In this blog post, we explore the future scientific and technological advances presented in Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens” and their impact on the happiness of humankind.
Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Sapiens” discusses how the end of Homo sapiens will come about, but people have been imagining and predicting the future for a long time. However, we must not simply imagine the future, but also consider whether it will lead to the promotion of happiness for all of humanity. Humanity has been constantly evolving from the past to the present, but few people can say with certainty that this evolution has made people happier. Now that all human beings are respected and their happiness is the top priority, we must consider how the direction and speed of human evolution will affect people’s happiness in the future. Therefore, in this blog post, I would like to consider whether humanity can become happier than it is now in relation to the end of Homo sapiens as presented by Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens.
When determining whether a person is happy, people usually think of “subjective well-being” first. This means that how a person perceives their experiences and what feelings and emotions they feel are important. Therefore, even if two people experience the same thing, there will be significant differences in their happiness, making it difficult to determine on a group level. Of course, there will be significant differences between the past, present, and future, but this cannot be easily used as a standard for happiness. This is because subjective well-being is greatly influenced by a person’s expectations. What is considered unpleasant in modern times may have been accepted as normal in the past. Although it is difficult to compare the levels of happiness between generations, it is not impossible. This is because there are clearly things that bring happiness and unhappiness to all human beings, regardless of the era.
Death is one such example. Death has always been considered the most terrible thing that can happen to a human being, and it causes deep unhappiness not only for those who are waiting to die, but also for those around them. Of course, there are cases where people want to die, such as euthanasia and death with dignity, but these can be seen as unavoidable situations. Compared to the past, the mortality rate has decreased significantly, and wars, which once drove many people to their deaths, now only occur in certain regions. In addition, advances in modern medicine have increased the chances of recovery from illness, and infectious diseases are well controlled through cooperation between countries, so it is rare for many people to die from epidemics as in the past. In this way, we can say that the happiness of humanity as a whole has increased simply because the probability of death, the most frightening thing for humans, has decreased.
Now, let’s look at the three visions of the future presented by Yuval Noah Harari and consider how people’s subjective well-being will change. First, with the advancement of biotechnology, people suffering from illness will almost disappear. Even if illness renders the body unusable, it will be possible to create a new body and transplant it into its original place. If the transition from the past to the present has reduced disease-related suffering and increased the happiness of humanity as a whole, the same will be true for the transition from the present to the future. In fact, there may be even greater happiness. The advancement of biotechnology will even eliminate disabilities. Although it is only possible to imagine at present, the advancement of biotechnology will enable even people with brain damage to return to their original state. On the other hand, we must also consider the possibility that biotechnology will bring about unhappiness. As mentioned in Sapiens, the development of technologies that can enhance the human body may cause fundamental inequality among humans. Currently, inequality is caused by capital, but in the future, if those who have money can enhance their bodies and those who do not cannot, differences in human abilities will arise, creating a society with a different form of inequality than we see today. However, this problem will likely remain the same as with modern firearms. Firearms are tools that anyone can use to easily kill people, which did not exist in the past, but they are subject to strict control. Gun accidents still occur, but humans believe that they can control the problem of guns. The same will be true for physical enhancement. As technology slowly advances, appropriate regulations will be put in place to prevent social chaos.
The second future presented by Yuval Noah Harari, cyborgs, will not differ greatly from biotechnology in terms of happiness. If cyborgs develop within appropriate regulations, they will not cause unhappiness and, like biotechnology, will solve modern problems and promote the happiness of all humanity.
The last analogy presented in Sapiens, inorganic engineering, is more difficult to predict than the previous two. The ultimate goal of inorganic engineering is to create humans without human bodies. Although these could be considered living beings, it is difficult to think of them as human. Even if a digital mind created by a computer programmer could possess functions such as self-awareness, consciousness, and memory, it would not have the organic mechanisms that humans possess. In other words, when humanity and inorganic engineering begin to combine, a new species different from humanity will appear. As with cyborg technology, inorganic engineering can be used to combine humans with something that is not human. At first, simple calculations performed by the brain will be replaced by computers attached to the body. However, the more complex the calculations required for a job, the more advanced the computer functions will become, and the greater the proportion of the job that will be performed by computers. This is because humans will have to compete for jobs with rapidly advancing robots and young people who have learned new technologies. It will be quicker to turn humans into robots than to give robots the flexibility that is unique to humans. In this case, it is difficult to predict what will happen to the happiness of humanity. Will humans have less work to do and live more comfortably thanks to robots? Or will they have to work even harder than they do now to combine themselves with better robots? In a desperate future, poor workers may even have to have computers process their emotions to meet the demands of their employers in order to support their families. In this case, it would become meaningless to discuss happiness and unhappiness, as it would be impossible to feel happiness. If technology advances to this extent, such tragic events will occur invisibly to us all over the world. To prevent this, humanity must closely monitor the development of inorganic engineering, as well as biotechnology and cyborg technology.
The conditions for happiness can be found not only in subjective well-being but also in biochemical systems. Advances in biology have led to the conclusion that human happiness is ultimately determined by the biochemical systems within the human body. If this is the case, we can consider whether humans can be happy regardless of their subjective well-being, as long as substances that induce happiness continue to be produced within the body. At this point, we do not know the answer, but the only substances that come to mind as drugs that make people happy are narcotics and antidepressants. However, these only provide temporary pleasure or make people feel good, but they do not make people truly happy. Consider the soma in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which is also mentioned in Sapiens. Soma provides continuous happiness without harming human productivity or efficiency. If you rate happiness on a scale of 1 to 10, soma keeps it at 10 all the time. The existence of soma is frightening to readers of Brave New World. Perhaps it is because we feel that the drug soma is controlling us.
Advances in biotechnology will allow us to adjust the biochemical systems of humans as we wish. Soma is a drug created to control people, but future biotechnology will make it possible to keep us human while making us happy. Some people feel a level of happiness between 3 and 6 on a daily basis, while others feel between 5 and 8. Even if they experience the same thing, the latter will be happier, but the former will not. Future biotechnology will be able to adjust this difference. It is no different from feeling bad when something bad happens and feeling happy when something good happens. However, when nothing special happens, your satisfaction with your normal life will increase. This is not a strange phenomenon that makes people feel happy even after an accident, but rather a way of thinking that makes them similar to people around them who are living a faster-paced life. Of course, some people may be reluctant to adjust their biochemical systems, but many people who feel unhappy will choose to become happy through this method. People with adjusted biochemical systems will not only live happier lives, but also feel greater satisfaction with their lives and become more fulfilled. This ultimately means that they will become more productive, and their increased productivity will contribute to the happiness of many people, including myself. Therefore, if the happiness of humanity is promoted globally through the use of biotechnology, it will lead to the promotion of happiness for all of humanity.
Based on the above considerations, it seems that humanity’s happiness will be promoted regardless of which direction Yuval Noah Harari proposes in Sapiens. The process is similar to the process of technological advancement that has improved human life from the past to the present. Just as regulations were created to prevent inventions made for human convenience, such as guns and cars, from endangering human life, new regulations will accompany technologies that emerge in the future to prevent them from threatening humans. This will solve the problems of the present and make human life more peaceful and prosperous.
