Sapiens

If you’re listening to this, there’s a pretty good chance you’re a human. 

We humans are pretty special. We’re at the top of the food chain. We’ve been exploring space for decades. And we’re the species responsible for inventing the wheel, agriculture, the internet… and of course, frozen pizza. 

At this point, we pretty much dominate the planet— and we haven’t even been around that long. One of the main questions that Yuval Noah Harari explores in his book Sapiens is just how this came to be. 

Why us? Why Homo sapiens?

In the blinks to this contemporary classic, we’re going to take you through a whirlwind tour of our origins, and explore key moments in our history – from the development of language to the creation of money – moments that have made us who we are today.

Human beings first stepped onto the world stage about two and a half million years ago.

Back then, we weren’t so special. We were hardly splitting atoms or swapping NFTs. 

In many ways, we were just another animal, and we didn’t have any greater impact on our environment than parrots, cheetahs, or jellyfish. 

Sure, we had large brains, walked upright, used tools, and were highly social— but we weren’t the only ones. There were lots of other humans around.

It’s a common misconception that Homo sapiens, the last human species to step onto the scene, evolved linearly from earlier human species— but actually, early Homo sapiens existed contemporaneously with at least six other species of humans. 

There were the Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human who reached a maximum height of about three feet— but were still clever and organized enough to hunt down elephants. There were the Homo denisova, a species native to Siberia that was only discovered in 2010, which raises questions of what other extinct human species we have yet to discover. And of course, there was our most well-known cousin, the Homo neanderthalensis.

Despite immodestly calling ourselves Homo sapiens— that’s Latin for “wise man”— we definitely weren’t the only clever apes running around.  In fact, Neanderthals were hunting down mammoths and perfecting their barbecue techniques long before we even existed. Their brains were bigger than ours, too. 

So, if we weren’t so special back in our salad days, how is it that we prospered and spread around the globe, while other human species died out and left barely a trace? What happened to all of our cousins?

There are two conflicting theories to explain this— one wholesome, one sinister. 

The Interbreeding Theory suggests that Homo sapiens began mating with other species of humans – most notably Homo neanderthalensis – resulting in the gradual merging of these two species. There is evidence to back up this theory: the DNA of modern Europeans contains between 1 and 4 percent of Neanderthal DNA, as well as some DNA from other earlier human species. But critics of this theory point out that mating between Neanderthals and Sapiens could only rarely result in offspring, because they were different species— not just populations of the same species. 

The Replacement Theory, on the other hand, suggests that Homo sapiens, thanks to their slightly superior skills and technology, pushed other human species toward extinction – either by taking away their food sources, or by violently killing them off. If this theory is true, it’s clear we haven’t outgrown our tendency to kill other humans based on squabbles over resources and superficial differences. 

So which is it?  Did we interbreed with other human species and become one big happy family— or did we drive our cousins into extinction?

The jury’s still out and the debate keeps raging as new evidence continues to pour in. But there’s a good chance that both are partially true. In the next blink, we’ll take a closer look at the slight advantages Sapiens had over other humans that enabled them to dominate the globe.

Sapiens first evolved about 150,000 years ago. For many millennia, they were mostly minding their own business in East Africa. They weren’t producing any extraordinary art or complex tools. At one point, they tried to migrate north and warred with Neanderthals. The Sapiens lost and retreated home, and Neanderthals remained masters of the Middle East for another 30,000 years.

But then, around 70,000 years ago, something really incredible happened. There was a huge leap in what Sapiens started accomplishing. They started building boats, oil lamps, and bows and arrows. They formed larger and more sophisticated communities, and established trade networks.

And as Sapiens improved their hunting techniques, they left a long trail of extinctions in their path. 

For example, just 50,000 years ago, Australia was inhabited by a multitude of big land mammals – ground sloths that were 20 feet tall and armadillos the size of minivans! But, within a couple of thousand years of Homo sapiens’ arrival, the vast majority of these animals were gone.

And then there were the other human species, who, as we found out in the last blink, were likely killed off by our Sapien ancestors. When the Sapiens left Africa the second time, they warred with the Neanderthals again. This time, they won. They not only conquered the Middle East, but drove all other human species from the face of the Earth. 

It’s not entirely known what gave Sapiens this sudden new edge— but something happened to the structure of our brains, an evolutionary leap known as the Cognitive Revolution. 

Before, our brains were similar to those of the Neanderthals. But then, as the most commonly believed theory suggests, an accidental genetic mutation changed our inner wirings and gave us improved ways of thinking, learning, and remembering. Quite the happy accident!

But more important than understanding the causes of the Cognitive Revolution is understanding its effects. And the most important result of this random genetic mutation is that it gave us the gift of language. It’ll come as no surprise, then, that the development of intricate language was one of the most important factors in Homo sapiens’ domination. Let’s delve into why that is.

To be sure, we’re not the only creatures with language. Bees buzz to inform their comrades of the whereabouts of food. Chimpanzees have specific calls that mean “Careful! An eagle!” that sound slightly different from calls that mean “Careful! A lion!” And the Neanderthals most likely had some kind of language more meaningful than mere grunting.  

But our capacity for language is different. Human language is incredibly complex and intricate, especially when compared to the communication methods of other species. That’s why Sapiens rule the world— while bees are endangered, chimps are locked up in zoos, and the Neanderthals are long gone.

Homo sapiens are social animals; we live in communities. Language allows information to flow freely between individuals within those communities, meaning that important lessons – about food, predators or even dangerous, untrustworthy individuals within the group – can be shared at a much more detailed level than any other animals.

For instance, by using language, one person who has found an abundant supply of fruit trees can tell the others exactly where it is. Someone who has discovered the hiding place of a predator can warn the rest of the group to avoid that area. In both cases, intricate language gives the community a distinct advantage.

But perhaps the biggest benefit of language is that it helps create a common understanding between members of a group – and this is what gives humans their unique advantage.

Let’s go back to bees and chimps for a second. Bees can work together in large numbers, too, but their cooperation is very rigid, and they can’t adapt their societal order based on changes in their environment – like new threats or opportunities.

Chimpanzees can cooperate more flexibly, adapting to changes they perceive. But they can only collaborate in fairly small numbers because, in order to cooperate, they need to know the other party intimately. They won’t fight together unless they’ve engaged in mutual grooming— and since lovingly picking nits out of your buddy’s hair takes time, building trust in this way isn’t feasible in large groups. That’s why chimp troops typically max out at fifty individuals. 

The only animal that can cooperate flexibly and in large numbers is Homo sapiens. And that’s because, through language, we’re not only able to share information about the physical world, but we can also share information about abstract ideas, like gods, history, and human rights.

These ideas – what Harari refers to as common myths – are fictional creations of the human mind, and they’re our most ingenious invention yet. They’re the cornerstone of human culture, and they’re what make us so effective at collaborating. 

Let’s break this down a little more, because it’s actually one of the author’s central arguments. Harari argues that the reason Homo sapiens has dominated the planet is that we are the only animal that can share stories about things that exist only in our imagination— things like money, gods, and states. If we believe in the same common myths, we can collaborate in vast numbers and work towards common goals. Yes, that’s right— the reason we’re so powerful is that we happen to have a habit of believing in fictions. 

Take money as an example. The value of money has no physical reality. But, as we’ll explore in detail later, when we collectively believe in the myth that we need money to get by, we can have an extremely intricate system of exchange.

Or think about it another way. Consider how difficult it would be to get a few million humans to participate in one goal if we only spoke about things that actually exist. Nobody would pay taxes if they didn’t believe that they were bound by the laws of their nation— and these laws, as well as their nations, are, in fact, fictions!

Early Homo sapiens lived in small bands of roughly 150 strong. But, as our languages and common myths developed and spread, it was possible to increase the size of our communities exponentially: from villages to cities, from cities to nation-states and from nation-states to our globally interconnected modern societies. 

Now we’re onto Blink 4, which is all about the Agricultural Revolution, and how we transformed from foragers into farmers.

Homo sapiens have lived a nomadic lifestyle for most of our history, with the vast majority of our ancestors having spent their lives hunting prey and gathering vegetation. Rather than settling in one area, they traveled to wherever food was plentiful.

But around 12,000 years ago, this all changed. What we call the Agricultural Revolution is when Homo sapiens stopped relying solely on hunting and gathering and instead began cultivating crops and domesticating animals. Within 10,000 years or so, almost all of humankind had settled into agriculture – a truly revolutionary shift.

And a slightly puzzling one. Farming may today be taken for granted, but it’s difficult to see why our early ancestors favored it over the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

For one, in terms of labor, agriculture is far more time-consuming and back-breaking. While a hunter-gatherer must spend about four hours collecting enough food, a farmer must work from dawn to dusk on the fields. 

And then there is the quality of the food on offer. Early agriculture provided our ancestors with a narrow range of cereals, such as wheat, which are both hard to digest and lacking in nutrients and vitamins. Compare this with the wide variety of meat, nuts, fruits, and fish a hunter-gatherer would enjoy.

So what possessed us to work longer hours only to eat worse food?

There are two reasons. First, the change to agriculture was a slow, gradual process; with each generation, the process became more societally ingrained and, by the time we realized farming had a whole bunch of downsides, it was too late to turn back.

Second, despite its many faults, agriculture had one big advantage: it provided far more food per unit of territory. Farmers could grow a mass of edible plants on just a small patch of land, an increase in food supply that led to human societies becoming able to sustain much higher populations. And thus, the Homo sapiens population exploded. The Agricultural Revolution allowed us to keep more people alive, though under worse conditions. 

But the increase in population also created a problem: How would societies cope with such a boom in numbers? These are challenges we still face today, and are what we’ll explore in the next blinks.

Life before the Agricultural Revolution was relatively simple. If you were low on meat, you could simply ask your neighbors to share their surpluses with you. More often than not, they’d help you out, safe in the knowledge that, if they had a problem in the future, you’d return the favor.

But with the development of agriculture, this economy of favors developed into a barter system. 

Why?

Because of its efficiency, agriculture enabled people to produce enough food for the community. No longer under constant pressure to chase up the next meal, some people developed new trades like blacksmithing and weaving. To get food they traded their finished goods – a knife, say, or a shovel – with farmers who needed them.

But very soon this bartering economy also proved insufficient. 

As the trading market continued to grow, it became harder to find someone who wanted your goods and whose goods you wanted in return. For example, if you were trying to get some juicy pork from a farmer in return for your knife, what would you do if he already had plenty of knives? Or what if he needed a knife, but didn’t yet have a pig to slaughter? He could promise to give you a pig in the future – but how do you know he’d keep his word?

It was in response to such problems that, in about 3,000 BC, Homo sapiens developed writing and money.

The Sumerians of Mesopotamia were the first to do this. To store the information needed for complex trades, they began etching people’s transactions on clay tablets using simplistic economic symbols. Around the same time, they started using barley money as a standardized method of pay.

This way, you could pay the pig farmer in a currency easily convertible into whatever else he might need. Or if he promised you a pig, you could record the transaction and hold him to his promise later.

As we have just seen, the invention of writing and money made it easier to conduct economic transactions and harder to commit economic fraud. And yet this, of course, didn’t mean that economies suddenly started behaving smoothly and efficiently. In fact, as societies and economies grew, they became more difficult to control and regulate.

So what did human societies do? 

They developed laws to regulate how people behaved and systems of authority to ensure that people obeyed them. Thus, the first hierarchical societies were born, with a king or emperor at the top, ruling over everyone else.

Nowadays we may see monarchies and empires of the past as authoritarian and cruel, but it’s worth noting that they provided a great deal of political, social, and economic stability. For one, they provided effective bureaucracy that homogenized laws and customs.

Let’s take just one example. In 1776 BC, Babylon was the world’s largest empire, with over a million inhabitants. To govern them effectively and provide uniform order, the Babylonian King Hammurabi issued a collection of laws known as the Code of Hammurabi. 

This code of laws established an empire-wide understanding of what was permitted and what was not, covering areas like theft, murder, and taxation. Wherever they traveled or traded within the imperial borders, people knew which laws and customs to follow.

But knowing the laws isn’t the same thing as obeying them. To enforce their laws, emperors and kings needed people to accept their authority – and the best way to do this was through religion. King Hammurabi knew this well, and legitimized his rule by declaring that he’d been appointed by the gods to rule over the citizens of Mesopotamia. If people believed that their ruler was chosen by divine will, they’d be far more accepting of imperial rule. Once again, we see that a common myth is the glue that could hold an empire of one million people together. 

As empires spread, the religions they promoted grew in both scope and power. Sometimes by force, sometimes by gradual assimilation processes, imperial rule corralled many diverse ethnic and religious groups into a few mega-cultures.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, humanity underwent another sea change. A scientific revolution swept through Europe and, rather than let progress depend on the gods alone, humans started thinking how they themselves could use science to improve society.

By applying the scientific principles of exploration, experimentation, and observation, people made substantial leaps in areas such as medicine, astronomy and physics – each development helping to make society a better place to live.

Take child mortality, for example. In the past, it was common for even the wealthiest members of society to lose two or three children to premature deaths. Nowadays, thanks to science, the rate of infant mortality for everyone is just one out of every 1,000 people.

The pursuit of science not only benefited human health, but European governments were quick to realize it was also great for economies. Kings and emperors showered scientists and explorers with money to seek out new ideas and resources to enrich their nations. 

No event cemented the value of the scientific method in the minds of sixteenth-century Europeans more than Christopher Columbus’s famous journey across the Atlantic. In return for backing the exploration, the king acquired a vast empire abounding in valuable resources like gold and silver— and the race for European powers to fill out other blank spots in their maps kicked off at breakneck speed.

Rulers realized that if they wanted to conquer and control vast new territories, the old methods of consulting Christian scripture and ancient oral traditions wouldn’t be of much use. Instead, they’d have to acquire tons of scientific data about geography, cultures, languages, climate, flora and fauna, and histories of the new territories. 

The European economies grew as a result of exploration and scientific innovation. And this imperial expansion, along with destroying many indigenous ways of life, knitted together formerly isolated worlds into intimately linked societies by establishing global empires and trade networks.

Alright, we’ve made it to Blink 8. At this point in our journey, we’ll get into how our global society’s central belief in capitalism is a legacy of European imperialism. 

So, by now we know that the scientific method was used by many European governments to enlarge their empires and increase their profits – and it certainly worked. By the nineteenth century, the British Empire alone covered more than a quarter the globe.

With this huge reach, European countries pushed their ideas into every corner of the world. Local customs, cultures and laws were replaced by mega-cultures based on European norms – be they western religions, democracy, or science. And although the European empires have long since died out, many nations are still living with their cultural inheritance.

By far the greatest of these now global cultural norms is capitalism. Thanks in large part to the European empires, people worldwide believe in the importance and power of money.

Nowadays, whether they’re from Brazil or Bhutan, Canada or Cambodia, most people live by centering their lives around money and material possessions; we all want to maximize our incomes or display our wealth with clothes and gadgets.

In fact, with support from science, the power and reach of global capitalism is eroding many other global cultures – particularly religion.

Modern science has disproved many religious principles. Most people no longer believe that God created the world in seven days; we now believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection.

As the verities of religion are called into question, capitalist ideology comes to the fore. So, in place of the traditional belief of waiting for happiness in the afterlife, these days we concentrate on maximizing our pleasure on Earth. This, of course, leads us to seek out, buy and consume more and more products and services advertised to make us happier.

Globalization is decidedly on the march, but not everybody is happy about this. Critics of globalization claim, among other things, that it erodes cultural diversity, turning the entire world into one dull, homogenous unity.

Despite criticisms such as these, globalization has one major benefit: it is helping to make the world a more peaceful place.

Modern nations depend on one another for their prosperity. And, in a globalized world, networks of trade and investment stretch across many different countries, with war or instability in one area having secondary economic effects for all.

As a result, almost all American, European, and Asian leaders have a strong interest in maintaining world peace. Since 1945, no recognized independent nation has been conquered and eliminated by another. Just consider how incredibly violent the world was before the end of the Second World War, and it becomes clear how peaceful our globalized world is today.

So, the twentieth century is the most peaceful century to date. Although this might seem surprising, a quick review of history shows that human societies, from the Agricultural Revolution onward, have been turning their backs on violence.

It’s been estimated that, before farming, in the times of hunter-gatherers, 30 percent of all adult males were the victim of murder or manslaughter. Compare this to the world today, where only one percent of adult male deaths are violent. You can see how far we have come.

But why is this the case? Well, it’s because the hierarchical, structured societies that developed after the Agricultural Revolution pushed people to obey laws forbidding murder and violence, and thus created stable, functioning societies and economies.

So we live in the most peaceful times, but let’s not get too carried away. We have to keep a close eye on potential sources of conflict, since the outbreak of a large-scale international war today would take an unprecedented toll on humanity. Let’s enjoy our peace, but never forget that we must actively maintain it.

OK, we’re now on Blink 10. Our journey through the 300,000- year-history of Homo sapiens is nearly complete. 

We now understand, more or less, the general trends behind human history, but we haven’t really talked about how this has affected us as individuals. Our health, wealth and knowledge have vastly improved— but are we happier?

Disappointingly, on the individual level, the answer is often that we’re not. But why?

Subjective well-being questionnaires, issued and reviewed by psychologists, have shown that while humans experience short-term rises in happiness or sadness, in the long-term, our happiness hovers around the same level.

Let’s say you lose your job and experience a sharp decrease in happiness. At the time, you’d think that awful feeling would last forever. And yet, within a few months after this big event, your levels of happiness will probably have returned to a “normal” level.

Take a historical example: during the French Revolution, the peasants of France would have felt enormous happiness at gaining freedom. But not long after this huge event, the average peasant was likely back to worrying about his good-for-nothing son or the next year’s harvest. 

Homo sapiens are usually somewhere between complacency and despair, and this ensures that we’re not knocked out by a traumatic event nor self-satisfied enough to stop striving for bigger and better things.

So on an individual level, we’re probably not that much happier. But what about on a societal level? With all the improvements in our quality of life, surely we are happier than previous generations?

Well, it depends on who you are; most of the prosperity generated by human advancement has found its way into the pockets of a few white men. For those outside of this group, be they indigenous tribes, women, or people of color, life has not improved to anywhere near the same levels. They have been victimized time and time again by the historical forces of imperialism and capitalism, and are only now beginning to gain equality.

The key message in these blinks:

For thousands of years, we’ve cultivated a false self-image of humans as inherently selfish. As a result, we often distrust each other. But it’s neither civilization nor the fear of punishment that prevents violent and selfish behavior. In evolutionary terms, we are neither egoists nor murderers: we are friendly and cooperative, as we can see in the way we behave during crises. So it’s high time for a new, more positive view of humanity.

What to read next: Utopia for Realists, by Rutger Bregman

How can there be so much poverty and injustice in a world with so much material prosperity? If you want to read more by Rutger Bregman, check out the blinks to Utopias for Realists, which show that we have to rethink our economy if we really want more justice. A passionate appeal to the collective imagination, and a wake-up call with concrete suggestions for change, the blinks to Utopia for Realists make for an excellent next read.

We’re now at the last blink, everybody. And we’ve learned a lot about our past… but what about our future? Where will advances in science and prosperity lead us in the decades to come? Scientists are already working to answer these questions, making considerable strides in fields such as bionic technology and anti-aging.

Within the field of bionics – the merging of human with machine – scientists have made impressive advances. For example, when Jesse Sullivan, an American electrician, lost both his arms, scientists were able to provide him new bionic ones— arms that can be operated by thought alone!

Scientists are also making fast progress in the field of anti-aging. They have recently found a way, through altering its genetics, to double the lifespan of certain worms, and they are pretty close to doing the same with mice as well. How long will it be before scientists can extract the aging gene from humans?

Both the project to halt aging and develop bionic technology are part of the Gilgamesh Project, the huge scientific quest to discover eternal life.

So, what’s stopping us? Well, at the moment, scientific study in these areas is limited by various legal restrictions based on ethical concerns. 

But these barriers can’t last forever. If humanity gains the slightest chance to live indefinitely, then surely our urge to get there will sweep aside all stumbling blocks.

It is likely that, in the not-so-distant future, we Homo sapiens will change our bodies so drastically through science that we’ll no longer technically count as Homo sapiens at all. Rather, we will become a completely new species – half organic, half machine.

Time for a final recap:

For 300,000 years, Homo sapiens evolved from being just one of the many species of humans to becoming the most dominant species ever to walk the planet. Beginning with the development of language and common myths that tie our social fabrics together, human civilization has been getting more and more sophisticated – leading to the interconnected global village we have today.