Quotes About Society

Most sociopolitical hierarchies lack a logical or biological basis – they are nothing but the perpetuation of chance events supported by myths.

There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens brain has actually decreased since the age of foraging.5 Survival in that era required superb mental abilities from everyone. When agriculture and industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new 'niches for imbeciles' were opened up. You could survive and pass your unremarkable genes to the next generation by working as a water carrier or an assembly-line worker.

Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That's why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

A good rule of thumb is 'Biology enables, culture forbids.' Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It's culture that obliges people to realise some possibilities while forbidding others.

For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined.

Have you seen those zombies who roam the streets with their faces glued to their smartphones? Do you think they control the technology, or does the technology control them?

Christians and Muslims who could not agree on religious beliefs could nevertheless agree on a monetary belief, because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something.

Even more money is transferred to the bank accounts of fashion designers, gym managers, dieticians, cosmeticians and plastic surgeons, who help us arrive at the café looking as similar as possible to the market's ideal of beauty.

Humans are in danger of losing their economic value because intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.

Cultures are mental parasites that emerge accidentally, and thereafter take advantage of all people infected by them.

Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively.

In the future, however, we may see real gaps in physical and cognitive abilities opening between an upgraded upper class and the rest of society.

Ever since the French Revolution, people throughout the world have gradually come to see both equality and individual freedom as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off.

Sapiens don't behave according to a cold mathematical logic, but rather according to a warm social logic. We are ruled by emotions.

The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mythical glue that binds together large numbers of individuals, families and groups.

Science needs more than just research to make progress. It depends on the mutual reinforcement of science, politics and economics.

The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history.

Social cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction.

One of history's few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations

Modernity is a surprisingly simple deal. The entire contract can be summarised in a single phrase: humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power.

Fiction isn't bad. It is vital. Without commonly accepted stories about things like money, states or corporations, no complex human society can function.

without a social safety net and a modicum of economic equality, liberty is meaningless.

Whereas in 2010 obesity and related illnesses killed about 3 million people, terrorists killed a total of 7,697 people across the globe, most of them in developing countries.25 For the average American or European, Coca-Cola poses a far deadlier threat than al-Qaeda. How,

It isn't a coincidence that skepticism about climate change tends to be the preserve of the nationalist right. You rarely see left-wing socialists tweet that "climate change is a Chinese hoax." Since there is no national answer to the problem of global warming, some nationalist politicians prefer to believe the problem does not exist.15