Introduction: One hundred thousand years ago, there were at least six different kinds of people on the earth.
But today, why are we alone on the world stage?
From apes who can only eat the remains of tigers and wolves to homo sapiens who jumped to the top of the food chain,
From the fingerprints of primitive people on the walls of Chevy Cave to Armstrong's footprints on the moon,
From the cognitive revolution and agricultural revolution to the scientific revolution and biotechnology revolution,
How did we get on the world stage and become the spirit of all things?
From the code of hammurabi in 1776 BC to the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 BC,
From imperialism and capitalism to liberalism and consumerism,
From animal desire to material desire, from animal humanity to divinity,
Do we know ourselves? Are we happier?
What do we want and what do we want to be?
I was recommended this book when Luo Pang talked about improving the relationship between wheat and human beings, but I never had the heart to read it. When I was busy for a while and found nothing, I accidentally opened it.
The space is not very long. I listened to it on WeChat all day.
The author describes the history of human evolution from the Stone Age to 2 1 century, and divides human history into four stages: cognitive revolution, agricultural revolution, human integration and unity and scientific revolution.
A Summary of "Cognitive Revolution"
The first is the emergence of African Homo sapiens, who have the ability to gossip, so the tribe becomes bigger and more stable.
Everything that humans need to cooperate with comes from fictional stories, such as religion.
/kloc-0.0 million years ago, humans climbed to the top in the blink of an eye, and other species and humans themselves were not caught off guard.
About 70,000 years ago, modern Homo sapiens developed new language skills, enabling them to gossip for hours. Now, they can clearly know that in their own tribe. Who is more reliable, then the scale of the tribe can be expanded, and Homo sapiens can develop closer and more complicated forms of cooperation.
The focus of "fiction" is not only to let human beings have imagination, but more importantly, to jointly imagine and weave all kinds of fictional stories with the same meaning.
This is how the company came into being. The fact is that all animals can only be traded by Homo sapiens, and all the trading networks we have detailed evidence to prove are obviously based on fictional stories.
Summary of "Agricultural Revolution"
The agricultural revolution can be said to be the biggest scam in history. Because farmers work harder than gatherers, their diet is worse in the end.
In fact, we didn't domesticate wheat, but wheat domesticated us.
The real essence of the agricultural revolution: let more people live in worse conditions.
Simply put, the agricultural revolution is a trap. In order to "increase the number of copies of the Homo sapiens genome in the world", I hope you can lower your living standard. Do you agree? No one will agree to the deal.
Unfortunately, evolutionary perspective is not the only criterion for judging the success of species. It only considers survival and reproduction, regardless of individual pain or happiness. Although domestic chickens and cows may be the most successful representatives of evolution, they actually live the worst life in biological history. The domestication of animals is based on a series of barbaric acts, and the degree of cruelty only increases with the passage of time.
A Summary of "Human Integration and Unity"
The surplus food collected was used for politics, war, art and philosophy, and palaces, forts, monuments and temples were built.
Before the late modern times, more than 90% of the total population were farmers, who worked at sunrise and rested at sunset. The surplus grain they produced fed a few elites: kings, officials, soldiers, priests, artists and thinkers, but history is almost full of stories of these people. Therefore, history only tells us what very few people are doing, while the lives of the vast majority of others are constantly carrying water to plow the fields.
Words should be servants of human consciousness, but now they have become servants.
Throughout history, almost all societies have made many social and political divisions with the concepts of "pollution" and "cleanliness", and all ruling classes have spared no effort to use these concepts to safeguard their privileges.
In natural biology, the possibilities are almost endless. However, culture requires that some possibilities must be realized, while others are closed.
Historically, monotheism is like a kaleidoscope, which inherits monotheism, dualism, polytheism and pantheism and is contained under the same sacred discourse. Therefore, Christians generally believe in monotheistic gods, dualistic demons, polytheistic saints and pantheistic ghosts.
Every time in history is like a crossroads. Although there is only one-way street from the past to the present, there are countless forks in the road in the future. Some of these roads are relatively wide and flat, and the road signs are relatively clear, so they are also more likely choices. However, history sometimes chooses some completely unexpected roads.
A Summary of "Scientific Revolution"
There are three major differences between modern science and the previous knowledge system: 1. Willing to admit your ignorance.
2. Focus on observation and mathematics.
3. acquire new abilities.
What science can explain is what is in this world, how things work and what the future may be. By definition, science does not pretend to know what the future "must" is. Only religion and ideology will claim to know these answers.
We must remember that human history has never been innocent, and the Atlantic slave trade is no exception.
The core of the industrial revolution is actually the revolution of energy conversion.
However, all this is nothing compared with the biggest social revolution in human history: the collapse of families and local communities, and their replacement by the state and the market.
The two imaginary communities that emerged in modern times are "nation" and "consumer mass". The so-called nation is the community imagined by the country. The so-called consumer mass is the imaginary community of the market.
Many viewpoints have subverted my three views and opened my mind to another level of thinking. Although most netizens commented that there was less debate.
But if you are interested in this knowledge, and the books you read are scattered, and the knowledge you know is scattered, you can read this book.
Relatively speaking, the first half appeals to me more. Perhaps it is because of the lack of information that people's imagination can be fully exerted, so every story they tell is wonderful.
Modern history, with a lot of information, looks a bit tied behind your back, not as exciting and shocking as it looked before.
In short, I always believe that human beings are the masters of "stories", not the slaves of "stories".
When reading, think for yourself, not be taken away by the author. After reading it, I will be shocked by the author's extensive knowledge.
After reading it today, you must recommend it.