21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

Through this section, Harari reaffirms that the best solution is still a global community and neither Facebook, nationalism, or religion will unite human society. Part 2 provides possible solutions to how humans might be united to confront these global issues, including whether Facebook engineers using algorithms can create a global community and whether we can reverse the globalization process and re-empower nation-states or religious traditions. Through Part 1, Harari hopes to show the urgency and magnitude of these global problems at hand. If humans do not figure out how to regulate the ownership of data, we could see our global society become more unequal than ever before with the rise of a small superhuman class that controls all of the wealth, beauty, and intellect. Data is clearly more important than ever. Democracy has championed over authoritarianism in the late-20th century, however the changes that artificial intelligence will inflict on data processing could lead to digital dictatorships. Automation might replace millions of individual humans with an integrated computer network, leading to an increase in post-work societies. This disillusionment is occurring at a time when problems are global in nature and will require global solutions.

The average individual believes they are losing their economic worth. People all over the world, including in the core liberal nations, are becoming disillusioned with the liberal story. In Part 1, Harari offers an overview of the biggest political and technological challenges of humanity’s collective lifetime.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari