21 Lessons for the 21st Century

A successive story of the future after Homo Deus. Yuval Noah Harari describes the challenges we face in the twenty first century when biotechnology and artificial intelligence will change the world we live in. Workers may not only become redundant; they may become irrelevant for the socio-economic system, much like horses became irrelevant in the economy at the beginning of the 20^th century. A tiny meritocratic elite could push everyone else into irrelevance and oblivion. The problem is exactly that our merit is only based on work and money.

Another phenomenon is the globalisation. It looks like people are still in need of some stronghold related to their identity. Is it worth re-empowering the nation state? Or should we reconsider our ancient religious traditions? Or is it too late for all that? One of the strongest points of this book is the accurate analysis of the political issues in Europe like the immigration issues and the tensions between the member states.

If machines can produce all we need, couldn’t we all benefit? Could we consider UBI – Universal Basic Income, the taboo subject of all rich conservatives? Taking care of people, be it children, elderly or disabled people, should indeed be considered a job and should be rewarded in some way.

Yuval Noah Harari also points to ethical dilemma’s related to new technologies like self-driving cars. What if you can configure the decision mechanisms when the car faces a dilemma between protecting the driver and protecting other road users?

Religions should take humility more seriously. They should stick to their commandment not to use the name of God in vain. That would already block abuse of religions for worldly affairs like war.

It is extremely hard to discover the truth when you are ruling the world. Yuval Noah Harari doesn’t believe in a real autonomous authentic self. We are all subject to manipulation from our environment. Our brain is trained to be programmed by what happens around us. Becoming aware of this, is a first step to wisdom.

As we are good story-telling creatures, can we come up with a good story that holds us together and gives us an identity? It should be a story that gives everyone a role to play and extends beyond our horizon. It should be bigger than ourselves. Perhaps space travel, inspired by ancient myths could be considered, but the story is yet to be written.

The University of Leuven organises Lectures of the 21st century since several years now and the summaries are often inspiring for my blogs. I also refer to the Why of Technology.