Sapiens 15 -- A Permanent Revolution

See also these transcripts, posted by someone else who took Dr. Harari's Coursera course.

Lesson 15 - part 1 -- destruction of habitats, rule by timetable

• "Less than 10% of the big animals of the world, oceans and continents together today are wild animals. The vast majority are us Homo sapiens and are domesticated and enslaved farmyard animals." 
• "Doomsday prophecies about humanity running out of resources and energy are probably incorrect. In contrast the fear of ecological destruction, that humankind is destroying the ecosystem around it is far more justified."
• IR --> a revolution in time, rhythms of life

Lesson 15 - part 2 -- collapse of the family, rise of individuality (from state/market forces)

• growing power of markets and states have usurped the role of family
• "The state and the market during the 19th and 20th century approached people with an offer that couldn’t be refused. They told us become individuals."
• " It is very common, especially in romantic literature to present the individual as somebody who is all the time struggling against the state and the market, but this is completely wrong. This is just the opposite of what really happened."
• "For millions of years, humans have been living as members of intimate communities and families. For the last few thousand years cities, kingdoms and empires grew. They were still composed of families and communities. Now, within a mere two centuries from about 1800 onwards we have become alienated individuals living within these states and markets."
• The identity of people today is based more and more with identification with the state, or with market groups.  (Madonna fans, Manchester United supporters, vegetarians, etc.)

Lesson 15 - part 3 -- a more peaceful world, the dissolution of European empires has been unique in human history

• The pace of change is faster than ever before in human history.  We expect that the world will be very different 20 years from now.
• At the same time, the level of violence has decreased; the world is more peaceful.
• The "collapse of the family and community, and the rise of the state, caused a decrease in internal levels of violence."
• "Throughout history, most violence resulted from local feuds, local conflicts, between families and communities."  But the rise of the power of the state has prevented this.
• "In Detroit, the murder capital of the United States, about 50 people are murdered each year for every 100,000 people. . . . In contrast, in ancient societies of simple farmers, who had no political organization larger than the local community, about 400 individuals were violently killed each year for every 100,000 people. That’s eight times more than in Detroit."
• Collapse of European Empires -- replaced by independent states.  The "greatest transfer of power in history" (in terms of magnitude, speed, and peacefulness/orderliness).  The dissolution of the British Empire or the USSR = very different than the process of collapse of earlier empires.
• USSR collapse in 1980's:  "Never in history before, had so much power been given up so quickly, by so few people."

Lesson 15 - part 4 -- Since 1945, states no longer invade other states in order to conquer and swallow them up.  (See this!)

• "Since 1945, no independent country recognized by the United Nations has been conquered and wiped off the map by, by some other country."
• Fewer international wars than ever:
• South America:  only 3 major international wars in the past 130 years
• Arab states:  Since WW2, no full scale international wars between Arab states except for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990
• Muslim states:  Only 1 major war -- Iran-Iraq in the 1980s
• In Africa, vast majority of conflicts are civil wars and revolutions and rebellions
• Common counter-argument:  There have been such periods of relative peace before, and they always ended in major wars.
• BUT:  "Today the word “peace” has acquired a new meaning. The new peace does not mean the absence of war it means the implausibility of war, the impossibility of war."
• People and governments and, businesses and companies, run their lives without even imaging the possibility of a serious war. 
• Why so peaceful?  4 theories:
• The price of war is *much* greater:  nuclear weapons made the cost of war so high.
• The profits of war is *much* less:  
• wealth today = human capital (knowledge, rather than material wealth as in the past)  
• "you can’t conquer the riches of Silicon Valley, because the ... wealth of Silicon Valley resides in the minds, in the brains of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft engineers."
• Peace is much more profitable: International trade/investment is much too important now.
• States are losing their independence and therefore cannot wage wars:  governments cannot conduct independent economic or foreign policies. They are incapable of initiating and conducting full scale war on their own without the approval of their international community and of the international elites.