34: Money, Power, and God: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – Part II

Today, we are used to thinking about the whole planet as a single unit, but for most of history, earth was in fact an entire galaxy of isolated human worlds.

In this episode of Made You Think, Adil, Neil and I continue to discuss Sapiens by Yuval Harari. In this second part we cover the most recent part of Human and Society evolution and how we moved from scattered collection of isolated human beings to a cohesive global civilization.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the daily life of most humans ran its course within three ancient frames: the nuclear family, the extended family and the local intimate community. Most people worked in the family business or their neighbours’ family businesses. The family was also the welfare system, the health system, the education system, the construction industry, the trade union, the pension fund, the insurance company, the radio, the television, the newspapers, the bank and even the police. Yet throughout history, such imagined communities played second fiddle to intimate communities of several dozen people who knew each other well. The intimate communities fulfilled the emotional needs of their members and were essential for everyone’s survival and welfare. In the last two centuries, the intimate communities have withered, leaving imagined communities to fill in the emotional vacuum. The two most important examples for the rise of such imagined communities are the nation and the consumer tribe.

We cover a wide range of topics, including:

• Cognitive Dissonance as a survival feature of human beings
• The absurd of national identity when talking about ethnic cuisine
• Industrial Revolution, Internet, and the re-framing of communities
• Who was the first guy to circumnavigate the world
• How merchants shaped today’s world
• Meaning of Happiness

And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Sapiens by Yuval Harari!

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault, a book that covers Postmodernism, a kind of Religion according to Harari, as well as our notes on The Way of Zen, to know more about Buddhism and the search of Peace.

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Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show

• Four Sigmatic Mushroom Coffee [0:45]
• Polytheism [13:46]
• Christianity [13:46]
• Judaism [13:46]
• Muslim [13:46]
• Mahomet [13:46]
• Janaism [19:01]
• Buddhism [19:40]
• Postmodernism (Discipline and Punish episode) [24:59]
• Pepe the Frog Meme [27:29]
• Was Magellan the first p