Hacker News Reader

Not OP, but as a reader of both Sapiens and Homo Deus, I feel like the latter is a bit of fluff already covered by the end of Sapiens.

Not a bad book, but more baseless theorizing while Sapiens was a really rich examination of history where he author definitely applied a lifetime of study and research.

View on HN

I'm surprised that you would describe it as baseless, because the theories he presents are built upon the lifetime of study & research of the examination of human history and motivations.

Good point. I don’t mean baseless as worthless, just that it was largely out of the author’s wheelhouse and was more of his projection of ideas without much in the way of evidence. This differed from Sapiens as it was really rich in historical and anthropological sources.

It’s not bad, just not very valuable as an entire book to read. It’s mostly already covered in the final segment of Sapiens.

Homo Deus is certainly based on the author’s general wisdom and draws upon his study of history. It’s always hard to vet “futurists” to see who is worthwhile.

The Sapiens author would have been around 34 years old at the time his book was published.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com