According to Harari, the cognitive and agricultural revolution helped glue communities together, while the industrial revolution broke that down and became about the state and the market. The industrial revolution brought about new technologies that could effectively replace, and even demand to replace, the roles previously reliant on families and the smaller community. More than that, the state and market said you don’t have to rely on your family anymore. You can rely on yourself now (and the state and market). It sold the idea that individuals don’t need the obligation of having responsibility within a family or community unit.
Harari closes by saying, “Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?” (Harari p. 414) It’s a profound perspective on sapiens up-and-coming technology that manipulates life and plays god. History does more than help society learn from the past. It helps society and individuals understand themselves on a deeper level as a species. Historians can examine the many layers of human history and humans themselves to answer the question of what satisfies people and what exactly are people trying to achieve. Other specialties focus on one specific subject and one little piece of the world. Historians make connections from all those different specialties throughout time and paints a new picture with a new perspective to learn and grow from. Perhaps history will paint the most probable picture or come up with the most realistic answers for the questions these new technologies are trying to answer.