In "Homo Deus", Yuval Harari proposes two speculations as answers to these questions: Techno-humanism and Data Religion. The former is growing from our urge to improve ourselves, the latter growing from our belief in everything that is measurable. What are the strengths and weaknesses of these ideologies? How do they relate to current local and global problems: are there any connections at all? Shall humanity proactively seek new healthy narratives? How about today's religions: will they stand the test of time?

1. “Homo Deus”:
On Emerging Narratives
for Tomorrow
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2. “New ideologies will emerge from research laboratories”
● Socialism = SALVATION
with steam and electricity
● New ideologies = SALVATION
with algorithms and genes
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3. Techno-humanism
“Humans are apex of creation” - clinging to many traditional humanist
values
Robots are going to take our jobs, they say. I say, “Only if that’s what we ask them to do!”. Technology is
the solution to human problems, and we won’t run out of work till we run out of problems. What’s the
future? It’s up to us.
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4. Data Religion
“Argues that humans have completed their cosmic task, and they
should now pass the torch on to entirely new kinds of entities”
How long will it take for us to spread our intelligence in its nonbiological form throughout the universe?
Waking up the universe, and then intelligently deciding its fate by infusing it with our human intelligence
in its nonbiological form, is our destiny.
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5. Who is Homo Deus?
Retains some essential human features (wisdom, looks)
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6. Who is Homo Deus?
Holds its own against even most sophisticated NON-CONSCIOUS
algorithms
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7. Techno-humanism problematic
statements
“Upgrade the mind” - but what do we mean by upgrading?
● Reinforcing “super-normative” states (see: positive psychology)?
Virtual reality + flow is going to be an insanely powerful force. Steven Kotler compares it to “legal
heroin”, saying that “when video games start producing full-scale flow states is arguably the point
that VR becomes more fun and perhaps more meaningful than actual reality.”
● Follow the needs of economic and political systems?
US Army’s attention helmet supports focus and speeds up decision-making - cuts out doubts or
anxiety.
● Or shall it allow us to flow through the entire spectrum of
consciousness?
From experiencing bats echolocations to entering ayahuasca-like states at will.
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8. Techno-humanism problematic
statements
“Redesign will”
● Following Humanist
Psychology (Maslow’s
Self-Actualization)
● Where will be a will
in the age of techno-
ritalin, prozac, or cipralex?
Develop and Use
Control and Redesign
HUMAN WILL
TECHNOLOGIES
PARADOX?
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9. Who is Homo Deus?
Evolutionary humanism through genetic engineering, nanotech and
human-machine interfaces
(Instead of selective breeding and ethnic cleansing)
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10. What is Dataism about?
“The network of life on Earth is a complex adaptive system, a global
brain, sometimes conscious sometimes not, and WWW is just the
latest step in the development of that brain” - Howard Bloom
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11. Dataism foundations
“Organisms are algorithms”
“The mind is what the brain does”
- Marvin Minsky
● Consciousness is just a side effect of information processing
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12. Dataism foundations
“Societies are algorithms”
“Wealth, crime rate, walking speed can be deducted directly from city’s population”
- Geoffrey West, “Scale”
● Capitalism has overcome communism, because distributed
processing (in current conditions) in more efficient than
processing in one central unit
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13. Dataism as ideology
Life is a flow
of information
Life is good
FACT BELIEF
Extend, deepen,
spread information
flow in the universe
PURPOSE
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14. Dataism as ideology (or religion?)
Extend, deepen,
spread information
flow in the universe
PURPOSE
Blocking
data flow
GREATEST SIN
Continuing
information
flow
IMMORTALITY
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15. Dataism as ideology (or religion?)
Aaron Swartz:
‘We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies
and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s
out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret
databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific
journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight
for Guerilla Open Access.’
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