The Discovery of Ignorance

Excerpt from Chapter 14 – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Until recently, you would not have heard scientists, or anyone else, speak so bluntly. “Defeat death?! What nonsense! We are only trying to cure cancer, tuberculosis, and Alzheimer’s disease,” they insisted. People avoided the issue of death because the goal seemed too elusive. Why create unreasonable expectations? We’re now at a point, however, where we can be frank about it. The leading project of the Scientific Revolution is to give humankind eternal life. Even if killing death seems a distant goal, we have already achieved things that were inconceivable a few centuries ago.

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A Permanent Revolution

Excerpt from Chapter 18 – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

In Africa things are far less rosy. But even there, most conflicts are civil wars and coups. Since African states won their independence in the 1960s and 1970s, very few countries have invaded one another in the hope of conquest.

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The End of Homo Sapiens

Excerpt from Chapter 20 – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Biological engineering is deliberate human intervention on the biological level (e.g. implanting a gene) aimed at modifying an organism’s shape, capabilities, needs, or desires, in order to realize some preconceived cultural idea.

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