Quotes About Adaptation

mass extinctions akin to the archetypal Australian decimation occurred again and again in the ensuing millennia – whenever people settled another part of the Outer World.

Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives, and to reinvent themselves repeatedly.

But evolution has no purpose.

To stay relevant—not just economically but above all socially—you will need the ability to constantly learn and to reinvent yourself, certainly at a young age like fifty.

As strangeness becomes the new normal, your past experiences, as well as the past experiences of the whole of humanity, will become less reliable guides.

Homo sapiens conquered the world thanks above all to its unique language.

technology. Homo sapiens is an obsolete algorithm. After all, what's the advantage of

In the twenty-first century, those who ride the train of progress will acquire divine abilities of creation and destruction, while those left behind will face extinction.

essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.

People tended to reconcile themselves to the status quo, declaring that 'this is how it always was, and this is how it always will be'.

Evolution is based on difference, not on equality. Every person carries a somewhat different genetic code, and is exposed from birth to different environmental influences.

el cazador-recolector medio tenía un conocimiento más amplio, más profundo y más variado de su entorno inmediato que la mayoría de sus descendientes modernos. Hoy

Escaping the narrow definition of self might well become a necessary survival skill in the 21st century

Throughout this book, I often use the first person to speak about the future of humankind. I talk about what 'we' need to do about 'our' problems. But maybe there are no 'we'. Maybe one of 'our' biggest problems is that different human groups have completely different futures. Maybe in some parts of the world you should teach your children to write computer codes, while in others you had better teach them to draw fast and shoot straight.

Qué tipo de culturas, sociedades y estructuras políticas habrían surgido en un mundo en el que coexistían varias especies humanas diferentes?

other words, while the behaviour patterns of archaic humans remained fixed for tens of thousands of years, Sapiens could transform their social structures, the nature of their interpersonal relations, their economic activities and a host of other behaviours within a decade or two.

Since 1789, despite numerous wars, revolutions and upheavals, humans have not managed to conceive of any new value.

Without an ability to compose fiction, Neanderthals were unable to cooperate effectively in large numbers, nor could they adapt their social behaviour to rapidly changing challenges.

Neanderthals made their exit roughly 30,000 years ago. The

Consider a resident of Berlin, born in 1900 and living to the ripe age of one hundred. She spent her childhood in the Hohenzollern Empire of Wilhelm II; her adult years in the Weimar Republic, the Nazi Third Reich and Communist East Germany; and she died a citizen of a democratic and reunified Germany. She had managed to be a part of five very different sociopolitical systems, though her DNA remained exactly the same.

In a one-on-one brawl, a Neanderthal would probably have beaten a Sapiens. But in a conflict of hundreds, Neanderthals wouldn't stand a chance. Neanderthals could share information about the whereabouts of lions, but they probably could not tell – and revise – stories about tribal spirits. Without an ability to compose fiction, Neanderthals were unable to cooperate effectively in large numbers, nor could they adapt their social behaviour to rapidly changing challenges.

Among all the world's large creatures, the only survivors of the human flood will be humans themselves, and the farmyard animals that serve as galley slaves in Noah's Ark.

Buying cars and writing novels do not change our biochemistry.

In most places and at most times, foraging provided ideal nutrition. That is hardly surprising – this had been the human diet for hundreds of thousands of years, and the human body was well adapted to it. Evidence from fossilised skeletons indicates that ancient foragers were less likely to suffer from starvation or malnutrition, and were generally taller and healthier than their peasant descendants.