According to Harari, the state and market became the central aspect of human culture through a number of ways but the biggest was by weakening and replacing the traditional bonds of family and community. “Become individuals… Marry whom-ever you desire, without asking permission from your parents, Take up whatever job suits you, even if community elders frown. Live wherever you wish, even if you cannot make it every week to the family dinner. You are no longer dependent on your family or your community. We, the state and market, will take care of you” (Harari p. 358). People started to rely on the state and market for everything; market for work and insurance, state for security and education. People no longer had to pay taxes for their neighbors or pay for crimes of family members. Even sexual preferences to an extent, we pay for gyms and specific food to look attractive according to the market, and give our money to bartenders instead of fathers when courting partners.
The role that historians need to play as we consider the suture of homo sapiens is that of reminders and to bring to light potential outcomes. Historians will be needed to remind scientists and anyone else involved about how humans have been messing with genomes for a long time. Humans have done selective breeding to create specific types of animals for whatever purpose the want. Historians also will be able to shed light on this topic by not being a biased individual, hopefully. A lot of the reasons that we are not already seeing human genomes being messed with is because of people’s values and thoughts into the matter. Harari says that “the only thing we can try to do in to influence the direction scientists are taking…the real question facing us is not what do we want to become, but what so we want to want” (Harari p. 414). I believe that this is something that historians can help shed light on by having a different view on the topic than scientists or politicians.