Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only being that can believe in fiction - things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money and human rights. Or, quoting Buddhism: All is fiction!

Analyzing parts of this original Buddhist vision, Harari goes on to retell the history of our species. Seventy thousand years ago, there were at least six different human species on earth. They were insignificant, like animals, whose ecological impact is easily recovered by Nature. Today, there is only one human species left: Us. Homo sapiens. And we think we rule this planet.

Through our entire human history, from its evolutionary roots to the age of Communism and genetic engineering, fiction have shaped humankind and the world around it. The advent of agriculture, the creation of money, the spread of religion, industrialism, the rise of the nation state and at the moment, the digitalization, all this have been accompanied by fiction to make it attractive and to adapt the social life to the new conditions. Consumerism, capitalism and communism are like religions rather than just economic and political theories. Individualism was fostered by those states and markets as a way of breaking up families and communities.

Imperialism is the most successful political system humans have invented, but also the most sensible. When it grows and then get oversized – it dissociate by itself. All major technological impacts have been followed by a need for new ideologies to fit the new system Always accompanied by revolutions, war or some form of chaos. What can we expect now as New Moral Rules when the biggest changes over short time forever come ?

Money is the most universal and pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised. Money has turned to the only thing everyone trusts – as long as the inflation don´t uncover an eventual worthless base of money. It is not about every person truly belief, but instead what the society order us to trust. Maybe belief is a fact of submission more than faith. Money is destined to be replaced by online transactions and digital values – if the digital fiction prevail. Or, if all fail, permute will be the new market system. Three bananas traded against one coconut.

 We are far more powerful than our ancestors, but we aren’t proved to be happier. The author of Sapiens believe Human – as shaped like today - will soon disappear. With the help of new technologies, within a few centuries or even decades, humans will try to upgrade themselves into completely different beings enjoying godlike qualities and abilities. Or, like Nietzsche wrote, human is just a link between the animal and the “Übermensch” (Superman). Human history began when humans invented gods – and will end when humans try to become gods.

Upgrade or collective suicide? The fast growing “useless mass”, dismissed from employment by AI, for the moment (in some countries) sustained by the government, what will happen when they are in majority and boarding the margins of survival? Will rampage occur, crushing and burning of robots and machines? Or will a new fiction of Moral Rules be constructed before this happens? It took 150 years for industrialism to mobilize the fiction “coca cola” – that’s COnsumerism CApitalism COmmunism Lucky Atheist…. To avoid the Chaos, the new “religion” has to be assembled much faster.

Reference to some parts of this text you can find in “A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari”