Scary Monsters?

I read author John Gray's superb review in Saturday's FT of Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 'an absorbing and provocative' work that as well as examining where we, as a species, have come from also 'peers into our post-human future' in this here Scientific Age. I'll certainly be adding this title to my short-term reading list as I was particularly taken by several of Harari's fascinating ideas on where we are headed and how we are likely to get there. To wit and to wisdom:

• The power of the human imagination has turned our species into self-made gods, but gods which lack self-restraint ... and with new technologies increasingly enabling humans to create artificial forms of life and alter their own natures, they don't or won't or can't really know how to best use the technology they have created. And, as the author asks, what can be more dangerous than irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?
• At present we tinker with genes, develop artificial limbs and explore artificial intelligence in order to cure or prevent diseases and enhance human longevity but with the effect of these interventions accumulating and magnifying over time, there is likely to be an alteration of the human species.
• The future incarnation of our species will probably be more different from us than we are from Neanderthals.
• If other species, and eventually humans themselves, are reshaped by new technologies - the process will not be guided by any type of ordered, across-the-board, intelligent design but rather by rival governments, competing corporations and, more scarily, by organised criminal and terrorist networks. Any alteration will thus be unplanned and chaotic and, as a result, our future and our ultimate destiny will be impossible to control.

Sheesh!  A bigger than average dose to put in our pipes and smoke today!

But fluffier stuff soon ...

... deffo on my Christmas list!