ALSO REFERENCED IN:
- Meditations –– Marcus Aurelius
- The Obstacle is the Way –– Ryan Holiday
- The book introduces concepts of [[stoicism]] and how to apply them in real life. The principles in the book can be applied to any and all obstacles we face in our daily lives. The practicality of stoicism is what draws most people towards it.
- The Obstacle is the Way –– Ryan Holiday
Tags: #book #stoicism #philosophy
- Highlights from Homo Deus
- "Mass famines still strike some areas from time to time, but they are exceptional, and they are almost always caused by human politics rather than by natural catastrophes."
- "We should therefore have expected to live in an epidemiological hell, with one deadly plague after another. However, both the incidence and impact of epidemics have gone down dramatically in the last few decades."
- Harari on #covid-19 before it even happened.
- "So while we cannot be certain that some new ebola outbreak or an unknown flu strain won't sweep across the globe and kill millions, we will not regard it as an inevitable natural calamity. Rather, we will see it as an inexcusable human failure and demand the heads of those responsible."
- "Such criticism assumes that humankind has the knowledge and tools to prevent plagues, and if an epidemic nevertheless gets out of control, it is due to human incompetence rather than divine anger."
- "It is therefore likely that major epidemics will continue to endanger humankind in the future only if humankind itself creates them, in the service of some ruthless ideology. The era when humankind stood helpless before natural epidemics is probably ever. But we may come to miss it."
- "Sugar is now more dangerous that gunpowder"
- When the moment comes to choose between economic growth and ecological stability, politicians, CEOs and voters almost always prefer growth. In the twenty first century, we shall have to do better if we are to avoid catastrophe.
- "Nuclear weapons have turned was between superpowers into a mad act of collective suicide and therefore forced the most powerful nations on earth to find alternative and peaceful ways to resolve conflicts. Simultaneously, the global economy has been transformed from a material-based economy into a knowledge-based economy... ...Hence as knowledge became the most important resource, the profitability of war declined and wars became increasingly restricted to those parts of the world –– such as the Middle East and Central Africa –– where the economies are still old-fashioned and material-based."
- It is not easy to live knowing that you are going to die, but it is even harder to believe in immortality and be proven wrong.
- We never react to events in the outside world, but only to sensations in our own bodies. #stoicism
- Healing is the initial justification for every upgrade.
- While the attempt to upgrade humans into gods takes its logical conclusion, it simultaneously exposes humanism's inherent flaws. If you start with a flawed ideal, you often appreciate it's defects only when the ideal is close to realization.
- Thoughts on the connection between stoicism and religion
Tags: #philosophy #stoicism #religion