Yuval Harari: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

4. Valery N. Soyfer, ‘New Light on the Lysenko Era’, Nature 339:6224 (1989), 415–20; Nils Roll-Hansen, ‘Wishful Science: The Persistence of T. D. Lysenko’s Agrobiology in the Politics of Science’, Osiris 23:1 (2008), 166–88.

5. William H. McNeill and J. R. McNeill, The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View of World History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003).

6. Aaron Swartz, ‘Guerilla Open Access Manifesto’, July 2008, accessed 22 December 2014, https://ia700808.us.archive.org/17/items/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008.pdf; Sam Gustin, ‘Aaron Swartz, Tech Prodigy and Internet Activist, Is Dead at 26’, Time , 13 January 2013, accessed 22 December 2014, http://business.time.com/2013/01/13/tech-prodigy-and-internet-activist-aaron-swartz-commits-suicide; Todd Leopold, ‘How Aaron Swartz Helped Build the Internet’, CNN, 15 January 2013, 22 December 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/15/tech/web/aaron-swartz-internet/; Declan McCullagh, ‘Swartz Didn’t Face Prison until Feds Took Over Case, Report Says’, CNET, 25 January 2013, accessed 22 December 2014, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57565927-38/swartz-didnt-face-prison-until-feds-took-over-case-report-says/.

7. John Sousanis, ‘World Vehicle Population Tops 1 Billion Units’, Wardsauto , 15 August 2011, accessed 3 December 2015, http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/world-vehicle-population-tops-1-billion-units.

8. ‘No More Woof’, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-more-woof.

I would like to express my gratitude to the following humans, animals and institutions:

To my teacher, Satya Narayan Goenka (1924–2013), who taught me the technique of Vipassana meditation, which has helped me to observe reality as it is, and to know the mind and the world better. I could not have written this book without the focus, peace and insight gained from practising Vipassana for fifteen years.

To the Israel Science Foundation, that helped fund this research project (grant number 26/09).

To the Hebrew University, and in particular to its department of history, my academic home; and to all my students over the years, who taught me so much through their questions, their answers and their silences.

To my research assistant, Idan Sherer, who devotedly handled whatever I threw his way, be it chimpanzees, Neanderthals or cyborgs. And to my other assistants, Ram Liran, Eyal Miller and Omri Shefer Raviv, who pitched in from time to time.

To Michal Shavit, my publisher at Penguin Random House in the UK, for taking a gamble, and for her unfailing commitment and support over many years; and to Ellie Steel, Suzanne Dean, Bethan Jones, Maria Garbutt-Lucero and their colleagues at Penguin Random House, for all their help.

To David Milner, who did a superb job editing the manuscript, saved me from many an embarrassing mistake, and reminded me that ‘delete’ is probably the most important key on the keyboard.

To Preena Gadher and Lija Kresowaty of Riot Communications, for helping to spread the word so efficiently.

To Jonathan Jao, my publisher at HarperCollins in New York, and to Claire Wachtel, my former publisher there, for their faith, encouragement and insight.

To Shmuel Rosner and Eran Zmora, for seeing the potential, and for their valuable feedback and advice.

To Deborah Harris, for helping with the vital breakthrough.

To Amos Avisar, Shilo de Ber, Tirza Eisenberg, Luke Matthews, Rami Rotholz and Oren Shriki, who read the manuscript carefully, and devoted much time and effort to correcting my mistakes and enabling me to see things from other perspectives.

To Yigal Borochovsky, who convinced me to go easy on God.

To Yoram Yovell, for his insights and for our walks together in the Eshta’ol forest.

To Ori Katz and Jay Pomeranz, who helped me get a better understanding of the capitalist system.

To Carmel Weismann, Joaquín Keller and Antoine Mazieres, for their thoughts about brains and minds.

To Diego Olstein, for many years of warm friendship and calm guidance.

To Ehud Amir, Shuki Bruck, Miri Worzel, Guy Zaslavaki, Michal Cohen, Yossi Maurey, Amir Sumakai-Fink, Sarai Aharoni and Adi Ezra, who read selected parts of the manuscript and shared their ideas.

To Eilona Ariel, for being a gushing fountain of enthusiasm and a firm rock of refuge.

To my mother-in-law and accountant, Hannah Yahav, for keeping all the money balls in the air.

To my grandmother Fanny, my mother, Pnina, my sisters Liat and Einat, and to all my other family members and friends for their support and companionship.

To Chamba, Pengo and Chili, who offered a canine perspective on some of the main ideas and theories of this book.

And to my spouse and manager, Itzik, who already today functions as my Internet-of-All-Things.

* The formula takes a multiplication symbol because the elements work one on the other. At least according to medieval scholastics, you cannot understand the Bible without logic. If your logic value is zero, then even if you read every page of the Bible, the sum of your knowledge would still be zero. Conversely, if your scripture value is zero, then no amount of logic can help you. If the formula used the addition symbol, the implication would be that somebody with lots of logic and no scriptures would still have a lot of knowledge – which you and I may find reasonable, but medieval scholastics did not.

* In American politics, liberalism is often interpreted far more narrowly, and contrasted with ‘conservatism’. In the broad sense of the term, however, most American conservatives are also liberal.