such a hugefinancial sacrifice he must convince himself that it was for a worthy cause this is in the line with rationalizingand normalizing our decisions and what Barry Schwartz calls satisficing whenyou inflict suffering on yourself in the name of some story it gives you a choice either the story is true or I am agullible fool when you inflict suffering on others you were also given a choice either the story is true or arm a cruelvillain and just as we don't want to admit we are false we also don't want to admit we are villains so we prefer tobelieve that the story is true one more thing on free will just consider the next thought that pops into your mindwhere did it come from did you really choose to think it and only then did you think of it certainly not realizing thiscan help us become less obsessed about our opinions feelings and desires humansusually give so much importance to their desires that they try to control it to shape the entire world according tothose desires it is better to understand ourselves our minds and our desires rather than try to realize whateverfantasy pops up in our heads social media it is fascinating and terrifyingto behold people who spent countless hours constructing and embellishing a perfect social online becoming attachedto their creation and mistaken it for the truth about themselves if you could only feel what the people in the photosfelt while taking them hence if you really want to understand yourself hurry sighs you should not identify with yourFacebook or your Instagram account the Buddha in the universe the Buddha taught the three basic realities of the universe number one everything is constantly changing number two nothing has any injury in essence and number three nothing is completely satisfied suffering emerges because people fail to appreciate this you can explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy but you will never encounter something that does not change that has an internal essence and that completely satisfies you according to the Buddha life has no meaning and people don't need to create any meaning chapter 21 meditation hurry echoes what for surfers have been saying from that the deepest source of suffering is in the patterns of our own minds when I want something and it doesn't happen my mind reacts by generating suffering suffering is not an objective condition in the outside world it is a mental reaction generated by our own minds loneliness is the first step towards ceasing to generate more suffering meditation is not an escape from reality it is getting in touch with reality without the focus and clarity provided by this practice hurry says he could not have written his book he sees meditation as he had another valuable tool in the scientific talking especially when trying to understand the human mind which is an interesting take on the confluent income.