Notebook for
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Harari, Yuval Noah
Citation (APA): Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind [Kindle Android version].
Retrieved from Amazon.com
Part One: The Cognitive Revolution
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About 70,000 years ago, organisms belonging to the species Homo sapiens started to form even more elaborate
structures called cultures.
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Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: the Cognitive Revolution kick- started history
about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 12,000 years ago. The Scientific
Revolution, which got under way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start something completely
different.
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The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals with no
more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.
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Animals are said to belong to the same species if they tend to mate with each other, giving birth to fertile
offspring.
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Species that evolved from a common ancestor are bunched together under the heading ‘genus’
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That evolution should select for larger brains may seem to us like, well, a no- brainer. We are so enamoured
of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to cerebral power, more must be better.
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The fact is that a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. It’s not easy to carry around, especially when
encased inside a massive skull. It’s even harder to fuel. In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2– 3
per cent of total body weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By
comparison, the brains of other apes require only 8 per cent of rest- time energy.
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Today our big brains pay off nicely, because we can produce cars and guns that enable us to move much faster
than chimps, and shoot them from a safe distance instead of wrestling.
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But cars and guns are a recent phenomenon. For more than 2 million years, human neural networks kept growing
and growing, but apart from some flint knives and pointed sticks, humans had precious little to show for it.
What then drove forward the evolution of the massive human brain during those 2 million years? Frankly, we
don’t know.
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Another singular human trait is that we walk upright on two legs.
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Humankind paid for its lofty vision and industrious hands with backaches and stiff necks.
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Women who gave birth earlier, when the infant’s brain and head were still relatively small and supple, fared
better and lived to have more children. Natural selection consequently favoured earlier births. And, indeed,
compared to other animals, humans are born prematurely, when many of their vital systems are still
underdeveloped. A colt can trot shortly after birth; a kitten leaves its mother to forage on its own when it
is just a few weeks old. Human babies are helpless, dependent for many years on their elders for sustenance,
protection and education.
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neighbours. It takes a tribe to raise a human. Evolution thus favoured those capable of forming strong
social ties. In addition, since humans are born underdeveloped, they can be educated and socialised to a far
greater extent than any other animal. Most mammals emerge from the womb like glazed earthenware emerging
from a kiln– any attempt at remoulding will only scratch or break them. Humans emerge from the womb like
molten glass from a furnace. They can be spun, stretched and shaped with a surprising degree of freedom.
This is why today we can educate our children to become Christian or Buddhist, capitalist or socialist,
warlike or peace- loving.
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Genus Homo’s position in the food chain was, until quite recently, solidly in the middle. For millions of
years, humans hunted smaller creatures and gathered what they could, all the while being hunted by larger
predators. It was only 400,000 years ago that several species of man began to hunt large game on a regular
basis, and only in the last 100,000 years– with the rise of Homo sapiens– that man jumped to the top of the
food chain.
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Other animals at the top of the pyramid, such as lions and sharks, evolved into that position very
gradually, over millions of years. This enabled the ecosystem to develop checks and balances that prevent
lions and sharks from wreaking too much havoc.
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In contrast, humankind ascended to the top so quickly that the ecosystem was not given time to adjust.
Moreover, humans themselves failed to adjust. Most top predators of the planet are majestic creatures.
Millions of years of dominion have filled them with self- confidence. Sapiens by contrast is more like a
banana- republic dictator. Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of
fears and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous. Many historical
calamities, from deadly wars to ecological catastrophes, have resulted from this over- hasty jump.
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A significant step on the way to the top was the domestication of fire.
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Humans now had a dependable source of light and warmth, and a deadly weapon against prowling lions. Not long
afterwards, humans may even have started deliberately to torch their neighbourhoods. A carefully managed
fire could turn impassable barren thickets into prime grasslands teeming with game. In addition, once the
fire died down, Stone Age entrepreneurs could walk through the smoking remains and harvest charcoaled
animals, nuts and tubers.
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the best thing fire did was cook. Foods that humans cannot digest in their natural forms– such as wheat,
rice and potatoes– became staples of our diet thanks to cooking. Fire not only changed food’s chemistry, it
changed its biology as well. Cooking killed germs and parasites that infested food. Humans also had a far
easier time chewing and digesting old favourites such as fruits, nuts, insects and carrion if they were
cooked.
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The advent of cooking enabled humans to eat more kinds of food, to devote less time to eating, and to make
do with smaller teeth and shorter intestines.
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Most importantly, the power of fire was not limited by the form, structure or strength of the human body. A
single woman with a flint or fire stick could burn down an entire forest in a matter of hours. The
domestication of fire was a sign of things to come.
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We don’t know exactly where and when animals that can be classified as Homo sapiens first evolved from some
earlier type of humans, but most scientists agree that by 150,000 years ago, East Africa was populated by
Sapiens that looked just like us.
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Scientists also agree that about 70,000 years ago, Sapiens from East Africa spread into the Arabian
peninsula, and from there they quickly overran the entire Eurasian landmass. When Homo sapiens landed in
Arabia, most of Eurasia was already settled by other humans. What happened to them? There are two
conflicting theories.
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According to the Interbreeding Theory, when Sapiens spread into Neanderthal lands, Sapiens bred with
Neanderthals until the two populations merged. If this is the case, then today’s Eurasians are not pure
Sapiens. They are a mixture of Sapiens and Neanderthals. Similarly, when Sapiens reached East Asia, they
interbred with the local Erectus, so the Chinese and Koreans are a mixture of Sapiens and Erectus.
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The opposing view, called the ‘Replacement Theory’ tells a very different story– one of incompatibility,
revulsion, and perhaps even genocide. According to this theory, Sapiens and other humans had different
anatomies, and most likely different mating habits and even body odours.  And even if a Neanderthal Romeo and a Sapiens Juliet fell in love, they could not
produce fertile children, because the genetic gulf separating the two populations was already unbridgeable.
The two populations remained completely distinct, and when the Neanderthals died out, or were killed off,
their genes died with them. According to this view, Sapiens replaced all the previous human populations
without merging with them. If that is the case, the lineages of all contemporary humans can be traced back,
exclusively, to East Africa, 70,000 years ago. We are all ‘pure Sapiens’.
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A lot hinges on this debate. From an evolutionary perspective, 70,000 years is a relatively short interval.
If the Replacement Theory is correct, all living humans have roughly the same genetic baggage, and racial
distinctions among them are negligible. But if the Interbreeding Theory is right, there might well be
genetic differences between Africans, Europeans and Asians that go back hundreds of thousands of years. This
is political dynamite, which could provide material for explosive racial theories.
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It turned out that 1– 4 per cent of the unique human DNA of modern populations in the Middle East and Europe
is Neanderthal DNA. That’s not a huge amount, but it’s significant.
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If these results are valid– and it’s important to keep in mind that further research is under way and may
either reinforce or modify these conclusions– the Interbreeders got at least some things right. But that
doesn’t mean that the Replacement Theory is completely wrong.
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Clearly, they were not completely different species like horses and donkeys. On the other hand, they were
not just different populations of the same species, like bulldogs and spaniels. Biological reality is not
black and white. There are also important grey areas.
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why did they vanish? One possibility is that Homo sapiens drove them to extinction. Imagine a Sapiens band
reaching a Balkan valley where Neanderthals had lived for hundreds of thousands of years. The newcomers
began to hunt the deer and gather the nuts and berries that were the Neanderthals’ traditional staples.
Sapiens were more proficient hunters and gatherers– thanks to better technology and superior social skills–
so they multiplied and spread. The less resourceful Neanderthals found it increasingly difficult to feed
themselves. Their population dwindled and they slowly died out, except perhaps for one or two members who
joined their Sapiens neighbours.
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Another possibility is that competition for resources flared up into violence and genocide. Tolerance is not
a Sapiens trademark. In modern times, a small difference in skin colour, dialect or religion has been enough
to prompt one group of Sapiens to set about exterminating another group. Would ancient Sapiens have been
more tolerant towards an entirely different human species? It may well be that when Sapiens encountered
Neanderthals, the result was the first and most significant ethnic- cleansing campaign in history.
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Whether Sapiens are to blame or not, no sooner had they arrived at a new location than the native population
became extinct.
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Sapiens can produce many more distinct sounds than green monkeys, but whales and elephants have equally
impressive abilities. A parrot can say anything Albert Einstein could say, as well as mimicking the sounds
of phones ringing, doors slamming and sirens wailing. Whatever advantage Einstein had over a parrot, it
wasn’t vocal.
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The most common answer is that our language is amazingly supple. We can connect a limited number of sounds
and signs to produce an infinite number of sentences, each with a distinct meaning. We can thereby ingest,
store and communicate a prodigious amount of information about the surrounding world.
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When two males are contesting the alpha position, they usually do so by forming extensive coalitions of
supporters,
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The alpha male usually wins his position not because he is physically stronger, but because he leads a large
and stable coalition. These coalitions play a central part not only during overt struggles for the alpha
position, but in almost all day- to- day activities. Members of a coalition spend more time together, share
food, and help one another in times of trouble.
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the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither
intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings. Even today, a critical threshold
in human organisations falls somewhere around this magic number. Below this threshold, communities,
businesses, social networks and military units can maintain themselves based mainly on intimate acquaintance
and rumour- mongering. There is no need for formal ranks, titles and law books to keep order.
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But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things can no longer work that way.  Successful family businesses usually
face a crisis when they grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent themselves, they go
bust.
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How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of
thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of
fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-
scale human cooperation– whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe– is
rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.
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Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no
gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common
imagination of human beings.
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What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis. Take for
example the world of business corporations. Modern businesspeople and lawyers are, in fact, powerful
sorcerers.
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In what sense can we say that Peugeot SA (the company’s official name) exists? There are many Peugeot
vehicles, but these are obviously not the company. Even if every Peugeot in the world were simultaneously
junked and sold for scrap metal, Peugeot SA would not disappear. It would continue to manufacture new cars
and issue its annual report. The company owns factories, machinery and showrooms, and employs mechanics,
accountants and secretaries, but all these together do not comprise Peugeot.
Even then, the company could borrow money, hire new employees, build new factories and buy new machinery.
Peugeot has managers and shareholders, but neither do they constitute the company. All the managers could be
dismissed and all its shares sold, but the company itself would remain intact.
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Modern example of myths created to add order and structure to society.
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Peugeot is a figment of our collective imagination. Lawyers call this a ‘legal fiction’. It can’t be pointed
at; it is not a physical object. But it exists as a legal entity. Just like you or me, it is bound by the
laws of the countries in which it operates. It can open a bank account and own property. It pays taxes, and
it can be sued and even prosecuted separately from any of the people who own or work for it.
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Peugeot belongs to a particular genre of legal fictions called ‘limited liability companies’. The idea
behind such companies is among humanity’s most ingenious inventions. Homo sapiens lived for untold millennia
without them.
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During most of recorded history property could be owned only by flesh- and- blood humans, the kind that
stood on two legs and had big brains. If in thirteenth- century France Jean set up a wagon- manufacturing
workshop, he himself was the business. If a wagon he’d made broke down a week after purchase, the
disgruntled buyer would have sued Jean personally. If Jean had borrowed 1,000 gold coins to set up his
workshop and the business failed, he would have had to repay the loan by selling his private property– his
house, his cow, his land. He might even have had to sell his children into servitude. If he couldn’t cover
the debt, he could be thrown in prison by the state or enslaved by his creditors. He was fully liable,
without limit, for all obligations incurred by his workshop. If you had lived back then, you would probably
have thought twice before you opened an enterprise of your own. And indeed this legal situation discouraged
entrepreneurship. People were afraid to start new businesses and take economic risks. It hardly seemed worth
taking the chance that their families could end up utterly destitute.
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How businesses worked before
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This is why people began collectively to imagine the existence of limited liability companies. Such
companies were legally independent of the people who set them up, or invested money in them, or managed
them. Over the last few centuries such companies have become the main players in the economic arena, and we
have grown so used to them that we forget they exist only in our imagination. In the US, the technical term
for a limited liability company is a ‘corporation’, which is ironic, because the term derives from ‘corpus’
(‘ body’ in Latin)– the one thing these corporations lack. Despite their having no real bodies, the American
legal system treats corporations as legal persons, as if they were flesh- and- blood human beings.
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If the company borrowed millions of francs and then went bust, Armand Peugeot did not owe its creditors a
single franc. The loan, after all, had been given to Peugeot, the company, not to Armand Peugeot, the Homo
sapiens.
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Armand Peugeot died in 1915. Peugeot, the company, is still alive and well. How exactly did Armand Peugeot,
the man, create Peugeot, the company? In much the same way that priests and sorcerers have created gods and
demons throughout history, and in which thousands of French curés were still creating Christ’s body every
Sunday in the parish churches. It all revolved around telling stories, and convincing people to believe
them.
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In the case of Peugeot SA the crucial story was the French legal code, as written by the French parliament.
According to the French legislators, if a certified lawyer followed all the proper liturgy and rituals,
wrote all the required spells and oaths on a wonderfully decorated piece of paper, and affixed his ornate
signature to the bottom of the document, then hocus pocus– a new company was incorporated. When in 1896
Armand Peugeot wanted to create his company, he paid a lawyer to go through all these sacred procedures.
Once the lawyer had performed all the right rituals and pronounced all the necessary spells and oaths,
millions of upright French citizens behaved as if the Peugeot company really existed. Telling effective
stories is not easy. The difficulty lies not in telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to
believe it. Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to
believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it
gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common
goals. Just try to imagine how difficult it would have been to create states, or churches, or legal systems
if we could speak only about things that really exist, such as rivers, trees and lions.
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The kinds of things that people create through this network of stories are known in academic circles as
‘fictions’, ‘social constructs’ or ‘imagined realities’.
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An imagined reality is not a lie. I lie when I say that there is a lion near the river when I know perfectly
well that there is no lion there. There is nothing special about lies. Green monkeys and chimpanzees can
lie. A green monkey, for example, has been observed calling ‘Careful! A lion!’ when there was no lion
around.
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Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal
belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. The sculptor from the Stadel Cave may
sincerely have believed in the existence of the lion- man guardian spirit. Some sorcerers are charlatans,
but most sincerely believe in the existence of gods and demons. Most millionaires sincerely believe in the
existence of money and limited liability companies. Most human- rights activists sincerely believe in the
existence of human rights. No one was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan government
respect the human rights of its citizens, even though the UN, Libya and human rights are all figments of our
fertile imaginations.
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Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the
objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations
and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very
survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and
Google.
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The ability to create an imagined reality out of words enabled large numbers of strangers to cooperate
effectively. But it also did something more. Since large- scale human cooperation is based on myths, the way
people cooperate can be altered by changing the myths– by telling different stories.
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The behaviour of other social animals is determined to a large extent by their genes. DNA is not an
autocrat. Animal behaviour is also influenced by environmental factors and individual quirks. Nevertheless,
in a given environment, animals of the same species will tend to behave in a similar way. Significant
changes in social behaviour cannot occur, in general, without genetic mutations.
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For example, common chimpanzees have a genetic tendency to live in hierarchical groups headed by an alpha
male. Members of a closely related chimpanzee species, bonobos, usually live in more egalitarian groups
dominated by female alliances. Female common chimpanzees cannot take lessons from their bonobo relatives and
stage a feminist revolution. Male chimps cannot gather in a constitutional assembly to abolish the office of
alpha male and declare that from here on out all chimps are to be treated as equals. Such dramatic changes
in behaviour would occur only if something changed in the chimpanzees’ DNA.
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species. As long as Homo erectus did not undergo further genetic alterations, its stone tools remained
roughly the same– for close to 2 million years!
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In contrast, ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have been able to change their behaviour quickly,
transmitting new behaviours to future generations without any need of genetic or environmental change.
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In other words, while the behaviour patterns of archaic humans remained fixed for tens of thousands of
years, Sapiens could transform their social structures, the nature of their interpersonal relations, their
economic activities and a host of other behaviours within a decade or two.
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The global trade network of today is based on our trust in such fictional entities as the dollar, the
Federal Reserve Bank, and the totemic trademarks of corporations. When two strangers in a tribal society
want to trade, they will often establish trust by appealing to a common god, mythical ancestor or totem
animal.
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The immense diversity of imagined realities that Sapiens invented, and the resulting diversity of behaviour
patterns, are the main components of what we call ‘cultures’. Once cultures appeared, they never ceased to
change and develop, and these unstoppable alterations are what we call ‘history’.
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The Cognitive Revolution is accordingly the point when history declared its independence from biology. Until
the Cognitive Revolution, the doings of all human species belonged to the realm of biology, or, if you so
prefer, prehistory
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The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mythical glue that binds together large numbers of
individuals, families and groups. This glue has made us the masters of creation.
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the ability to make and use tools. Yet tool- making is of little consequence unless it is coupled with the
ability to cooperate with many others.
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For nearly the entire history of our species, Sapiens lived as foragers. The past 200 years, during which
ever increasing numbers of Sapiens have obtained their daily bread as urban labourers and office workers,
and the preceding 10,000 years, during which most Sapiens lived as farmers and herders, are the blink of an
eye compared to the tens of thousands of years during which our ancestors hunted and gathered.
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The instinct to gorge on high- calorie food was hard- wired into our genes.
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There was just one exception to this general rule: the dog. The dog was the first animal domesticated by
Homo sapiens, and this occurred before the Agricultural Revolution. Experts disagree about the exact date,
but we have incontrovertible evidence of domesticated dogs from about 15,000 years ago. They may have joined
the human pack thousands of years earlier.
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The average person lived many months without seeing or hearing a human from outside of her own band,
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In other words, the average forager had wider, deeper and more varied knowledge of her immediate
surroundings than most of her modern descendants. Today, most people in industrial societies don’t need to
know much about the natural world in order to survive.
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The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient
foragers were the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history.
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There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens brain has actually decreased since the age of
foraging. 5 Survival in that era required superb mental abilities from everyone. When agriculture and
industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new ‘niches for
imbeciles’ were opened up. You could survive and pass your unremarkable genes to the next generation by
working as a water carrier or an assembly- line worker.
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Varied and constant use of their bodies made them as fit as marathon runners. They had physical dexterity
that people today are unable to achieve even after years of practising yoga or t’ai chi.
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The hunter- gatherer way of life differed significantly from region to region and from season to season, but
on the whole foragers seem to have enjoyed a more comfortable and rewarding lifestyle than most of the
peasants, shepherds, labourers and office clerks who followed in their footsteps.
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While people in today’s affluent societies work an average of forty to forty- five hours a week, and people
in the developing world work sixty and even eighty hours a week, hunter- gatherers living today in the most
inhospitable of habitats– such as the Kalahari Desert– work on average for just thirty- five to forty- five
hours a week.
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Evidence from fossilised skeletons indicates that ancient foragers were less likely to suffer from
starvation or malnutrition, and were generally taller and healthier than their peasant descendants. Average
life expectancy was apparently just thirty to forty years, but this was due largely to the high incidence of
child mortality. Children who made it through the perilous first years had a good chance of reaching the age
of sixty, and some even made it to their eighties. Among modern foragers, forty- five- year- old women can
expect to live another twenty years, and about 5– 8 per cent of the population is over sixty. 6
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The typical peasant in traditional China ate rice for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner. If she
was lucky, she could expect to eat the same on the following day. By contrast, ancient foragers regularly
ate dozens of different foodstuffs. The peasant’s ancient ancestor, the forager, may have eaten berries and
mushrooms for breakfast; fruits, snails and turtle for lunch; and rabbit steak with wild onions for dinner.
Tomorrow’s menu might have been completely different. This variety ensured that the ancient foragers
received all the necessary nutrients.
Part Two: The Agricultural Revolution
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Sapiens too continued to live by gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals. Why do anything else when
your lifestyle feeds you amply and supports a rich world of social structures, religious beliefs and
political dynamics? All this changed about 10,000 years ago, when Sapiens began to devote almost all their
time and effort to manipulating the lives of a few animal and plant species. From sunrise to sunset humans
sowed seeds, watered plants, plucked weeds from the ground and led sheep to prime pastures. This work, they
thought, would provide them with more fruit, grain and meat. It was a revolution in the way humans lived–
the Agricultural Revolution.
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by 3500 BC the main wave of domestication was over. Even today, with all our advanced technologies, more
than 90 per cent of the calories that feed humanity come from the handful of plants that our ancestors
domesticated between 9500 and 3500 BC– wheat, rice, maize (called ‘corn’ in the US), potatoes, millet and
barley. No noteworthy plant or animal has been domesticated in the last 2,000 years. If our minds are those
of hunter- gatherers, our cuisine is that of ancient farmers.
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The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the
extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population
explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse
diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.
Highlight (yellow) - 5. History’s Biggest Fraud > Page 83
This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse
conditions.
Highlight (yellow) - 5. History’s Biggest Fraud > Page 87
The pursuit of an easier life resulted in much hardship, and not for the last time. It happens to us today.
How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high- powered firms, vowing that they will
work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are
thirty- five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in
the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without
really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots?
No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away.
Highlight (blue) - 5. History’s Biggest Fraud > Page 97
This discrepancy between evolutionary success and individual suffering is perhaps the most important lesson
we can draw from the Agricultural Revolution. When we study the narrative of plants such as wheat and maize,
maybe the purely evolutionary perspective makes sense. Yet in the case of animals such as cattle, sheep and
Sapiens, each with a complex world of sensations and emotions, we have to consider how evolutionary success
translates into individual experience. In the following chapters we will see time and again how a dramatic
increase in the collective power and ostensible success of our species went hand in hand with much
individual suffering.
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 98
THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION is one of the most controversial events in history. Some partisans proclaim that
it set humankind on the road to prosperity and progress. Others insist that it led to perdition. This was
the turning point, they say, where Sapiens cast off its intimate symbiosis with nature and sprinted towards
greed and alienation. Whichever direction the road led, there was no going back. Farming enabled populations
to increase so radically and rapidly that no complex agricultural society could ever again sustain itself if
it returned to hunting and gathering.
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 101
History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and
carrying water buckets.
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 108
It is easy for us to accept that the division of people into ‘superiors’ and ‘commoners’ is a figment of the
imagination. Yet the idea that all humans are equal is also a myth. In what sense do all humans equal one
another? Is there any objective reality, outside the human imagination, in which we are truly equal? Are all
humans equal to one another biologically? Let us try to translate the most famous line of the American
Declaration of Independence into biological terms:
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 111
However, an imagined order cannot be sustained by violence alone. It requires some true believers as well.
Highlight (pink) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 112
How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism?
First, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an
objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. People are unequal, not because
Hammurabi said so, but because Enlil and Marduk decreed it. People are equal, not because Thomas Jefferson
said so, but because God created them that way. Free markets are the best economic system, not because Adam
Smith said so, but because these are the immutable laws of nature.
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 113
You also educate people thoroughly. From the moment they are born, you constantly remind them of the
principles of the imagined order, which are incorporated into anything and everything. They are incorporated
into fairy tales, dramas, paintings, songs, etiquette, political propaganda, architecture, recipes and
fashions. For example, today people believe in equality, so it’s fashionable for rich kids to wear jeans,
which were originally working- class attire.
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 113
Three main factors prevent people from realising that the order organising their lives exists only in their
imagination:
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 113
The imagined order is embedded in the material world. Though the imagined order exists only in our minds, it
can be woven into the material reality around us, and even set in stone. Most Westerners today believe in
individualism. They believe that every human is an individual, whose worth does not depend on what other
people think of him or her. Each of us has within ourselves a brilliant ray of light that gives value and
meaning to our lives. In modern Western schools teachers and parents tell children that if their classmates
make fun of them, they should ignore it. Only they themselves, not others, know their true worth.
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 114
The imagined order shapes our desires. Most people do not wish to accept that the order governing their
lives is imaginary, but in fact every person is born into a pre- existing imagined order, and his or her
desires are shaped from birth by its dominant myths. Our personal desires thereby become the imagined
order’s most important defences.
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 114
Friends giving advice often tell each other, ‘Follow your heart.’ But the heart is a double agent that
usually takes its instructions from the dominant myths of the day, and the very recommendation to ‘follow
your heart’ was implanted in our minds by a combination of nineteenth- century Romantic myths and twentieth-
century consumerist myths.
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 115
Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order. Let’s
consider, for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. There is nothing natural or obvious
about this. A chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his power in order to go on holiday into the
territory of a neighbouring chimpanzee band.
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 115
People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of
romantic consumerism. Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must
have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions;
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 115
Romanticism, which encourages variety, meshes perfectly with consumerism. Their marriage has given birth to
the infinite ‘market of experiences’, on which the modern tourism industry is founded.
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c. The imagined order is inter- subjective. Even if by some superhuman effort I succeed in freeing my
personal desires from the grip of the imagined order, I am just one person. In order to change the imagined
order I must convince millions of strangers to cooperate with me. For the imagined order is not a subjective
order existing in my own imagination– it is rather an inter- subjective order, existing in the shared
imagination of thousands and millions of people.
Highlight (orange) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 117
In order to understand this, we need to understand the difference between ‘objective’, ‘subjective’, and
‘inter- subjective’.
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 117
An objective phenomenon exists independently of human consciousness and human beliefs. Radioactivity, for
example, is not a myth. Radioactive emissions occurred long before people discovered them, and they are
dangerous even when people do not believe in them.
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 117
The subjective is something that exists depending on the consciousness and beliefs of a single individual.
It disappears or changes if that particular individual changes his or her beliefs.
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 117
The inter- subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective
consciousness of many individuals. If a single individual changes his or her beliefs, or even dies, it is of
little importance. However, if most individuals in the network die or change their beliefs, the inter-
subjective phenomenon will mutate or disappear.
Highlight (blue) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 117
Many of history’s most important drivers are inter- subjective: law, money, gods, nations.
Highlight (pink) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 118
A change of such magnitude can be accomplished only with the help of a complex organisation, such as a
political party, an ideological movement, or a religious cult. However, in order to establish such complex
organisations, it’s necessary to convince many strangers to cooperate with one another. And this will happen
only if these strangers believe in some shared myths. It follows that in order to change an existing
imagined order, we must first believe in an alternative imagined order.
Highlight (yellow) - 6. Building Pyramids > Page 118
In order to dismantle Peugeot, for example, we need to imagine something more powerful, such as the French
legal system. In order to dismantle the French legal system we need to imagine something even more powerful,
such as the French state. And if we would like to dismantle that too, we will have to imagine something yet
more powerful.
Highlight (yellow) - 7. Memory Overload > Page 124
It is telling that the first recorded name in history belongs to an accountant, rather than a prophet, a
poet or a great conqueror.
Highlight (yellow) - 7. Memory Overload > Page 130
The most important impact of script on human history is precisely this: it has gradually changed the way
humans think and view the world. Free association and holistic thought have given way to
compartmentalisation and bureaucracy.
Part Three: The Unification of Humankind
Highlight (yellow) - 9. The Arrow of History > Page 165
If tensions, conflicts and irresolvable dilemmas are the spice of every culture, a human being who belongs
to any particular culture must hold contradictory beliefs and be riven by incompatible values. It’s such an
essential feature of any culture that it even has a name: cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is
often considered a failure of the human psyche. In fact, it is a vital asset. Had people been unable to hold
contradictory beliefs and values, it would probably have been impossible to establish and maintain any human
culture.
Highlight (yellow) - 10. The Scent of Money > Page 176
In a barter economy, every day the shoemaker and the apple grower will have to learn anew the relative
prices of dozens of commodities. If one hundred different commodities are traded in the market, then buyers
and sellers will have to know 4,950 different exchange rates. And if 1,000 different commodities are traded,
buyers and sellers must juggle 499,500 different exchange rates! 5 How do you figure it out?
Highlight (yellow) - 10. The Scent of Money > Page 177
Money is not coins and banknotes. Money is anything that people are willing to use in order to represent
systematically the value of other things for the purpose of exchanging goods and services. Money enables
people to compare quickly and easily the value of different commodities (such as apples, shoes and
divorces), to easily exchange one thing for another, and to store wealth conveniently.
Highlight (yellow) - 10. The Scent of Money > Page 179
Money is thus a universal medium of exchange that enables people to convert almost everything into almost
anything else.
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Money is accordingly a system of mutual trust, and not just any system of mutual trust: money is the most
universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
Highlight (yellow) - 10. The Scent of Money > Page 183
That’s why counterfeiting money has always been considered a much more serious crime than other acts of
deception. Counterfeiting is not just cheating– it’s a breach of sovereignty, an act of subversion against
the power, privileges and person of the king. The legal term is lese- majesty (violating majesty), and was
typically punished by torture and death. As long as people trusted the power and integrity of the king, they
trusted his coins. Total strangers could easily agree on the worth of a Roman denarius coin, because they
trusted the power and integrity of the Roman emperor, whose name and picture adorned it.
Highlight (yellow) - 10. The Scent of Money > Page 185
Yet why should Chinese, Indians, Muslims and Spaniards– who belonged to very different cultures that failed
to agree about much of anything– nevertheless share the belief in gold?
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Economists have a ready answer. Once trade connects two areas, the forces of supply and demand tend to
equalise the prices of transportable goods.
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Even if Indians still had no real use for gold, the fact that Mediterranean people wanted it would be enough
to make the Indians value it.
Highlight (yellow) - 10. The Scent of Money > Page 185
Similarly, the fact that another person believes in cowry shells, or dollars, or electronic data, is enough
to strengthen our own belief in them, even if that person is otherwise hated, despised or ridiculed by us.
Christians and Muslims who could not agree on religious beliefs could nevertheless agree on a monetary
belief, because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people
believe in something.
Highlight (yellow) - 10. The Scent of Money > Page 186
Money is based on two universal principles: Universal convertibility: with money as an alchemist, you can
turn land into loyalty, justice into health, and violence into knowledge. Universal trust: with money as a
go- between, any two people can cooperate on any project.
Highlight (yellow) - 11. Imperial Visions > Page 207
Nobody really knows how to solve this thorny question of cultural inheritance. Whatever path we take, the
first step is to acknowledge the complexity of the dilemma and to accept that simplistically dividing the
past into good guys and bad guys leads nowhere. Unless, of course, we are willing to admit that we usually
follow the lead of the bad guys.
Highlight (yellow) - 12. The Law of Religion > Page 229
Religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order. The theory
of relativity is not a religion, because (at least so far) there are no human norms and values that are
founded on it. Football is not a religion because nobody argues that its rules reflect superhuman edicts.
Islam, Buddhism and Communism are all religions, because all are systems of human norms and values that are
founded on belief in a superhuman order. (Note the difference between ‘superhuman’ and ‘supernatural’. The
Buddhist law of nature and the Marxist laws of history are superhuman, since they were not legislated by
humans. Yet they are not supernatural.)
Highlight (pink) - 13. The Secret of Success > Page 237
The Hindsight Fallacy Every point in history is a crossroads. A single travelled road leads from the past to
the present, but myriad paths fork off into the future. Some of those paths are wider, smoother and better
marked, and are thus more likely to be taken, but sometimes history– or the people who make history– takes
unexpected turns.
Highlight (yellow) - 13. The Secret of Success > Page 238
To describe ‘how’ means to reconstruct the series of specific events that led from one point to another. To
explain ‘why’ means to find causal connections that account for the occurrence of this particular series of
events to the exclusion of all others.
Highlight (yellow) - 13. The Secret of Success > Page 238
This is one of the distinguishing marks of history as an academic discipline– the better you know a
particular historical period, the harder it becomes to explain why things happened one way and not another.
Those who have only a superficial knowledge of a certain period tend to focus only on the possibility that
was eventually realised. They offer a just- so story to explain with hindsight why that outcome was
inevitable. Those more deeply informed about the period are much more cognisant of the roads not taken.
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It is an iron rule of history that what looks inevitable in hindsight was far from obvious at the time.
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History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. So many
forces are at work and their interactions are so complex that extremely small variations in the strength of
the forces and the way they interact produce huge differences in outcomes.
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history is what is called a ‘level two’ chaotic system. Chaotic systems come in two shapes. Level one chaos
is chaos that does not react to predictions about it.
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Level two chaos is chaos that reacts to predictions about it, and therefore can never be predicted
accurately. Markets, for example, are a level two chaotic system.
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Politics, too, is a second- order chaotic system.
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Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to
know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor
inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.
Highlight (yellow) - 13. The Secret of Success > Page 242
According to this approach, cultures are not conspiracies concocted by some people in order to take
advantage of others (as Marxists tend to think). Rather, cultures are mental parasites that emerge
accidentally, and thereafter take advantage of all people infected by them. This approach is sometimes
called memetics. It assumes that, just as organic evolution is based on the replication of organic
information units called ‘genes’, so cultural evolution is based on the replication of cultural information
units called ‘memes’. 1 Successful cultures are those that excel in reproducing their memes, irrespective of
the costs and benefits to their human hosts.
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Game theory explains how in multi- player systems, views and behaviour patterns that harm all players
nevertheless manage to take root and spread.
Part Four: The Scientific Revolution
Highlight (yellow) - 14. The Discovery of Ignorance > Page 250
But modern science differs from all previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways:
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The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus– ‘we do not
know’.
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The centrality of observation and mathematics. Having admitted ignorance, modern science aims to obtain new
knowledge. It does so by gathering observations and then using mathematical tools to connect these
observations into comprehensive theories. The acquisition of new powers. Modern science is not content with
creating theories. It uses these theories in order to acquire new powers, and in particular to develop new
technologies.
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The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of
ignorance. The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not
know the answers to their most important questions.
Highlight (yellow) - 14. The Discovery of Ignorance > Page 272
Most scientific studies are funded because somebody believes they can help attain some political, economic
or religious goal. For example, in the sixteenth century, kings and bankers channelled enormous resources to
finance geographical expeditions around the world but not a penny for studying child psychology. This is
because kings and bankers surmised that the discovery of new geographical knowledge would enable them to
conquer new lands and set up trade empires, whereas they couldn’t see any profit in understanding child
psychology.
Highlight (yellow) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 280
In 1775 Asia accounted for 80 per cent of the world economy. The combined economies of India and China alone
represented two- thirds of global production. In comparison, Europe was an economic dwarf. 3
Highlight (blue) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 280
The global centre of power shifted to Europe only between 1750 and 1850, when Europeans humiliated the Asian
powers in a series of wars and conquered large parts of Asia. By 1900 Europeans firmly controlled the
world’s economy and most of its territory. In 1950 western Europe and the United States together accounted
for more than half of global production, whereas China’s portion had been reduced to 5 per cent. 4 Under the
European aegis a new global order and global culture emerged. Today all humans are, to a much greater extent
than they usually want to admit, European in dress, thought and taste. They may be fiercely anti- European
in their rhetoric, but almost everyone on the planet views politics, medicine, war and economics through
European eyes, and listens to music written in European modes with words in European languages. Even today’s
burgeoning Chinese economy, which may soon regain its global primacy, is built on a European model of
production and finance.
Highlight (pink) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 282
The Chinese and Persians did not lack technological inventions such as steam engines (which could be freely
copied or bought). They lacked the values, myths, judicial apparatus and sociopolitical structures that took
centuries to form and mature in the West and which could not be copied and internalised rapidly. France and
the United States quickly followed in Britain’s footsteps because the French and Americans already shared
the most important British myths and social structures. The Chinese and Persians could not catch up as
quickly because they thought and organised their societies differently.
Highlight (yellow) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 282
This explanation sheds new light on the period from 1500 to 1850. During this era Europe did not enjoy any
obvious technological, political, military or economic advantage over the Asian powers, yet the continent
built up a unique potential, whose importance suddenly became obvious around 1850.
Highlight (yellow) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 282
What potential did Europe develop in the early modern period that enabled it to dominate the late modern
world? There are two complementary answers to this question: modern science and capitalism. Europeans were
used to thinking and behaving in a scientific and capitalist way even before they enjoyed any significant
technological advantages.
Highlight (yellow) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 288
The discovery of America was the foundational event of the Scientific Revolution. It not only taught
Europeans to favour present observations over past traditions, but the desire to conquer America also
obliged Europeans to search for new knowledge at breakneck speed. If they really wanted to control the vast
new territories, they had to gather enormous amounts of new data about the geography, climate, flora, fauna,
languages, cultures and history of the new continent.
Highlight (blue) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 289
These European explore- and- conquer expeditions are so familiar to us that we tend to overlook just how
extraordinary they were. Nothing like them had ever happened before. Long- distance campaigns of conquest
are not a natural undertaking. Throughout history most human societies were so busy with local conflicts and
neighbourhood quarrels that they never considered exploring and conquering distant lands. Most great empires
extended their control only over their immediate neighbourhood– they reached far- flung lands simply because
their neighbourhood kept expanding.
Highlight (yellow) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 297
Modern science and modern empires were motivated by the restless feeling that perhaps something important
awaited beyond the horizon– something they had better explore and master. Yet the connection between science
and empire went much deeper. Not just the motivation, but also the practices of empire- builders were
entangled with those of scientists.
Highlight (blue) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 297
For modern Europeans, building an empire was a scientific project, while setting up a scientific discipline
was an imperial project. When the Muslims conquered India, they did not bring along archaeologists to
systematically study Indian history, anthropologists to study Indian cultures, geologists to study Indian
soils, or zoologists to study Indian fauna. When the British conquered India, they did all of these things.
On 10 April 1802 the Great Survey of India was launched. It lasted sixty years. With the help of tens of
thousands of native labourers, scholars and guides, the British carefully mapped the whole of India, marking
borders, measuring distances, and even calculating for the first time the exact height of Mount Everest and
the other Himalayan peaks. The British explored the military resources of Indian provinces and the location
of their gold mines, but they also took the trouble to collect information about rare Indian spiders, to
catalogue colourful butterflies, to trace the ancient origins of extinct Indian languages, and to dig up
forgotten ruins.
Highlight (orange) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 298
the Mauryas, nor the Guptas, nor the Delhi sultans, nor the great Mughals– had given the ruins a second
glance. But a British archaeological survey took notice of the site in 1922. A British team then excavated
it, and discovered the first great civilisation of India, which no Indian had been aware of.
Highlight (yellow) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 300
Thanks to the work of people like William Jones and Henry Rawlinson, the European conquerors knew their
empires very well. Far better, indeed, than any previous conquerors, or even than the native population
itself. Their superior knowledge had obvious practical advantages. Without such knowledge, it is unlikely
that a ridiculously small number of Britons could have succeeded in governing, oppressing and exploiting so
many hundreds of millions of Indians for two centuries. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, fewer than 5,000 British officials, about 40,000– 70,000 British soldiers, and perhaps another
100,000 British business people, hangers- on, wives and children were sufficient to conquer and rule up to
300 million Indians.
Highlight (yellow) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 300
No less important was the fact that science gave the empires ideological justification. Modern Europeans
came to believe that acquiring new knowledge was always good. The fact that the empires produced a constant
stream of new knowledge branded them as progressive and positive enterprises.
Highlight (pink) - 15. The Marriage of Science and Empire > Page 301
In truth, neither the narrative of oppression and exploitation nor that of ‘the White Man’s burden’
completely matches the facts. The European empires did so many different things on such a large scale, that
you can find plenty of examples to support whatever you want to say about them. You think that these empires
were evil monstrosities that spread death, oppression and injustice around the world? You could easily fill
an encyclopedia with their crimes. You want to argue that they in fact improved the conditions of their
subjects with new medicines, better economic conditions and greater security? You could fill another
encyclopedia with their achievements. Due to their close cooperation with science, these empires wielded so
much power and changed the world to such an extent that perhaps they cannot be simply labelled as good or
evil. They created the world as we know it, including the ideologies we use in order to judge them.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 305
For most of history the economy stayed much the same size. Yes, global production increased, but this was
due mostly to demographic expansion and the settlement of new lands. Per capita production remained static.
But all that changed in the modern age. In 1500, global production of goods and services was equal to about
$ 250 billion; today it hovers around $ 60 trillion. More importantly, in 1500, annual per capita production
averaged $ 550, while today every man, woman and child produces, on the average, $ 8,800 a year. 1 What
accounts for this stupendous growth?
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 306
Current US banking law permits the bank to repeat this exercise seven more times. The contractor would
eventually have $ 10 million in his account, even though the bank still has but $ 1 million in its vaults.
Banks are allowed to loan $ 10 for every dollar they actually possess, which means that 90 per cent of all
the money in our bank accounts is not covered by actual coins and notes. 2 If all of the account holders at
Barclays Bank suddenly demand their money, Barclays will promptly collapse (unless the government steps in
to save it). The same is true of Lloyds, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, and all other banks in the world.
Highlight (pink) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 307
It sounds like a giant Ponzi scheme, doesn’t it? But if it’s a fraud, then the entire modern economy is a
fraud. The fact is, it’s not a deception, but rather a tribute to the amazing abilities of the human
imagination. What enables banks– and the entire economy– to survive and flourish is our trust in the future.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 307
In the present, she has a lot of dreams, but no tangible resources. The only way she could get her bakery
built would be to find a contractor willing to work today and receive payment in a few years’ time, if and
when the bakery starts making money. Alas, such contractors are rare breeds. So our entrepreneur is in a
bind. Without a bakery, she can’t bake cakes. Without cakes, she can’t make money. Without money, she can’t
hire a contractor. Without a contractor, she has no bakery.
Highlight (blue) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 308
Humankind was trapped in this predicament for thousands of years. As a result, economies remained frozen.
The way out of the trap was discovered only in the modern era, with the appearance of a new system based on
trust in the future. In it, people agreed to represent imaginary goods– goods that do not exist in the
present– with a special kind of money they called ‘credit’. Credit enables us to build the present at the
expense of the future. It’s founded on the assumption that our future resources are sure to be far more
abundant than our present resources. A host of new and wonderful opportunities open up if we can build
things in the present using future income.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 308
Credit arrangements of one kind or another have existed in all known human cultures, going back at least to
ancient Sumer. The problem in previous eras was not that no one had the idea or knew how to use it. It was
that people seldom wanted to extend much credit because they didn’t trust that the future would be better
than the present. They generally believed that times past had been better than their own times and that the
future would be worse, or at best much the same. To put that in economic terms, they believed that the total
amount of wealth was limited, if not dwindling. People therefore considered it a bad bet to assume that they
personally, or their kingdom, or the entire world, would be producing more wealth ten years down the line.
Business looked like a zero- sum game. Of course, the profits of one particular bakery might rise, but only
at the expense of the bakery next door. Venice might flourish, but only by impoverishing Genoa. The king of
England might enrich himself, but only by robbing the king of France. You could cut the pie in many
different ways, but it never got any bigger.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 309
If the global pie stayed the same size, there was no margin for credit. Credit is the difference between
today’s pie and tomorrow’s pie. If the pie stays the same, why extend credit? It would be an unacceptable
risk unless you believed that the baker or king asking for your money might be able to steal a slice from a
competitor. So it was hard to get a loan in the premodern world, and when you got one it was usually small,
short- term, and subject to high interest rates. Upstart entrepreneurs thus found it difficult to open new
bakeries and great kings who wanted to build palaces or wage wars had no choice but to raise the necessary
funds through high taxes and tariffs. That was fine for kings (as long as their subjects remained docile),
but a scullery maid who had a great idea for a bakery and wanted to move up in the world generally could
only dream of wealth while scrubbing down the royal kitchen’s floors.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 310
Then came the Scientific Revolution and the idea of progress. The idea of progress is built on the notion
that if we admit our ignorance and invest resources in research, things can improve. This idea was soon
translated into economic terms. Whoever believes in progress believes that geographical discoveries,
technological inventions and organisational developments can increase the sum total of human production,
trade and wealth.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 310
Over the last 500 years the idea of progress convinced people to put more and more trust in the future. This
trust created credit; credit brought real economic growth; and growth strengthened the trust in the future
and opened the way for even more credit. It didn’t happen overnight– the economy behaved more like a roller
coaster than a balloon. But over the long run, with the bumps evened out, the general direction was
unmistakable. Today, there is so much credit in the world that governments, business corporations and
private individuals easily obtain large, long- term and low- interest loans that far exceed current income.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 311
In 1776 the Scottish economist Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, probably the most important
economics manifesto of all time. In the eighth chapter of its first volume, Smith made the following novel
argument: when a landlord, a weaver or a shoemaker has greater profits than he needs to maintain his own
family, he uses the surplus to employ more assistants, in order to further increase his profits. The more
profits he has, the more assistants he can employ. It follows that an increase in the profits of private
entrepreneurs is the basis for the increase in collective wealth and prosperity. This may not strike you as
very original, because we all live in a capitalist world that takes Smith’s argument for granted. We hear
variations on this theme every day in the news. Yet Smith’s claim that the selfish human urge to increase
private profits is the basis for collective wealth is one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history–
revolutionary not just from an economic perspective, but even more so from a moral and political
perspective. What Smith says is, in fact, that greed is good, and that by becoming richer I benefit
everybody, not just myself. Egoism is altruism.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 312
In Smith’s story, people become rich not by despoiling their neighbours, but by increasing the overall size
of the pie. And when the pie grows, everyone benefits. The rich are accordingly the most useful and
benevolent people in society, because they turn the wheels of growth for everyone’s advantage.
Highlight (blue) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 312
All this depends, however, on the rich using their profits to open new factories and hire new employees,
rather than wasting them on non- productive activities. Smith therefore repeated like a mantra the maxim
that ‘When profits increase, the landlord or weaver will employ more assistants’ and not ‘When profits
increase, Scrooge will hoard his money in a chest and take it out only to count his coins.’ A crucial part
of the modern capitalist economy was the emergence of a new ethic, according to which profits ought to be
reinvested in production. This brings about more profits, which are again reinvested in production, which
brings more profits, et cetera ad infinitum. Investments can be made in many ways: enlarging the factory,
conducting scientific research, developing new products. Yet all these investments must somehow increase
production and translate into larger profits. In the new capitalist creed, the first and most sacred
commandment is: ‘The profits of production must be reinvested in increasing production.’
Highlight (pink) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 312
That’s why capitalism is called ‘capitalism’. Capitalism distinguishes ‘capital’ from mere ‘wealth’. Capital
consists of money, goods and resources that are invested in production. Wealth, on the other hand, is buried
in the ground or wasted on unproductive activities. A pharaoh who pours resources into a non- productive
pyramid is not a capitalist.  But a hard- working factory hand
who reinvests part of his income in the stock market is. The idea that ‘The profits of production must be
reinvested in increasing production’ sounds trivial. Yet it was alien to most people throughout history.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 315
Over the last few years, banks and governments have been frenziedly printing money. Everybody is terrified
that the current economic crisis may stop the growth of the economy. So they are creating trillions of
dollars, euros and yen out of thin air, pumping cheap credit into the system, and hoping that the
scientists, technicians and engineers will manage to come up with something really big, before the bubble
bursts. Everything depends on the people in the labs. New discoveries in fields such as biotechnology and
nanotechnology could create entire new industries, whose profits could back the trillions of make- believe
money that the banks and governments have created since 2008. If the labs do not fulfil these expectations
before the bubble bursts, we are heading towards very rough times.
Highlight (pink) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 316
The king of Portugal declined. Like a present- day start- up entrepreneur, Columbus did not give up. He
pitched his idea to other potential investors in Italy, France, England, and again in Portugal. Each time he
was rejected. He then tried his luck with Ferdinand and Isabella, rulers of newly united Spain. He took on
some experienced lobbyists, and with their help he managed to convince Queen Isabella to invest. As every
schoolchild knows, Isabella hit the jackpot. Columbus’ discoveries enabled the Spaniards to conquer America,
where they established gold and silver mines as well as sugar and tobacco plantations that enriched the
Spanish kings, bankers and merchants beyond their wildest dreams.
Highlight (blue) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 317
This was the magic circle of imperial capitalism: credit financed new discoveries; discoveries led to
colonies; colonies provided profits; profits built trust; and trust translated into more credit.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 318
How exactly did the Dutch win the trust of the financial system? Firstly, they were sticklers about repaying
their loans on time and in full, making the extension of credit less risky for lenders. Secondly, their
country’s judicial system enjoyed independence and protected private rights– in particular private property
rights. Capital trickles away from dictatorial states that fail to defend private individuals and their
property. Instead, it flows into states upholding the rule of law and private property.
Note - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 319
A really nice example is given just after this paragraph in the book
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 320
The Dutch merchants financed conquest by getting loans, and increasingly also by selling shares in their
companies that entitled their holders to receive a portion of the company’s profits. Cautious investors who
would never have given their money to the king of Spain, and who would have thought twice before extending
credit to the Dutch government, happily invested fortunes in the Dutch joint- stock companies that were the
mainstay of the new empire. If you thought a company was going to make a big profit but it had already sold
all its shares, you could buy some from people who owned them, probably for a higher price than they
originally paid. If you bought shares and later discovered that the company was in dire straits, you could
try to unload your stock for a lower price. The resulting trade in company shares led to the establishment
in most major European cities of stock exchanges, places where the shares of companies were traded.
Note - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 321
beginning of the stock market
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 321
in the early modern age it was common for private companies to hire not only soldiers, but also generals and
admirals, cannons and ships, and even entire off- the- shelf armies.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 322
a large part of Indonesia became a VOC colony. VOC ruled Indonesia for close to 200 years. Only in 1800 did
the Dutch state assume control of Indonesia, making it a Dutch national colony for the following 150 years.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 322
Today some people warn that twenty- first- century corporations are accumulating too much power. Early
modern history shows just how far that can go if businesses are allowed to pursue their self- interest
unchecked.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 322
In order to control trade on the important Hudson River, WIC built a settlement called New Amsterdam on an
island at the river’s mouth. The colony was threatened by Indians and repeatedly attacked by the British,
who eventually captured it in 1664. The British changed its name to New York. The remains of the wall built
by WIC to defend its colony against Indians and British are today paved over by the world’s most famous
street– Wall Street.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 328
But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naive as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no
such thing as a market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the
future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans. Markets by themselves offer no
protection against fraud, theft and violence. It is the job of political systems to ensure trust by
legislating sanctions against cheats and to establish and support police forces, courts and jails which will
enforce the law. When kings fail to do their jobs and regulate the markets properly, it leads to loss of
trust, dwindling credit and economic depression. That was the lesson taught by the Mississippi Bubble of
1719, and anyone who forgot it was reminded by the US housing bubble of 2007, and the ensuing credit crunch
and recession.
Highlight (pink) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 329
Adam Smith taught that the shoemaker would use his surplus to employ more assistants. This implies that
egoistic greed is beneficial for all, since profits are utilised to expand production and hire more
employees. Yet what happens if the greedy shoemaker increases his profits by paying employees less and
increasing their work hours? The standard answer is that the free market would protect the employees. If our
shoemaker pays too little and demands too much, the best employees would naturally abandon him and go to
work for his competitors. The tyrant shoemaker would find himself left with the worst labourers, or with no
labourers at all. He would have to mend his ways or go out of business. His own greed would compel him to
treat his employees well.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 329
This sounds bulletproof in theory, but in practice the bullets get through all too easily. In a completely
free market, unsupervised by kings and priests, avaricious capitalists can establish monopolies or collude
against their workforces. If there is a single corporation controlling all shoe factories in a country, or
if all factory owners conspire to reduce wages simultaneously, then the labourers are no longer able to
protect themselves by switching jobs. Even worse, greedy bosses might curtail the workers’ freedom of
movement through debt peonage or slavery.
Highlight (pink) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 331
This is the fly in the ointment of free- market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a
fair way, or distributed in a fair manner. On the contrary, the craving to increase profits and production
blinds people to anything that might stand in the way. When growth becomes a supreme good, unrestricted by
any other ethical considerations, it can easily lead to catastrophe.
Highlight (pink) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 332
After 1908, and especially after 1945, capitalist greed was somewhat reined in, not least due to the fear of
Communism. Yet inequities are still rampant. The economic pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500,
but it is distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and Indonesian labourers return home after a
hard day’s work with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago. Much like the Agricultural
Revolution, so too the growth of the modern economy might turn out to be a colossal fraud. The human species
and the global economy may well keep growing, but many more individuals may live in hunger and want.
Capitalism has two answers to this criticism. First, capitalism has created a world that nobody but a
capitalist is capable of running. The only serious attempt to manage the world differently– Communism– was
so much worse in almost every conceivable way that nobody has the stomach to try again. In 8500 BC one could
cry bitter tears over the Agricultural Revolution, but it was too late to give up agriculture. Similarly, we
may not like capitalism, but we cannot live without it. The second answer is that we just need more
patience– paradise, the capitalists promise, is right around the corner. True, mistakes have been made, such
as the Atlantic slave trade and the exploitation of the European working class. But we have learned our
lesson, and if we just wait a little longer and allow the pie to grow a little bigger, everybody will
receive a fatter slice. The division of spoils will never be equitable, but there will be enough to satisfy
every man, woman and child– even in the Congo.
Highlight (yellow) - 16. The Capitalist Creed > Page 333
There are, indeed, some positive signs. At least when we use purely material criteria– such as life
expectancy, child mortality and calorie intake– the standard of living of the average human in 2014 is
significantly higher than it was in 1914, despite the exponential growth in the number of humans. Yet can
the economic pie grow indefinitely? Every pie requires raw materials and energy. Prophets of doom warn that
sooner or later Homo sapiens will exhaust the raw materials and energy of planet Earth. And what will happen
then?
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 334
Whereas in 1700 carts were built mainly by the muscle power of carpenters and smiths, today the machines in
Toyota and Boeing factories are powered by petroleum combustion engines and nuclear power stations. A
similar revolution has swept almost all other fields of industry. We call it the Industrial Revolution.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 335
An even bigger problem was that people didn’t know how to convert one type of energy into another. They
could harness the movement of wind and water to sail ships and push millstones, but not to heat water or
smelt iron. Conversely, they could not use the heat energy produced by burning wood to make a millstone
move.
Highlight (blue) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 335
Humans had only one machine capable of performing such energy conversion tricks: the body. In the natural
process of metabolism, the bodies of humans and other animals burn organic fuels known as food and convert
the released energy into the movement of muscles. Men, women and beasts could consume grain and meat, burn
up their carbohydrates and fats, and use the energy to haul a rickshaw or pull a plough.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 336
The minute the water boiled, the lid of the kettle or the pot jumped. Heat was being converted to movement.
But jumping pot lids were an annoyance, especially if you forgot the pot on the stove and the water boiled
over. Nobody saw their real potential.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 336
About 600 years passed between the invention of gunpowder and the development of effective artillery. Even
then, the idea of converting heat into motion remained so counter- intuitive that another three centuries
went by before people invented the next machine that used heat to move things around.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 338
Petroleum had been known for thousands of years, and was used to waterproof roofs and lubricate axles. Yet
until just a century ago nobody thought it was useful for much more than that. The idea of spilling blood
for the sake of oil would have seemed ludicrous. You might fight a war over land, gold, pepper or slaves,
but not oil.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 338
The career of electricity was more startling yet. Two centuries ago electricity played no role in the
economy, and was used at most for arcane scientific experiments and cheap magic tricks. A series of
inventions turned it into our universal genie in a lamp.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 339
At heart, the Industrial Revolution has been a revolution in energy conversion. It has demonstrated again
and again that there is no limit to the amount of energy at our disposal. Or, more precisely, that the only
limit is set by our ignorance. Every few decades we discover a new energy source, so that the sum total of
energy at our disposal just keeps growing.
Note - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 339
industrial revolution : energy conversion :: computer revolution : information exchange
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 339
During the Industrial Revolution, we came to realise that we are actually living alongside an enormous ocean
of energy, one holding billions upon billions of exajoules of potential power. All we need to do is invent
better pumps.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 341
The Industrial Revolution yielded an unprecedented combination of cheap and abundant energy and cheap and
abundant raw materials. The result was an explosion in human productivity. The explosion was felt first and
foremost in agriculture. Usually, when we think of the Industrial Revolution, we think of an urban landscape
of smoking chimneys, or the plight of exploited coal miners sweating in the bowels of the earth. Yet the
Industrial Revolution was above all else the Second Agricultural Revolution.
Highlight (blue) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 341
Even plants and animals were mechanised. Around the time that Homo sapiens was elevated to divine status by
humanist religions, farm animals stopped being viewed as living creatures that could feel pain and distress,
and instead came to be treated as machines. Today these animals are often mass- produced in factory- like
facilities, their bodies shaped in accordance with industrial needs. They pass their entire lives as cogs in
a giant production line, and the length and quality of their existence is determined by the profits and
losses of business corporations.
Highlight (blue) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 343
Just as the Atlantic slave trade did not stem from hatred towards Africans, so the modern animal industry is
not motivated by animosity. Again, it is fuelled by indifference. Most people who produce and consume eggs,
milk and meat rarely stop to think about the fate of the chickens, cows or pigs whose flesh and emissions
they are eating. Those who do think often argue that such animals are really little different from machines,
devoid of sensations and emotions, incapable of suffering.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 343
that mammals and birds have a complex sensory and emotional make- up. They not only feel physical pain, but
can also suffer from emotional distress.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 346
Humans now produce far more steel, manufacture much more clothing, and build many more structures than ever
before. In addition, they produce a mind- boggling array of previously unimaginable goods, such as light
bulbs, mobile phones, cameras and dishwashers. For the first time in human history, supply began to outstrip
demand. And an entirely new problem was born: who is going to buy all this stuff?
Highlight (blue) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 347
The modern capitalist economy must constantly increase production if it is to survive, like a shark that
must swim or suffocate. Yet it’s not enough just to produce. Somebody must also buy the products, or
industrialists and investors alike will go bust.
Highlight (pink) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 347
To prevent this catastrophe and to make sure that people will always buy whatever new stuff industry
produces, a new kind of ethic appeared: consumerism.
Highlight (orange) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 347
Consumerism sees the consumption of ever more products and services as a positive thing.  Frugality
is a disease to be cured.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 348
Consumerism has worked very hard, with the help of popular psychology (‘ Just do it’) to convince people
that indulgence is good for you, whereas frugality is self- oppression.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 348
In the affluent world of today one of the leading health problems is obesity, which strikes the poor (who
stuff themselves with hamburgers and pizzas) even more severely than the rich (who eat organic salads and
fruit smoothies).
Highlight (blue) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 348
Obesity is a double victory for consumerism. Instead of eating little, which will lead to economic
contraction, people eat too much and then buy diet products– contributing to economic growth twice over.
Highlight (pink) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 348
How can we square the consumerist ethic with the capitalist ethic of the business person, according to which
profits should not be wasted, and should instead be reinvested in production? It’s simple. As in previous
eras, there is today a division of labour between the elite and the masses.
Highlight (blue) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 348
In medieval Europe, aristocrats spent their money carelessly on extravagant luxuries, whereas peasants lived
frugally, minding every penny. Today, the tables have turned. The rich take great care managing their assets
and investments, while the less well- heeled go into debt buying cars and televisions they don’t really
need.
Highlight (yellow) - 17. The Wheels of Industry > Page 349
The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The
supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’
Highlight (blue) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 351
Today, humankind is driving many species into extinction and might even annihilate itself. But other
organisms are doing quite well. Rats and cockroaches, for example, are in their heyday. These tenacious
creatures would probably creep out from beneath the smoking rubble of a nuclear Armageddon, ready and able
to spread their DNA. Perhaps 65 million years from now, intelligent rats will look back gratefully on the
decimation wrought by humankind, just as we today can thank that dinosaur- busting asteroid.
Highlight (yellow) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 351
Still, the rumours of our own extinction are premature. Since the Industrial Revolution, the world’s human
population has burgeoned as never before. In 1700 the world was home to some 700 million humans. In 1800
there were 950 million of us. By 1900 we almost doubled our numbers to 1.6 billion. And by 2000 that
quadrupled to 6 billion. Today there are just shy of 7 billion Sapiens.
Highlight (yellow) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 353
The Industrial Revolution turned the timetable and the assembly line into a template for almost all human
activities.
Highlight (blue) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 354
In 1847, British train companies put their heads together and agreed that henceforth all train timetables
would be calibrated to Greenwich Observatory time, rather than the local times of Liverpool, Manchester or
Glasgow. More and more institutions followed the lead of the train companies.
Highlight (blue) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 355
The Industrial Revolution brought about dozens of major upheavals in human society. Adapting to industrial
time is just one of them. Other notable examples include urbanisation, the disappearance of the peasantry,
the rise of the industrial proletariat, the empowerment of the common person, democratisation, youth culture
and the disintegration of patriarchy.
Highlight (pink) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 355
from the earliest times, more than a million years ago, humans lived in small, intimate communities, most of
whose members were kin. The Cognitive Revolution and the Agricultural Revolution did not change that.
Highlight (yellow) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 372
First and foremost, the price of war has gone up dramatically. The Nobel Peace Prize to end all peace prizes
should have been given to Robert Oppenheimer and his fellow architects of the atomic bomb. Nuclear weapons
have turned war between superpowers into collective suicide, and made it impossible to seek world domination
by force of arms.
Highlight (yellow) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 372
Secondly, while the price of war soared, its profits declined. For most of history, polities could enrich
themselves by looting or annexing enemy territories. Most wealth consisted of material things like fields,
cattle, slaves and gold, so it was easy to loot it or occupy it. Today, wealth consists mainly of human
capital and organisational know- how. Consequently it is difficult to carry it off or conquer it by military
force.
Highlight (yellow) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 373
While war became less profitable, peace became more lucrative than ever.
Highlight (blue) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 373
In modern capitalist economies, foreign trade and investments have become all- important. Peace therefore
brings unique dividends.
Highlight (yellow) - 18. A Permanent Revolution > Page 374
Ours is the first time in history that the world is dominated by a peace- loving elite– politicians,
business people, intellectuals and artists who genuinely see war as both evil and avoidable.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 376
THE LAST 500 years have witnessed a breathtaking series of revolutions. The earth has been united into a
single ecological and historical sphere. The economy has grown exponentially, and humankind today enjoys the
kind of wealth that used to be the stuff of fairy tales. Science and the Industrial Revolution have given
humankind superhuman powers and practically limitless energy. The social order has been completely
transformed, as have politics, daily life and human psychology.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 376
Most current ideologies and political programmes are based on rather flimsy ideas concerning the real source
of human happiness. Nationalists believe that political self- determination is essential for our happiness.
Communists postulate that everyone would be blissful under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Capitalists
maintain that only the free market can ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by creating
economic growth and material abundance and by teaching people to be self- reliant and enterprising.
Highlight (pink) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 380
The first step is to define what is to be measured. The generally accepted definition of happiness is
‘subjective well- being’. Happiness, according to this view, is something I feel inside myself, a sense of
either immediate pleasure or long- term contentment with the way my life is going. If it’s something felt
inside, how can it be measured from outside? Presumably, we can do so by asking people to tell us how they
feel. So psychologists or biologists who want to assess how happy people feel give them questionnaires to
fill out and tally the results.
Highlight (pink) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 381
One interesting conclusion is that money does indeed bring happiness. But only up to a point, and beyond
that point it has little significance. For people stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder, more money
means greater happiness.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 381
Another interesting finding is that illness decreases happiness in the short term, but is a source of long-
term distress only if a person’s condition is constantly deteriorating or if the disease involves ongoing
and debilitating pain. People who are diagnosed with chronic illness such as diabetes are usually depressed
for a while, but if the illness does not get worse they adjust to their new condition and rate their
happiness as highly as healthy people do.
Highlight (blue) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 382
Family and community seem to have more impact on our happiness than money and health. People with strong
families who live in tight- knit and supportive communities are significantly happier than people whose
families are dysfunctional and who have never found (or never sought) a community to be part of. Marriage is
particularly important. Repeated studies have found that there is a very close correlation between good
marriages and high subjective well- being, and between bad marriages and misery. This holds true
irrespective of economic or even physical conditions. An impecunious invalid surrounded by a loving spouse,
a devoted family and a warm community may well feel better than an alienated billionaire, provided that the
invalid’s poverty is not too severe and that his illness is not degenerative or painful.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 382
But the most important finding of all is that happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of
either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions
and subjective expectations.  If you
want a brand- new Ferrari and get only a second- hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the
lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things
improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave
us dissatisfied.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 383
If happiness depended only on objective conditions such as wealth, health and social relations, it would
have been relatively easy to investigate its history. The finding that it depends on subjective expectations
makes the task of historians far harder.
Highlight (yellow) - 19.  So maybe
Third World discontent is fomented not merely by poverty, disease, corruption and political oppression but
also by mere exposure to the First World standards.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 386
Like all other mental states, our subjective well- being is not determined by external parameters such as
salary, social relations or political rights. Rather, it is determined by a complex system of nerves,
neurons, synapses and various biochemical substances such as serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 386
People are made happy by one thing and one thing only– pleasant sensations in their bodies. A person who
just won the lottery or found new love and jumps from joy is not really reacting to the money or the lover.
She is reacting to various hormones coursing through her bloodstream, and to the storm of electric signals
flashing between different parts of her brain.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 386
Some scholars compare human biochemistry to an air- conditioning system that keeps the temperature constant,
come heatwave or snowstorm. Events might momentarily change the temperature, but the air- conditioning
system always returns the temperature to the same set point.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 387
Human happiness conditioning systems also differ from person to person. On a scale from one to ten, some
people are born with a cheerful biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between levels six and
ten, stabilising with time at eight.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 388
It could be that happiness causes marriage. Or more correctly, that serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin bring
about and maintain a marriage. People who are born with a cheerful biochemistry are generally happy and
content. Such people are more attractive spouses, and consequently they have a greater chance of getting
married. They are also less likely to divorce, because it is far easier to live with a happy and content
spouse than with a depressed and dissatisfied one.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 391
the findings demonstrate that happiness is not the surplus of pleasant over unpleasant moments. Rather,
happiness consists in seeing one’s life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile. There is an important
cognitive and ethical component to happiness. Our values make all the difference to whether we see ourselves
as ‘miserable slaves to a baby dictator’ or as ‘lovingly nurturing a new life’.
Highlight (pink) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 391
As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how.
Highlight (blue) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 391
A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a
terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.
Highlight (yellow) - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 391
However, if they believed the promise of everlasting bliss in the afterlife, they may well have viewed their
lives as far more meaningful and worthwhile than modern secular people, who in the long term can expect
nothing but complete and meaningless oblivion. Asked ‘Are you satisfied with your life as a whole?’, people
in the Middle Ages might have scored quite highly in a subjective well- being questionnaire. So our medieval
ancestors were happy because they found meaning to life in collective delusions about the afterlife? Yes.
Note - 19. And They Lived Happily Ever After > Page 392
Interesting perspective