REVIEWS FOR HOMO DEUS

Tom's Review

 I HATE this book. The best thing I can say about it is there are no glaring grammatical errors. I chalk that
up to the editor. I rate it one digit. The middle one.
The book’s premise is that Homo Sapiens will reach top-end in the next hundred years and give way to
Homo Deus the way Neanderthal did to Cro-Magnon did to Homo Sapiens. It’s the end of humanity as
we know it.
The reason? Algorithms. Forget climate change or pandemics or WMDs. As it turns out, all earthly life
forms are united not by elements or molecules or atoms or even elementary and composite particles,
but algorithms, all of which are in the hands of the one-true one-percenters, those humans rich or smart
enough to program and control artificial intelligence and its biotechnological variants. Is it just me, or
does this sound like the love-child of Dr. Strangelove and Ayn Rand as delivered by L. Ron Hubbard?
So let’s cut to the chase for all us ninety-nine percenters. Assuming the global population has topped
out at its current level of 7.5 billion people, that means 75 million people can aspire to “Deus”. The
remaining 74.25 billion of us will be, in the author’s own word, “useless”. AI will make better burgers,
be better doctors and compose better music. The best we can hope for is a Wall-E-like hermetically-
sealed existence of audio-visual stimulation. To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, “I have seen the future,
baby/And it is torpor.”
Just as the Industrial Revolution weaved more more-fashionable clothing, stamped out more more-
precise tools and produced more just-plain convenience, the AI Revolution will produce on a mass scale
the things Homo Deus rightly identifies as cutting-edge technology. But that’s the problem I have with
this book--it can only know current technology. Algorithms. AI. Replacement body parts. The Internet-of-
All-Things. Forecasting the future is a mug’s game. Let’s say this book was written in 1900. It could have
easily predicted the demise of the horse and the rise of the car. It could have predicted the household
applications of electricity. It could have likely predicted rocketry. But quantum physics? Antibiotics? The
microchip? Breaking Bad?
The only thing I felt I learned from this book is that the one-percenters do in fact dictate the future. Size
of numbers doesn’t matter. The history of the 19 th Century that drove the 20 th Century wasn’t dictated
by the 99% of us plebs worshipping some regional fable but the one-percent of scientists, industrialists,
capitalists and artists. Same for the 20 th C driving the 21 st . Sure, we and our political representatives can
get in the way with the mass slaughter of a world war or two, but somehow we also progress.
And remain “useful”. Trawl through your family history and look at the names of the jobs your great-
great grand-father and -uncles and -aunts and -cousins were doing in factories in Manchester and
Pittsburgh. The names are just as quaint as “cooper” or “thatcher” or “smith”, and just as obsolete.
One can only hope the same fate awaits “human resources” and “consultant”.
Throughout its first half, this book bangs on with logorrhoetic clichés supported by cherry-picked
examples about how we Homo Sapiens evolved to where we’re at. Darwin was right, the Bible is
wrong--knock me over with an ass’s jaw. But to predict that the next stage of evolution is one that will
make 99% of humanity “useless” is to contradict the most basic tenet of Darwinism: it’s not survival of
the fittest; it’s survival of the most adaptable.
And so let me make a generalization no less sweeping than the many made by Homo Deus. We 99%ers
will adapt. We will find a way to make ourselves useful in jobs with names the 23r d C. will find quaint and

archaic. And Homo Sapiens will abide.

Two Stars

--------------------
EDITOR'S NOTE AND ERIC'S REVIEW: 


FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HATE TECHNOLOGY, TOM'S REVIEW WAS WRITTEN IN MICROSOFT WORD, POSSIBLY ONE OF THE WORST PROGRAMMES EVER TO BE FOISTED ON AN UNSUSPECTING POPULACE...SO COPYING IT INTO THIS HTML MESSES UP THE FORMATTING, WHICH, I AM SORRY TO SAY, COMES INTO THE CBATFI* CATEGORY.

*CAN'T BE ARSED TO FIX IT.

WHICH ACTUALLY, CONFIRMS HARARI'S THESIS WHICH TOM IS SO CAREFUL TO DEBUNK.

WE ARE ALL INDEED DOOMED AT THE HANDS OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. (OR AT LEAST THOSE WHO ARE BEHOLDEN TO MICROSOFT).

BUT WHEN THE GREAT ELECTROMAGNETIC EVENT (THE ASTEROID, THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION, THE CYBERWAR, THE NUCLEAR BASHFEST) HAPPENS....ALL OF HARARI'S THESIS....WHIC IS PREDICATED ON THE STORAGE AND USE OF ELECTRONS, WILL BE ABOUT AS USEFUL AS PAPER INSTRUCTIONS OF HOW TO FIX THE LIGHTS IN THE PITCH BLACKNESS OF A CAVE....WHERE THE WHOLE STORY OF HOMO SAPIENS ALL BEGAN.

AND WE WILL GET TO SEE EXACTLY HOW HOMO DEUS HAS EVOLVED TO SURVIVE WHAT HAPPENS.

THIS QUALIFIES AS MY REVIEW, BY THE WAY, AND I GAVE THE BOOK A 4. 

AS A STIMULATION FOR DISCUSSION, HOWEVER,  I GIVE IT A 5.

BY THE WAY, I HAVE WRITTEN THIS IN CAPS TO REPLICATE WHAT I MUST DO, IN A CROWDED RESTAURANT, TO HAVE DISCOURSE WITH MY FELLOW JFDIERS. 

----------------
 Joe's Review

I love facts- and the fact that I can only tie a few of them together into a cohesive, consistent and creditable narrative is probably what has stopped me from becoming, well.....a lot of things.

In that vein, Homo Deus was interesting.  Lots of great facts, some very interesting and insightful hypotheses were presented.  I'm just not sure that I agree with most of the major conclusions.  Granted, I'm a bit older than the target audience for this book in many ways, but I do know and speak to a few younger- and older- people.  

We are not all addicted to Facebook and Google, we aren't all gadgeted up and, eventually, chipped up to have our hearts, hormones and humours measured, calibrated and diagnosed.  And, if we were, does the algorithm really exist that can solve the black box riddle of human consciousness and intent ?

The author falls into the very trap he describes in the opening sequences of the book; i.e. the delusion that the latest technology, in this case the well tempered computer algorithm, can fathom human interactions and intent.

Does Facebook or Google really know how I would vote, thereby obviating the democratic process- i.e. who needs elections when I know who you'll vote for anyway.  You might be surprised.

And let's not talk about humans living forever.  That is a very long way away, if at all possible.  All scientific research indicates there are limits for the lifetime of our cells.  And given that any such treatment would be hyperbolically expensive, it all sounds a bit implausible.  Having Peter Thiel live forever is not beneficial to humanity and I'm not sure we, the remaining Untermenschen, would gladly submit to the Übermenschen.

All in all an interesting take on some topics with some very unusual facts.  As a thirty page article I would have enjoyed the provocative thesis, but as an entire, overlong book it left me unconvinced.  Wish I had read my new John LeCarre book instead- now there's some insight into human nature and a good story !

Jawohl !

I

JFDI BOOK #43 HOMO DEUS

 

HOMO DEUS

Yuval Noah Harari

 

A follow-up to his acclaimed Sapiens, about the history of man, this book is about our species potential future.

 

JFDI BOOK #42 CURFEW CHRONICLES

 

CURFEW CHRONICLES

Jennifer Rahim

Vignettes of a state of emergency in Trinidad and Tobago.

JFDI BOOK #41 RESERVOIR 13

 

RESERVOIR 13

Jon McGregor

 

 

What happens in a village when a 13 year old girl goes missing? For the next 13 years. Which seem like infinity in a small town.

 

 

-----------------------------

 

REVIEW by Eric

 

Have you ever wondered what actually goes on in the house next door behind closed doors? Take that feeling, and imagine you thinking the same thing about an entire village for the next 13 years, but having all the information in excruciating detail...every day. About the people you know. About the people you sort of know. About the people you wish you didn't know. And why stop at people? What about all the animals? Nature. The seasons. Village fetes. Whatever.

 

The premise of Reservoir 13, I suppose, is that there are thirteen reservoirs surrounding the small village, and though you may think that one of them would yield up the answer to the disappearance of this girl (indeed, perhaps the main reason to keep on reading...spoiler alert) there no such luck.

 

Life goes on. Reservoirs dry up, and refill. And a lot of water passes, one way or another. 

 

And though you sort of feel in a general sense for the grief and shifting of blame etc., in the end the truth is pretty much what you might discover if you actually knew what went on in the house next door. Best not try to find out, really. 

 

There. That is pretty much all you need to know. Sorry.

 

 

Average score 2.75 stars

 

 

 

 

 

 

OLD SCHOOL- A short story by a JFDI member

OLD SCHOOL

by D. Eric Pettigrew

The doors opened. He quickly cast a practised eye down the carriage and spotted an open seat. Seats were like gold dust, with commuters slumped silently in this moving sepulchre, each person in their own private world. Gratefully he eased himself down, and assumed what he called the position, his rucksack on his knees, his wrists looped through the straps on each side, his arms thus balanced needing no armrest. 

After thirty years of commuting on the Tube, he had developed the ability to fall asleep in this position almost immediately. Head erect, feet flat on the ground, knees evenly spaced. At this time of year, with the shortest day only a week away, the distinction between day and night was horribly out of kilter. 

Life was lived in a crepuscular funk, the grey of London sleepwalking each day through different shades eventually to black, only to start the same cycle all over again. Christmas was less than a month away, but with his children long since gone, the familiar mixture of angst and creativity (what present should he be getting?) had dulled with time, replaced with a vague sense of dread. Life should be lived forward but remembered backward, he had read somewhere, but at this point in his life the road ahead seemed very short, and the rear view mirror filled with too many images and feelings.

He closed his eyes, but having been ill the previous week, he was not hopeful that sleep would come easily. The antibiotics he had been given heightened his senses, he thought. Each cough or sniffle down the carriage was a coded signal for his body to react in the same way, and he didn't want to give into another coughing jag. All he heard was the rustling of papers, the squeal of the brakes as the train stopped, and the mellifluous tones of the pre-recorded announcements. He gave up on sleep and began glancing around at his fellow passengers, oblivious to his attentions.

Across from him sat a middle-aged woman in black with precision-cut highlighted blonde hair, Anna Wintour-style. She was very thin with wrinkled skin like parchment and her mouth was set in a permanent frown. Her eyes were fluttering, and it was clear she would have no trouble whatsoever falling asleep, he noted jealously. Her lids drooped, opened, drooped again, fluttered, and stayed shut. Her head pitched forward onto her chest (too thin to call it anything but a chest), and he noticed the tiniest chink in her otherwise perfect coiffure, the faintest hint of her dark roots. 

Sic transit gloria mundi, he thought to himself, and his gaze turned elsewhere. The train stopped, a seat came free diagonally opposite to his right, and a young girl sat down. He looked at her. His wife always admonished him for staring at people in public. His rejoinder was that it was not staring, but observing.

The girl was twenty-ish, dressed in de rigeur jeans, and somewhat anachronistic Doc Martins. Her ears were pierced in several places, with a delicate hoop through the top of one ear. No tats, as far as he could tell. She would only be called edgy by someone on his side of the age divide. She wasn't beautiful, but striking. Yes, striking, that was it. Her hair was plaited and wound up from the nape of her neck in a lopsided bun. Her face was like a painting, long like a Modigliani painting, with a thin nose and lips which seemed too narrow for her face, as if they had been painted on. A Madonna with no child possibly. 

He was intrigued. Because of the angle, he could observe unnoticed. She was unaware of him, or if she noticed, she didn't care. That was for certain, but was par for the course. He had long since reconciled himself with the unpalatable fact that he had become for all intents and purposes, invisible. Especially to anyone under thirty.

The woman in front of him, her head at an unnatural angle, started and woke up. He looked at her but her eyes registered nothing, and her mouth remained fixed downward. He threw in the towel, and put on his earphones and closed his eyes. By and by, a sad song came on called Lost Soul, one which for him had taken on a special poignancy. It was a duet and the lyrics, like all good lyrics, seemed to have been written for him.

He sat alone with a pencil in his hand 
All day long he drew careful on the paper

In the end just a picture of a man.

Just a picture of a man. Too right, he thought. Aren't we all just pictures of ourselves?

When the chorus came on and the singers' harmonies meshed perfectly, he felt a lump in his throat.

A lost soul coming down the road somewhere between two worlds.

He opened his eyes, and for some reason his attention was drawn directly to the girl at right. Her face was turned in his direction, but she was not looking at him. Gazing at her own thoughts, possibly. But slowly her eyes welled up, and a tear fell from her eye onto her left cheek. She wiped it away, but not self-consciously. She was lost in herself.

He looked around the carriage. No one else looked up. He looked back at her and her eyes were still welling.

What makes people do the things they do? Our lives are full of days identical save the scissor cut, like those paper dolls cut from patterns which string out once they are unfolded. What makes one of those paper dolls step out and start dancing on their own? What makes a certain moment special, or even memorable?

He closed his eyes and began to imagine what possibly had made this girl cry. He thought back on his past, a distant past when youthful feelings fresh as snow were now buried in the permafrost of his memory. He was lucky to have married young, the best decision he had ever made, but this had nothing to do with his wife, or indeed his life. People cry when they see autumn trees in a mist, at movies, for the most obscure reasons. Who could ever know the real reason?

Impulsively he opened his rucksack and pulled out his notebook and a pen, turned to a page near the back which he could afford to tear out, and began to write. Urgently, the words poured out.

I don't know who you are

I don't know why a tear

Is falling down your face

I don't know what or who

Has caused this pain

And led you here to this sad and lonely place

He looked up. He closed his eyes and thought a moment, and continued writing. The words came a little harder, as if he were wrestling with a deadline.

Still I know no matter what

Moments like these will never last

You may think heartbreak is the danger

But as sure as tomorrow shall come

Heed the timeworn words of this old stranger

This too shall pass

He read what he had written. He looked at the girl. Her expression had not changed. She of course had no idea what was going through his mind. Nor should she. He tore out the page, and folded it.

He had made up his mind what he was going to do.

He always acted on impulse. Over the course of his lifetime, sometimes it worked, and sometimes not. But once an idea came into his head, no matter how crazy, he generally acted on it.

The train came to the next station. The young girl got up from her seat and came towards him to exit, as he was sitting right by the door. As she passed by, he reached out and touched her arm. She paused, and looked at him.

'Excuse me' he said, and handed her the piece of paper.

Their eyes met briefly, a quizzical look replaced by an infinitesimal moment of what...recognition? Her brow knitted. She took the note and hurried past. The doors closed.

He sat back in his seat and looked around. No one else had seen this moment. The woman in front of him was fast asleep, her head pitched forward as before. He remembered what he had read about practising random acts of kindness daily. This thought comforted him. He closed his eyes and turned up his music, now on a happy song. Maybe individuals can make a difference.

---

Chloe was late. She was supposed to meet Justin at Sloane Square, but just before she got to the station he had texted her.

Sorry, hun. Can't make it. Something came up.

Hun.

She hated when he called her that. Something. It was always something. This was just another in a long series of disappointments kept. What an asshole, she thought to herself as she sat down. She would just go home. Another evening ruined. She started to feel sorry for herself, and her eyes stung with anger and regret.

She stayed on the train to Barons Court. Maybe she would go buy groceries and fix herself a meal. As she turned to get off the carriage, some man touched her on her arm. She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

What the hell?

He handed her a folded piece of paper. She rushed off the train.

What was that about? she thought to herself.

She unfolded it and started to read it.

I don't know who you are....

Just what I need, she thought. She read no more, crumpled the piece of paper, and tossed it on the platform before heading up the stairs and out into the night.

---

The old school is no more.

Everyone is yearning

No one is learning

Society is burning

Yet the world just keeps on turning.

Wake up people.

Before it is too late.

JFDI BOOK #40 HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

HALF OF A YELLLOW SUN

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 

The traumatic effects of the Biafran civil war

JFDI BOOK #38 FAHRENHEIT 451

 

 

FAHRENHEIT 451

Ray Bradbury

 

A dystopian view of the future where books are burned

JFDI BOOK #39 THE INVISIBLE MAN RALPH ELLISON

 

 

THE INVISIBLE MAN

Ralph Ellison

 

An epic journey by a young black intellectual trying to find himself

 

REVIEW OF THE CUCKOO'S CALLING

Tom's review (he couldn't attend)

When I was ten-eleven-twelve years old, I loved The Hardy Boys mysteries.  At the time, there were roughly 45 books in the series, and, by virtue of borrowing from libraries and friends, getting gifts for Christmases and birthdays, buying with my own allowance and indulging in a couple-three five-finger discounts, I managed to amass and read all 45.  At a time of my life when everything I liked to do seemed to be irritating if not illegal, the Hardy Boys provided cozy, reliable comfort, the pre-pubescent version of a duvet day.  

More than fifty years later, "The Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith (nee J.K. Rowling) brought back those same warm feelings.  It no doubt helped that I read it while nursing a bad cough under an actual duvet.  The language and situations may be a little earthier than anything in "The Tower Treasure" or "The Phantom Freighter", but the book has the same easy-on-the-brain style, easy-to-like protagonists and easy-to-despise bad guys.  Call it The Hardy Boys with the occasional C-word.  

It is certainly not great literature.  I'm not sure if it's even a good detective novel. Dickens would have blushed at the mountain of coincidence and plot calisthenics occurring in the thirty minutes either side of Lula Landry's death, let alone the entirety of the novel.  On the other hand, he probably would have been okay with the florid syntax.  For sure, he would have approved of the evocation of London's landmarks, boroughs and street-life. 

But none of what may sound like misgivings means I didn't like it.  In fact, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot.  Which is why I'm giving it four duvets. 

(Later revised to four duvets/ two stars once the paracetamol wore off).

Tom's ambivalent enthusiasm was mirrored by the rest. Avg rating: 2.4 stars

JFDI BOOK #37 THE HITCHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE

Douglas Adams

 

Q: What's so bad about being drunk?
A: Just ask a glass of water. 

JFDI BOOK #36 THE CUCKOO'S CALLING by Robert Galbraith

 

THE CUCKOO'S CALLING by Robert Galbraith*

aka JKRowling

BOOKS #34 and #35: HERLAND AND SILAS MARNER

 

HERLAND BY Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

'Eminently forgettable.' 2.5*

 

SILAS MARNER by George Eliot

'A minor classic about perseverance over the long term.' 4*

 

 

We were supposed to compare and contrast. Alas, other than the fact that both books were written by women, there was little to compare.