Data, this Israeli historian believes, is the furture for mankind. The 21st century will be ruled by Dataists, presumably as opposed to Dadaists. And it will rule us, not the other way around.
This is a fascinating, if disturbing, book. Harari's acclaimed work Sapiens took us through 70,000 years of human history and concluded that we are only an accident of evolution. In this book, humans and animals are no more than algorithms.
If Karl Marx reduced us all to economic actors, the author – who is a historian, not a scientist – reduces all living creatures, including humans, to algorithmic actors.
The problem with this book is that it is speculation from a historian. The author writes: “Techno-humanism agrees that Homo sapiens as we know it has run its course and will no longer be relevant in the future”. This is psycho-babble. It makes for a good read, but the reader is advised to keep his, her – or ‘its’? – eyes open.
