Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow - Couverture rigide

Harari, Yuval Noah

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1910701874 ISBN 13 : 9781910701874

Editeur : Harvill Secker, 2016

A propos du livre

Quatrième de couverture

In his critically acclaimed international bestseller Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari explained how humankind came to rule the planet. In Homo Deus, he examines humanity’s future, offering a vision of tomorrow that at first seems incomprehensible but soon looks undeniable: humanity will lose not only its dominance, but its very meaning.

Over the past century, humankind has managed to do the impossible: turn the uncontrollable forces of nature—namely, famine, plague, and war—into manageable challenges. Today more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists, and criminals combined. We are the only species in earth’s long history that has single-handedly changed the entire planet, and we no longer expect any higher being to mold our destinies for us.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? What destinies will we set for ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams, and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century, from overcoming death to creating artificial life. But the pursuit of these very goals may ultimately render most human beings superfluous. So where do we go from here? And how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? We cannot stop the march of history, but we can influence its direction.

Future-casting typically assumes that tomorrow, at its heart, will look much like today: we will possess amazing new technologies, but old humanist values like liberty and equality will still guide us. Homo Deus dismantles these assumptions and opens our eyes to a vast range of alternative possibilities, with provocative arguments on every page, among them:

• The main products of the twenty-first-century economy will not be textiles, vehicles, and weapons but bodies, brains, and minds.
• While the industrial revolution created the working class, the next big revolution will create the useless class.
• The way humans have treated animals is a good indicator for how upgraded humans will treat us.
• Democracy and the free market will both collapse once Google and Facebook know us better than we know ourselves, and authority will shift from individual humans to networked algorithms.
• Humans won’t fight machines; they will merge with them. We are heading toward marriage rather than war.

This is the shape of the new world, and the gap between those who get on board and those left behind will be larger than the gap between industrial empires and agrarian tribes, larger even than the gap between Sapiens and Neanderthals. This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

Revue de presse

"Homo Deus will shock you. It will entertain you. Above all, it will make you think in ways you had not thought before." (Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow)

"Shows us where mankind is headed in an absolutely clear-sighted and accessible manner" (Jarvis Cocker)

"Even more readable, even more important, than his excellent Sapiens" (Kazuo Ishiguro Guardian Books of the Year)

"An exhilarating book that takes the reader deep into questions of identity, consciousness and intelligence" (Observer)

"A brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading." (Evening Standard)

"Spellbinding... a quirky and cool book, with a sliver of ice at its heart" (Guardian)

"An intoxicating brew of science, philosophy and futurism." (Mail on Sunday)

"Yuval Noah Harari is the most entertaining and thought-provoking writer of non-fiction at the moment. As with Sapiens, you finish the book feeling much wiser" (Matt Haig)

"An exhilarating book that takes the reader deep into questions of identity, consciousness and intelligence... Harari is a naturally gifted explainer, invariably ready with a telling anecdote or memorable analogy. As a result, it’s tempting to see him less as historian than as some kind of all-purpose sage." (Andrew Anthony Observer)

"Sets out with enviable (and alarming) lucidity the massive challenges now facing our species as genetic technologies, AI and robotics alter forever our relationships with one another and with other species. It’s even more readable, even more important, than his excellent Sapiens." (Kazuo Ishiguro Guardian Books of the Year)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Harvill Secker
• Date d'édition: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1910701874
• ISBN 13: 9781910701874
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 448