Ayush Pal

Yesterday I completed reading SAPIENS – brief history of Humankind, written by Yuval Noah Harari. Ever since I started reading this book, supplementation of, and gap filling of fissures existing here and there in my knowledge base started happening within my intellectual cauldron. I experienced a sort of shock and indigestibility when I read that Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud. Strangely, I don’t find the author trying to make any distinction between Agricultural Revolution of the nomadic tribe and the Green Revolution of the modern human being. The book SAPIENS is evidently a mini encyclopaedia and I am filled with deep admiration to find the treasure of information stacked in those 466 pages. Born on 24 February 1976, the author at this young age has published three/four marvellous and epoch making best sellers. In addition to collecting the literature essential for writing these books, the author must have undergone severe intellectual gyrations to bring out the genius within him. We, the readers, are spellbound as we reach the last pages of Sapiens. The Genesis, Zoroastrians, many other ancient and extinct religions, polytheism, monotheism, Jesus Christ, Catholics, Protestants, Islam, gospels, inquisition, religious persecution etc., do not make me any more enlightened. The very act of setting one’s foot on a newly discovered land mass and claiming it as his own without any humanitarian consideration for the natives, treating human beings as mere commodities rather than as sensitive living beings, slavery, deliberate, calculated and merciless ethnic cleansing, the barbarianism, violence and atrocities associated with inquisition, religious conversion, claim of genetic superiority based on skin colour – has the modern man moved away from any of these despicable historic events? The acceptance by scientific community of the ignorance existing around them and their willingness to explore and invent further and farther into the realms of the universe as against the dogma and intolerance exhibited by the religions, priests and theologians are stark realities and make interesting reading. The declaration by the nuclear scientist after witnessing explosion of experimental atomic bomb that I AM DESTRUCTION, reminding Vishwaroopa Darshan of Bhagavad Geetha is revealing. We are sitting on a pile of nuclear arsenal which can be triggered by any misanthrope probably culminating in the total annihilation of planet earth. This will make any sensible human being think twice before embarking on any misadventure. The euphoria felt at the time of Apollo and Sputnik explorations towards the outer space that we will be able to settle on planets like Mars which is being overshadowed by the technological and information explosion brought about by the Internet are quite in contrast and depicts the unpredictable twist in the scientific trajectory of human kind. I don’t know why the author is silent on the invention of mobile phones in his book. At many places in the book I kept wondering whether it is the ‘gene’ that decides the destiny of mankind? Can cyborgs and bionics lead to the creation of superhumans? Will we ultimately turn ourselves into new Gods or Supergods? Where will artificial intelligence lead us to? Will we be able to back up our brain to a portable hard drive and then turn it on our laptop? Can we achieve immortality through computer installed brain sans our physical body? 376 people found this helpful.