This was a sort of rando pick I made but was definitely the best book I’ve read this year. There is a well-known guy in the computer science community who coined this idea that code quality can be judged by the “number of WTFs/minute” the person coming behind that code has. Well, I’d like to say that when it comes to a book like this, the quality of it can be judged by how many times your mind gets blown by a unique thought or viewpoint that I haven’t had. This book has hundreds of those. In a nutshell this book outlines science’s best “story” about the development of man in the following stages
Pre-Cognitive Revolution - 2.5 million years - 70k years ago. Ignorance is bliss Troglodyte 356,550 BC
This is the longest section in human history and ironically has the least amount of information to document it. Therefore, most ideas about how this era works are mostly just best guesses, but fascinating guesses.
Cognitive Revolution Started between 70-30k years ago - 10k years ago Ohhhh shiiiiiiiittt was I ever in the ghost house? Captain Bart 45,550 BC
Little is known for about this section of history either but it is characterized by the emergence of cultures and introduces a concept that will change the world. That concept is imagination. Or in other words the ability to talk and conceive of things that have no existence in the physical world.
Agricultural Revolution 10k - ~300 Years ago Hello I’m farming, I’m here I’m queer so get used to it Wheat Farmer 7,550 BC
This stage is characterized by 2 main things. First the major decline of hunter gatherers and the replacement of them by farmers. Like a falling domino farming set off a chain reactions like population exploding, people becoming non-migratory, cities becoming bigger, kingdoms existing, math being invented, and on and on. One interesting observation about this stage is that when taken as a whole this revolution most likely caused a decrease in living standards for the individual as opposed to an increase.
*Scientific Revolution ~*300 years ago to present God is dead, elon musk is our savior now Modern Technocrat 1550 AD Have you ever stopped and wondered what happened to set off the chain reactions of events that explain the last couple hundred years? The author makes a compelling argument that part of the answer is that some cultures shifted enough to allow people to admit that they didn’t know it all.
Overall, this is a MUST READ. Do yourself a favor and put this book on your list. I read a review debating some of the technical details that the book puts forward, but the technical details aren’t the point (to me). The book provides some provocative questions and things that’ll make you think differently. After all isn’t that the only reason that we read books?