Harari argues that having largely tamed famine, plague, and war, humankind's next projects will be pursuing immortality, bliss, and divine-like power, tracing how the humanist belief in individual free will and inner experience may be superseded by dataism, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence.
Books mentioned in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (14)
Collected Fictions (story "A Problem") by Jorge Luis Borges: “The narrating self is the star of Jorge Luis Borges's story 'A Problem'. The story deals with Don Quixote, the eponymous hero of Miguel Cervantes's famous novel.”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “The story deals with Don Quixote, the eponymous hero of Miguel Cervantes's famous novel.”
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: “this seemingly medieval idea became binding Catholic dogma only in 1870, eleven years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species”
Das Kapital by Karl Marx: “he would probably urge his few remaining disciples to devote less time to reading Das Kapital and more time to studying the Internet and the human genome”
Ulysses by James Joyce: “Some people believe that Joyce's Ulysses represents the apogee of this modern focus on the inner life...in 260,000 words Joyce describes a single day in the life of the Dubliners Stephen Dedalus”
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: “War novels such as All Quiet on the Western Front and war films such as Platoon begin with a young and naïve recruit”
King Lear by William Shakespeare: “According to Dataism, King Lear and the flu virus are just two patterns of data flow that can be analysed using the same basic concepts and tools.”
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: “How much pain and sorrow would have been avoided if instead of drinking poison, Romeo and Juliet could just take a pill or wear a helmet that would have redirected their star-crossed love”
The Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum: “This is what the Tin Man does in The Wizard of Oz. He walks along the yellow brick road with Dorothy and her friends, hoping that when they get to Oz, the great wizard will give him a heart”
Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler: “In Mein Kampf, he tells how shortly after his unit reached the front line, the soldiers' initial enthusiasm turned into fear”
The Epic of Gilgamesh: “The Mesopotamian Gilgamesh epic recounts that when the gods sent a great deluge to destroy the world, almost all humans and animals perished.”
Émile, or On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Jean-Jacques Rousseau summed it all up in his novel Émile, the eighteenth-century bible of feeling.”
Comes the Fiery Night: 2,000 Haiku by Man and Machine by David Cope: “In 2011 Cope published Comes the Fiery Night: 2,000 Haiku by Man and Machine. Of the 2,000 haikus in the book, some are written by Annie, and the rest by organic poets.”
Guerilla Open Access Manifesto by Aaron Swartz: “In 2008 he published the 'Guerilla Open Access Manifesto' that demanded a free and unlimited flow of information.”