Tuesday March 16th, 2021

What I Read & Why: Rutger Bregman “Humankind”

Human beings, it turns out, are ultrasocial learning machines. We’re born to learn, to bond and to play.

Rutger Bregman

The other day, my friend and colleague, Thomas Brinkmann, recommended a podcast interview Rutger Bregman gave on the occasion of the publication of his new book “Humankind”. Rutger Bregman had caused quite a sensation in 2019 at the World Economic Forum with a rather cool move (you have to give him that) when he publicly wondered why no one was talking about taxing the rich and ending tax evasion.

Yvual Harari‘s books had already made me think about whether human beings themselves should be viewed in a different light and whether the history of humanity and humanism should be rewritten.

So I was already curious due to the title: Humankind. A Hopeful History. (German: Im Grund gut. Eine neue Geschichte der Menschheit.) After the very worth listening to interview in the Sinneswandel podcast, I had even more desire for it.

So far I have not been disappointed. Very stimulating and insightful.

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