It's dense, a bit like digesting a delicious whale

From a tweet by Anders K. @Falliblemusings  He is pointing out that the fashionable nihilism of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is based on bad philosophy.

Deutsch has a concept he calls 'bad philosophy.' Not philosophy that's merely false, but philosophy that actively prevents the growth of knowledge. Ideas that close doors rather than open them. That makes problems seem unsolvable by design.

After soaking in Deutsch's framework (it's dense, a bit like digesting a delicious whale), it becomes clear: Harari's books are riddled with bad philosophy. They're smuggling nihilism in under the guise of scientific objectivity.

[snip]

Where Harari sees a species of deluded apes stumbling toward obsolescence, Deutsch sees universal explainers, the only entities we know of capable of creating explanatory knowledge, solving problems, and potentially seeding the universe with intelligence.

The difference isn't academic. Ideas shape action. If you believe life is meaningless, progress is a trap, and humans are hackable animals with no free will, how does that affect what you build? What you fight for? What you teach your children?

Harari's books sell because they flatter a fashionable pessimism. They let readers feel sophisticated for seeing through the "delusions" everyone else lives by. That smug cynicism is corrosive. And it's everywhere: in schools, in media, in bestselling books. More than half of young adults now say they feel little to no purpose or meaning in life. This is what happens when you teach an entire generation bad philosophy. Less progress, less health, less wealth. Less flourishing. And ultimately, a higher chance that civilization and consciousness go extinct.

Fortunately, there's another equally well-written, but much truer, account of homo sapiens, appropriately titled 'The Beginning of Infinity'. And this one smuggles no despair in by the backdoor.

The contrast he is drawing is with The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch.  

After Sapiens had been out for a year or two and had received such effusive praise across the spectrum, I broke down and purchased a copy expecting it to be an exciting fresh treatment of material with which I was broadly already familiar.  

It still sits upon the shelf waiting to be read.  I sampled it.  Read the first few pages.  Leafed through the chapters trying to find a snippet that gripped.  There are plenty of good books which fail that test and sit on a shelf and which I later read with enjoyment and benefit.  

But Sapiens failed the test and still sits, waiting for a second chance.  But Fallible Musings pushes an alternate to the head of the line and I am on the hunt for The Beginning of Infinity.