Sapiens: a brief History of Humankind

An equation for calculating the acceleration of mass
i
under the influence of gravity, according to the
Theory of Relativity. When most laypeople see such an equation, they usually panic and freeze, like a
deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle. The reaction is quite natural, and does not betray a
lack of intelligence or curiosity. With rare exceptions, human brains are simply incapable of thinking
through concepts like relativity and quantum mechanics. Physicists nevertheless manage to do so,
because they set aside the traditional human way of thinking, and learn to think anew with the help of
external data-processing systems. Crucial parts of their thought process take place not in the head, but
inside computers or on classroom blackboards
.
More recently, mathematical script has given rise to an even more
revolutionary writing system, a computerised binary script consisting of only two
signs: 0 and 1. The words I am now typing on my keyboard are written within my
computer by different combinations of 0 and 1.
Writing was born as the maidservant of human consciousness, but is increasingly
becoming its master. Our computers have trouble understanding how 
Homo
sapiens
talks, feels and dreams. So we are teaching 
Homo sapiens
to talk, feel and
dream in the language of numbers, which can be understood by computers.
And this is not the end of the story. The eld of arti cial intelligence is seeking
to create a new kind of intelligence based solely on the binary script of computers.
Science- ction movies such as 
The Matrix
and 
The Terminator
tell of a day when
the binary script throws o the yoke of humanity. When humans try to regain
control of the rebellious script, it responds by attempting to wipe out the human
race.
*
 Even after Akkadian became the spoken language, Sumerian remained the language of administration and thus

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the language recorded with writing. Aspiring scribes thus had to speak Sumerian.

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8
There is No Justice in History
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN HISTORY IN THE millennia following the Agricultural
Revolution boils down to a single question: how did humans organise themselves
in mass-cooperation networks, when they lacked the biological instincts necessary
to sustain such networks? The short answer is that humans created imagined
orders and devised scripts. These two inventions lled the gaps left by our
biological inheritance.
However, the appearance of these networks was, for many, a dubious blessing.
The imagined orders sustaining these networks were neither neutral nor fair. They
divided people into make-believe groups, arranged in a hierarchy. The upper
levels enjoyed privileges and power, while the lower ones su ered from
discrimination and oppression. Hammurabi’s Code, for example, established a
pecking order of superiors, commoners and slaves. Superiors got all the good
things in life. Commoners got what was left. Slaves got a beating if they
complained.
Despite its proclamation of the equality of all men, the imagined order
established by the Americans in 1776 also established a hierarchy. It created a
hierarchy between men, who bene ted from it, and women, whom it left
disempowered. It created a hierarchy between whites, who enjoyed liberty, and
blacks and American Indians, who were considered humans of a lesser type and
therefore did not share in the equal rights of men. Many of those who signed the
Declaration of Independence were slaveholders. They did not release their slaves
upon signing the Declaration, nor did they consider themselves hypocrites. In their
view, the rights of 
men
had little to do with Negroes.
The American order also consecrated the hierarchy between rich and poor. Most
Americans at that time had little problem with the inequality caused by wealthy
parents passing their money and businesses on to their children. In their view,
equality meant simply that the same laws applied to rich and poor. It had nothing
to do with unemployment bene ts, integrated education or health insurance.
Liberty, too, carried very di erent connotations than it does today. In 1776, it did
not mean that the disempowered (certainly not blacks or Indians or, God forbid,
women) could gain and exercise power. It meant simply that the state could not,

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except in unusual circumstances, con scate a citizen’s private property or tell him
what to do with it. The American order thereby upheld the hierarchy of wealth,
which some thought was mandated by God and others viewed as representing the
immutable laws of nature. Nature, it was claimed, rewarded merit with wealth
while penalising indolence.
All the above-mentioned distinctions – between free persons and slaves,
between whites and blacks, between rich and poor – are rooted in ctions. (The
hierarchy of men and women will be discussed later.) Yet it is an iron rule of
history that every imagined hierarchy disavows its ctional origins and claims to
be natural and inevitable. For instance, many people who have viewed the
hierarchy of free persons and slaves as natural and correct have argued that
slavery is not a human invention. Hammurabi saw it as ordained by the gods.
Aristotle argued that slaves have a ‘slavish nature’ whereas free people have a
‘free nature’. Their status in society is merely a reflection of their innate nature.
Ask white supremacists about the racial hierarchy, and you are in for a
pseudoscienti c lecture concerning the biological di erences between the races.
You are likely to be told that there is something in Caucasian blood or genes that
makes whites naturally more intelligent, moral and hardworking. Ask a diehard
capitalist about the hierarchy of wealth, and you are likely to hear that it is the
inevitable outcome of objective di erences in abilities. The rich have more money,
in this view, because they are more capable and diligent. No one should be
bothered, then, if the wealthy get better health care, better education and better
nutrition. The rich richly deserve every perk they enjoy.