In the book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Harari assists us in preparing for an uncertain future. This book examines today's most important political, cultural, and economic concerns brought on by technology. What are your plans for your children in the year 2050? What about the year 2100? It's an excellent question, especially since no one knows what the world will look like in the future. Humans have always been able to make reasonable predictions about where the world is headed. But what about in today's fast-paced, technology-driven society? Forget about it!
Different philosophies have long influenced how people view and navigate the world. Whichever one appeals to the greatest number of people tends to shape our history for decades. Fascism, communism, and liberalism all struggled for that privilege throughout the twentieth century. Liberalism came out on top in the end. Different assets gain value depending on which ideology is dominant. Politicians and nations will compete for whatever is most valuable, determining what kind of future the globe will have. So far in the twenty-first century, technology appears to have beaten all competitors. It's the thing in which we have the most faith. Data becomes the most important asset when technology is our primary ideology. That is why politicians fight for their countries to win the great technological race. The difficulty is that no one completely comprehends the consequences of our worldview this time around. Take a look at the financial markets, where algorithms currently do the majority of the work and only a few traders understand what's going on.
Harari refers to this as the 'knowing delusion.' In other words, we believe we know a lot more than our forefathers while, in many ways, we actually know less. For example, in order to conduct our daily lives, we all rely on a variety of experts. We are unable to forage for food, construct shelter, or sew our own clothing. We like to think we're brilliant, but just because we have access to all of the world's knowledge doesn't imply it's all in our heads. Instead, we should remain humble, grateful, and committed to never ceasing to learn.
Without a doubt, a fundamental understanding of history, biology, algebra, and other topics is essential. Beyond that, it's more necessary than memorizing more facts to understand how to navigate the modern sea of information, how to filter out the relevant, and how to recognize what's downright wrong. With more data being created in a single year than in the previous few millennia combined, future workers will need to figure out not how to learn as much as possible, but how to learn only what they need to know. That is what we must teach our children in order for them to have a bright future.