Harari is useful when he slows down the panic and gives the century a table of contents. The problems are still enormous, but at least they stop arriving as one shapeless cloud.
His predictions on AI-generated art and music seem to be coming true. Curious to see how this technology will shape our cultural values and the way we think about creativity and ownership. I also wonder how the general public will react to this.
Harari looks at the present with the calm anxiety of someone arranging several global problems on a clean table.
The book is broad: technology, politics, religion, education, attention. Sometimes too broad, but the ambition is part of the experience.
I liked the recurring question of mental clarity. In a noisy century, knowing what deserves attention becomes a serious survival skill.
It is not a manual, more a map of pressures. Useful, slightly unsettling, and not exactly bedtime material unless your bedtime enjoys geopolitics. I mostly value it as a thinking prompt: where is attention going, who benefits from confusion, and what kind of person can keep learning without turning into vapor?