In the conclusion of his dense work, the author discusses the censorship of past centuries. In the past, information was blocked; today, in the 21st century, people are flooded with information that is often quite useless and irrelevant. By drowning the public in scoops, we kill the information.
This is a perfect summary of his book where Yuval Noah Harari develops his thesis on the transformation of human beings from Homo Sapiens to Homo Deus. To put it simply, he deifies man, a man becoming immortal, a man stronger than Faust. God is dead, he tells us, but since nature abhors a vacuum, God must be replaced.
Right from the start, he errs in focusing his analysis on the economic dimension. Consumption becoming the engine of progress, it can neither stop nor slow down, but rather accelerates. While recent developments in progress, notably in medicine and electronics, seem to prove him right, he forgets the human dimension, the scale of man.
In his scheme, it’s true, he deifies man, but is this man happy? That’s another question, outside the scope of his thesis. Homo Deus is a very interesting book from a historical standpoint; its analysis of humanity’s evolution is very relevant.
We have only one criticism: Yuval Noah Harari positions himself against the current aspirations of society, which seems to want something other than the capitalist consumer society. Certainly, in a way, he denounces it while describing the necessary consumerist pursuit to prevent the halt of scientific progress.
Must we sacrifice human happiness to the stock market, the bank, and the shareholders? This is his mistake, that of reasoning on a materialistic level and thus being unable to envision a spiritual consciousness in man.
This book deserves to be read; it raises many questions, and above all, it makes us aware of the inquisitorial nature of new information sources. It’s a bit like the tree that hides the forest, or if you prefer: too much information kills the information.
by Thierry Jan
