Harari discusses at the end of his book Sapiens, how humans went from living in a peaceful state of nature to a complex society that lives within the state and the market. According to Harari people slowly began to claim land they lived on and belongings that they had. This kept occurring and then with the industrial revolution people were able to obtain more stuff. This led to a bigger market because of all the goods that were being traded around. A bigger market leads to more state control because the state gets involved to help keep the market successful. This simple shift led people from being peaceful and incredibly family oriented to all of us living and working under the control of the state and the market. This shift was inevitable because of human nature, but it happened a lot quicker through the industrial revolution.
Historians need to play a large role in the discussion of the end of homo sapiens because one of the greatest ways to learn about human nature is to look at our past actions. It goes farther than just “history repeat itself.” We can use history as a means to look to look at all the new technology that we are coming up with. Gene editing, for example, should be looked through a historians eyes because we can look at our past to see how this crazy new technology could turn out. If we continue on our path we are going gene editing is going to happen, and we need to use historians to make sure scientists don’t take this over the top and harm us as a species.