Note :- This book review might be less helpful as far as answering mains is concerned but can be more helpful to write a good essay on related topic.
Homo Deus comes not just as an interesting intellectual exercise but as a warning, a clarion call for the what the future holds for us.
Yuval Noah Harari. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.
At first glance, a history of the future seems like an odd beast, a crossbreed between scholarly research and soothsaying. However, Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow claims to be exactly that.
Launching from his previous work, Homo Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Harari peers into what the social, rather than the biological, evolution of the species might have in store for the planet. To be sure, it is not the first of its kind; Antonio Negri’s Empire is another such ‘history of the future’, but one that dwells on political evolution. Homo Deus, however, comes not just as an interesting intellectual exercise but as a warning; for, Harari warns us, humans are within grasp of having the ability to profoundly influence the terms of their existence. Indeed, this is a journey of humans from being petty animals to becoming gods.
The first step in this pyramid of achievements has been the control over our existence. Ten-thousand years ago, man developed agriculture, and two-hundred years ago, science matured to a stage where humans could genuinely fight back against the pestilence of nature. Although millions still live in poverty and die of hunger and disease, there is no reason for this to be; their deplorable state of existence today is caused almost exclusively by human factors than by the will of any god. In 2011, Harari cites, more people succumbed to obesity-related complications (three million) than famine (one million); more people died of old age than due to plagues, and more people are likely to perish in an accident or commit suicide than die in a war.
The latest front in the war against sickness is old age. Life expectancy doubled in the previous century, and the race is on to achieve the same this century too. Every year, multinational corporations like Google, with the help of scientists like Ray Kurzweil and Bill Maris, are spending billions of dollars on life extension research. A lifespan of, say, 150 years, would dramatically affect contemporary social structures, Harari warns. Relationships, marriage, family, professional careers, immigration and even our political frameworks would be under stress for a rethink. Although Harari does not believe immortality to be within our grasp yet, he says enabling humans to live beyond 150 years would require “re-engineering the most fundamental structures and processes of the human body”. The optimism in this regard speaks volumes. Besides, average global life expectancy between 90 and 100 would still bring about dramatic changes.
The second step is the reworking and enhancement of our bodies: biological engineering to manipulate genetic code, cybernetics to enhance strength, speed and health, and the invention of artificial entities that could obviate the need for human presence in several routine activities. These developments are much closer than we think. Genetics, prosthetics technology and artificial intelligence have all advanced leaps and bounds over the last decade. Transcranial helmets can now predict, to some extent, human behaviour, and even help stimulate or suppress certain brain actions. In essence, they are at the threshold of human behaviour manipulation.
With the development of technology like CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), it has become much easier to edit DNA. Introduced with the objective of curing and even eliminating diseases, it is not too far down the road to imagine a system, as Harari does, to which you have surrendered all your medical records to optimise on fitness routines, diets, restaurants, entertainment and even courtship. Such a system might even assist or make political choices. A slight semblance of this may already be seen in today’s online targeted marketing – companies use search history, online activity and other clues to tailor holiday packages, clothes and a myriad other products to your needs and tastes.
The final leap and departure from Homo sapiens has been the stuff of science fiction dystopias for long – genetically enhancing offspring for intelligence, athletic ability and desirable physical features. Anyone who can afford it will be able to design their child to be, essentially, an übermensch. Humans would become gods in their own right.
The dangers are obvious. Over even a short span of time, privileged access to genetic enhancement can cause a divergence point within the species beyond which there would be two distinct groups – a superior, enhanced class of Homo deus, and an inferior, natural group of Homo sapiens. Harari suggests, alarmingly, that the relationship between these two strata may be reflected in the way humans have treated animals down the ages – lovingly yet harshly, but ultimately devoid of agency.
Contrary to what many science fiction scenarios portray, humans will not lose control of their technology but gradually hand over control to it until they become a side-note in their own evolution. The first steps in this direction are already visible – artificial intelligence, big data, automation, biometric sensors and other advancements are already beginning to take over the simpler tasks of doctors, lawyers, publishers, marketers, engineers and even musicians, as we hand over more and more data to machines to make our lives more convenient.
A third ascension that is occurring simultaneously with the other two is an intellectual preparation for what Harari calls a post-humanist existence. Over the centuries, humans have moved away from ascribing supernatural reasons to natural phenomena to understanding the science and logic behind them. This enlightenment spurred the development of a humanist ethos wherein human well-being became the central concern and not the appeasement of some god or the preservation of an old social order. Free markets and the individual – free will – became the reigning gods of this new religion and happiness its holy grail.
Harari’s interesting hypothesis, peppered with fascinating – and at times, amusing – examples is unfortunately interwoven in a fair amount of extraneous theorising that makes for engaging background, but does not contribute directly to his argument. For example, the author’s perception of reality strikes as alarmingly postmodern as he dismisses nations, gods and even currency as imagined constructs. That social imagination is imbued with powerful meaning, tradition and value seems to be lost on Harari, and it is to those values one must look to avoid the great decoupling, as Harari phrases elegantly, of high intelligence and developed consciousness.
The interesting question here is whether, with greater scientific understanding of the human brain and genetics, the decimation of the myth of free will, will catalyse Homo sapiens’ free fall into prisoners of their own dreams or evoke an emergency rethink. Harari worries that the fall into Homo deus could spell the end of the liberal world order. Although no one is sure who will disrupt the current orthodoxy of humanism, it is more likely the next challenge will come from entrepreneur-inventors in Silicon Valley rather than the deserts of Arabia.
Harari is not the first to warn us of our future. With every changing age come prophets sounding the clarion call to save humanity. They warned us about Christianity and Islam; they cautioned us against the Renaissance; they exhorted us against the Enlightenment; they counselled us against the industrial revolution; and now, they alert us to the dangers of biotechnology. Sometimes, the seers were right, and at other times, not so much. Even in this age, Evgeny Morozov, a researcher on the political and social impact of technology, has been harping on the dark side of our mindless interaction with technology for almost a decade. Both Morozov and Harari agree on humanity’s destination. But while the former considers the humanist ideals of justice and equality as sacrosanct, the latter thinks they are passé: the agricultural revolution overthrew the ideals of hunter-gatherers, and industrial revolution did the same to agriculturists; the biotechnological revolution will do the same to humanism.
Is Harari right about the future? Only time can answer that definitively, but perhaps the picture is not as grim as Harari fears it to be. The advent of nuclear weapons did not mean the end of life on earth, nor did the industrial revolution wipe out the idyllic beauty of the countryside. Each technological change brought with it new challenges, but also offered new solutions to society’s problems. New regulations were required and different fields of study were pioneered. How well societies managed the transition depended more on human capital than we like to give credit for. If, as Martin Luther King wrote in the seventh sermon of ‘Strength to Love’, our scientific power has indeed outrun our spiritual power and left us with guided missiles and misguided men, Harari’s dystopia may have a better than even chance of coming true.
Yet, if we do look ahead before we leap, humans may be able to ride this revolution too, as it has done others before it. While millions still voluntarily give information to systems online without thinking, and governments have had almost a free rein in the digital world, privacy advocacy has also increased in the last decade. Like anything else, it will require enough people to care to divert Harari’s dystopia. Harari himself cautions that the scenarios mentioned in his book “should be understood as possibilities rather than prophecies.” Society demands awareness of its members today as it once did labour, faith or anything else. Otherwise, it is not our technology but we ourselves that are our own worst enemies.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.