Sapiens was one of the better books I’ve read this year. While a “popular” book, it’s fascinating and loved by people like Bill Gates and Naval Ravikant. It’s also well-written and flows pretty quickly for something that runs ~500 pages.

The book basically tracks the entire evolution of Homo sapiens starting with Homo Sapiens overcoming Home Erectus and Neanderthals to become the dominant species through the Agricultural Revolution, the creation of money, capitalism, the rise of Empires, the scientific revolution and the information revolution.

The book fairly presents both sides of some interesting debates along the way, e.g., were humans better off as hunter gatherers or was the Agricultural Revolution a good thing? It’s also realistic and direct, e.g., noting that the Agricultural Revolution was pretty shitty for everyone except the elites of society. Peasants were better off hunting and gathering.

Some of the early chapters are interesting in that they dispel some stuff that were taught in school growing up. E.g., the whole idea that climate change was solely responsible for the death of megafauna (giant sloths, mammoths, dierwolves) is hard to stick to in light of increasing evidence that they were hunted to extinction by humans in North America and elsewhere.

The book weaves in some good insights throughout. E.g., the idea that Sapiens’ success is the result of our ability to believe in collective fictions. Beliefs in early religions allowed groups of more than ~150 people to bind together and overcome Neanderthals. Our collective belief in money (which has no value in and of itself) allowed us to trade over massive areas and increase specialization, createing a more prosperous society.

He also looks at modern life through the lense of human history. While we once were bound together by religion, we’re now bound together by capitalism and consumerism. Why? Religion gave people a set of goals that were hard to meet, while capitalism gave them a goal that was easy to meet: keep spending! This has created an odd phenomenon: Historically, the rich have been spendthrifts, while the poor scrimped and saved; today, the opposite is true: the rich obsess over managing their capital while the poor blow through money to fuel our spend, spend, spend culture.

Overall, a very good book. I rate it 178.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4053778&forum_id=2#36630497)

180, greg cochran hammers on this a lot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4053778&forum_id=2#36630508)