21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Vintage, 2019 edition; first published by Jonathan Cape, 2018)

Their wordsThe merger of infotech and biotech threatens the core modern values of liberty and equality. Any solution to the technological challenge has to involve global cooperation.

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Their wordsHumankind is facing unprecedented revolutions, all our old stories are crumbling, and no new story has so far emerged to replace them.

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Their wordsMore broadly, schools should downplay technical skills and emphasise general-purpose life skills.

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Their wordsAnd once these algorithms know you better than you know yourself, they could control and manipulate you, and you won't be able to do much about it.

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Their wordsTo run fast, don't take much luggage with you. Leave all your illusions behind. They are very heavy.

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Their wordsHumankind is losing faith in the liberal story that dominated global politics in recent decades, exactly when the merger of biotech and infotech confronts us with the biggest challenges humankind has ever encountered.

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Their wordsHumans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers or equations, and the simpler the story, the better.

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Their wordsYet in order to construct a viable identity for myself and give meaning to my life, I don't really need a complete story devoid of blind spots and internal contradictions.

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Their wordsA story can be pure fiction, and yet provide me with an identity and make me feel that my life has meaning.

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Their wordsThe liberal story and the logic of free-market capitalism encourage people to have grand expectations.

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Their wordsThe first step is to tone down the prophecies of doom, and switch from panic mode to bewilderment. Panic is a form of hubris.

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Their wordsOf all rituals, sacrifice is the most potent, because, of all the things in the world, suffering is the most real.

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Their wordsSince humans are individuals, it is difficult to connect them to one another and to make sure that they are all up to date.

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Their wordsNobody is just a Muslim, or just an Italian, or just a capitalist.

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Their wordsJust as in ancient times, so also in the twenty-first century, the human quest for meaning all too often ends with a succession of sacrifices.

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Their wordsIf so, the job market of 2050 might well be characterised by human–AI cooperation rather than competition.

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Their wordsWe would probably need far more effective stress-reduction techniques – ranging from drugs through neuro-feedback to meditation – to prevent the Sapiens mind from snapping.

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Their wordsObserving the truth about yourself is just so difficult! Even if you somehow manage to get most humans to try it, many of us will quickly distort the truth we encounter into some story with heroes, villains and enemies, and find really good excuses to go to war.

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Their wordsWhen you give up all the fictional stories, you can observe reality with far greater clarity than before, and if you really know the truth about yourself and about the world, nothing can make you miserable.

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Their wordsIt is not an escape from reality. It is getting in touch with reality.

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Their wordsThe most important thing I realised was that the deepest source of my suffering is in the patterns of my own mind. When I want something and it doesn't happen, my mind reacts by generating suffering.

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Their wordsSuffering is not an objective condition in the outside world.

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Their wordsI have had personal experience with only one technique - Vipassana – so it is the only one about which I can talk with any authority.

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Their wordsMost people don't know themselves very well.

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Their wordsDigital dictatorships will be as different from Nazi Germany as Nazi Germany was different from ancien régime France.

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Their wordsWe will increasingly rely on algorithms to make decisions for us, but it is unlikely that the algorithms will start to consciously manipulate us. They won't have any consciousness.

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