In part 4 of Harari’s text, Sapiens, he describes how science, empire, and capitalism are linked together in the scientific revolution. In his first example he uses early exploration of the new world to tie these three together. He said that some people went searching for new lands to discover because of the possibility of capital gain. People who sought out new lands privately just wanted to make a pretty penny from the newly discovered land. Another reason humans sought out new lands was in order to expand their own empire. This was the most successful way humans colonized the new world. It is also why you had certain ethnicities colonizing certain areas of the new world. The last reason for humans exploring the new world was for scientific reasons. This included mapping out the earth and finding new species that were exclusive to the new world. The discovering of the new world really serves as a prime example that brings science, empire, and capitalism together in Harari’s text.
Harari explains how humans in the past alway had believed that the world’s “golden age” was in the past and that it was in a state of being idle. Some even thought that the world was in a steady decline due to this mindset. After the scientific revolution happened, this mindset was practically reversed. Humans started thinking in terms of progress and that the world was continuously improving when is came to human development. This is important when it comes to empire, science, and capitalism because progress is the sole element that fuels these three matters. Once we learned to embrace and understand that we will not stop progressing, we were able to take advantage of this fact.