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A review by deschatjes
Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
4.0
I have a small problem with reviewing this - on the one hand it was very interesting and insightful, on the other I kept on wanting to say "yes but ..." - the thing is it's easy to make these sweeping statements about the world and humanity and technology when viewed from 50,000 feet, but the reality on the ground is a little less prosaic and somewhat more messy. In fact a lot more messy. Added to this I'd just been listening to a freakanomics podcast in parallel on "prophets and wizards" and he is definitely is on the prophet side of things.
The thing is that nothing works quite as well as advertised and most technology is shockingly badly designed and executed, with vast tracts of interactions occurring with legacy systems from pre-2000 - ever tried to change your bank account address? I also have to bristle when authors make assumptions and projections based on flying into and out of countries (like the one on Beijing - where the day to day reality is so different from whatever snapshop he may have had in the moment he happened to be here).
But still it was a worthwhile read (listen), and I'm just pausing before embarking on Sapiens. I do however think that fiction writers do a better job on dystopian future than nonfiction writers.
The thing is that nothing works quite as well as advertised and most technology is shockingly badly designed and executed, with vast tracts of interactions occurring with legacy systems from pre-2000 - ever tried to change your bank account address? I also have to bristle when authors make assumptions and projections based on flying into and out of countries (like the one on Beijing - where the day to day reality is so different from whatever snapshop he may have had in the moment he happened to be here).
But still it was a worthwhile read (listen), and I'm just pausing before embarking on Sapiens. I do however think that fiction writers do a better job on dystopian future than nonfiction writers.