Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.”
21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a non-fiction by Yuval Noah Harari. It’s an insightful book on how to know which things to worry about, and how much to worry about them.Each lesson befits a TedX talk. This book highlights today’s most pressing political, cultural, and economic challenges created by technology while helping us prepare for an uncertain future. A 400 pages which discusses today’s greatest challenges, most important changes, what should we pay attention to and what should we teach our kids. Harari divides the book into five parts and chooses twenty-one topics to disuss in this book— the technological challenge (part 1), the political challenge (part 2), despair and hope (part 3), truth (part 4), and resilience (part 5).
“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.”
With twenty-one topics, Harari makes a determined effort to deal with the future of work and education, the wide-ranging and growing influence of data collection on people’s lives, the increasingly threatening rupture around the foundation of the European Union, the conflict between secularism and religion, and a trio of existential threats: climate change, nuclear war, and artificial intelligence. I found the three chapters on Liberty, Equality and Community especially engaging. Ideas burst from every page; many of these are highly controversial so there is never a dull moment.
“It takes a lot of courage to fight biases and oppressive regimes, but it takes even greater courage to admit ignorance and venture into the unknown. Secular education teaches us that if we don’t know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of acknowledging our ignorance and looking for new evidence. Even if we think we know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of doubting our opinions and checking ourselves again. Many people are afraid of the unknown, and want clear-cut answers for every question. Fear of the unknown can paralyse us more than any tyrant. People throughout history worried that unless we put all our faith in some set of absolute answers, human society will crumble. In fact, modern history has demonstrated that a society of courageous people willing to admit ignorance and raise difficult questions is usually not just more prosperous but also more peaceful than societies in which everyone must unquestioningly accept a single answer. People afraid of losing their truth tend to be more violent than people who are used to looking at the world from several different viewpoints. Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.”
Harari discusses that life in 15th-century China was pretty slow, but now in the modern era the pace of change feels unstoppable. He further reiterates that religion can be bad, but has its uses. Nationalism can be bad, but has its uses. Factory farming is very, very bad. Liberalism is good, but under threat. Hunter-gathering is a more exciting lifestyle choice than farming, or working in a factory. Technological advances bring Big Ethical Questions. He argues that collective myths, such as money and laws, have allowed us to build huge, complicated societies far beyond what our biological limitations might suggest is possible. But in the secular west, religion is fading from public life. And in our globalised world, the idea of a unified nation-state is threatened. Being a Histotrian himself, Harari brings in a lot of historical facts in this book. So its interesting as you flip each page you’re fed with history of the worlf lessons.
The Twenty-one Lessons are-
Part 1- The Technological Challenge
1. Disillusionment
2. Work
3. Liberty
4. Equality
Part 2- The Political Challenge
5. Community
6. Civilisation
7. Nationalism
8. Religion
9. Immigration
Part 3- Despair and Hope
10. Terorism
11. War
12. Humility
13. God
14. Secularism
Part 4- Truth
15. Ignorance
16. Justice
17. Post- Truth
18. Science Fition
Part 5- Resillience
19. Education
20. Meaning
21. Meditation
Summing up the entire book in three points:
-Whoever owns the data wins, which is why everyone struggles for it.
-We don’t know, we just think we do – and that’s a problem.
-Education must show us how to navigate information, not give us more of it.
“Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely.”
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