DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Sapiens
    Home    Print This Page  

  1. "There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings." (pg 31) What are some of the imagined realities you believe in?
  2. Do you feel you are missing out by living in a world with only one human species? Could other human species ever possibly have survived?
  3. Does the forager life sound appealing to you? Are you convinced by Harari's generally rosy picture of forager life?
  4. Does reading about how we evolved as animals change your perception of the human/nature divide?
  5. "It is wrong to judge thousands of years of history from the perspective of today." (pg 93) From what other perspective can we judge it? Can we really get inside the perspective of a 3 year-old girl living thousands of years ago?
  6. If life as a farmer was so bad, why did humans willingly transition to this way of life?
  7. Which side of the debate do you fall on: the agricultural revolution set humankind in the road to prosperity or perdition?
  8. Do you think written script would have been as unsettling to the ancient Sumerians as the idea of AI is to a lot of people today?
  9. Are you convinced by any of the theories about why we live in a patriarchal world?
  10. How did money succeed where gods and kings failed?
  11. Why are we so troubled by globalization and homogenization if it is just part of the inevitable march of history and is in fact as old as time?
  12. Is imperialism really defensible on the grounds that empires paid for culture and most of us are the product of empires?
  13. Can capitalist economic growth continue exponentially?
  14. Can you imagine a world without science, empires and capitalism? Would you want to live in such a world?
  15. Do you find the notion that families and communities have been completely destroyed by free market capitalism shocking? Do you recognise the effects of this in your own life?
  16. Do you agree with Harari that we have produced little we can be proud of? Is his gloomy afterword justified?

* Some questions from The Ides Book Club.
 
Home l About Us l Features l Contact Us l Share l Submit Book