1.1. On the road of history, there were three important revolutions: about 70,000 years ago, the "cognitive revolution" (which officially started history). About 12,000 years ago, the "agricultural revolution" accelerated the development of history. And by about 500 years ago, "Scientific Revolution

1.2. The upright walking style requires narrowing of the hips, which limits the width of the birth canal, and don't forget that the baby's head is getting bigger. As a result, death during childbirth has become a major risk for women. And if the baby is born earlier, when the baby's brain and head are still smaller and softer, the mother will have a better chance of weathering the crisis and may have more children in the future. As a result, natural selection (also translated as "natural selection" or "natural elimination") caused production to begin earlier. Compared with other animals, humans are all premature, and the development of many important organs is not perfect.

1.3. This is one of the main reasons why humans have outstanding social skills (and social problems that are also unique to humans). It is difficult for a mother who is alone to get enough food for herself and her children if she has to drag her children with her. Therefore, if you want to raise children, you need the continued assistance of other family members and neighbors. To feed a child requires the joint efforts of the entire tribe. Therefore, evolution also favors races that can form strong social relationships.

1.4. Cooking allows humans to eat a wider variety of foods, reduces the time required to eat, shrinks teeth, and reduces the length of the intestines. Some scholars believe that the invention of cooking technology is directly related to the shortening of the human intestine and the beginning of brain development.

1.5. "Use of Fire" also marked the first significant difference between man and other animals. For almost all animals, their strength depends on their own bodies: such as the strength of muscles, the size of teeth and the width of wings.

2.1. As long as there are less than 150 people, whether it is a community, company, social network or military unit, as long as everyone knows each other and exchanges information, it can operate smoothly without the need to stipulate formal hierarchies, professional titles, and norms.

2.2. How did Homo sapiens cross this threshold and finally create cities with tens of thousands of residents and empires with hundreds of millions of people? The secret here may well lie in the fictional story. Even a large number of people who don't know each other can work together as long as they believe in a story.

2.3. Creating imaginary realities through words allows large groups of people who don't know each other to collaborate effectively, and that's not all. Just because large-scale human cooperation is based on fictional stories, simply changing the stories told can change the way humans cooperate. Given the right circumstances, these stories can change quickly. For example, in 1789, almost overnight, the French believed in a story from "natural kingship" to "the people are the master"

3.1. Modern people must specialize in knowledge in their own small field, but for other necessities in life, most of them rely on experts in other fields. Everyone knows only their own small world. On the whole, humans today know far more than humans in ancient times did. But on a personal level, ancient foragers were some of the most knowledgeable and skillful humans in history.

3.2. The secret to foragers' ability to avoid starvation or malnutrition was a varied diet. In comparison, later farmers' diets tended to be sparse and unbalanced. Especially in modern times, many agricultural populations rely on a single crop as their main source of calories, which may be wheat, potatoes, rice, etc., which results in a lack of other vitamins, minerals or nutrients necessary for the human body.

1.1. Why did the Agricultural Revolution happen in the Middle East, China, and Central America rather than Australia, Alaska, or South Africa? The reason is simple: most plants and animals cannot be domesticated

1.2. Far from bringing about a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution made farmers live a harder and less satisfying life than the foragers. The lives of hunter-gatherers were actually more varied and varied, and they were less exposed to the threats of hunger and disease. It is true that the Agricultural Revolution increased the total amount of human food, but the increase did not mean better food and a more leisurely life. Instead, it only caused a population explosion and produced a group of pampered and pampered elites. Generally speaking, farmers work harder than foragers and end up with a worse diet. The Agricultural Revolution Is the Greatest Scam in History

1.3. This is the true essence of the Agricultural Revolution: allowing more people to live in worse conditions

1.4. It is often the case in the history of luxury goods that original luxuries often end up becoming necessities and bring new obligations. Once you get used to a certain luxury product, you start to think it is natural. Then there is a dependence. Finally, you can no longer live without this luxury product

1.5. Because agriculture can lead to rapid population growth, agricultural tribes often outnumber gathering tribes alone. At this time, the gathering tribes had only two options left. The first was to escape and let their hunting grounds become farms and pastures; the second was to pick up a hoe and join the ranks of agriculture. No matter which choice is made, it means that the old way of life is destined to wither.

1.6. In most agricultural societies, the first priority of human beings is to grow crops, and the second is to raise animals. But a new type of society has also emerged in some places, which mainly relies on the exploitation and use of other animals for a living: nomadic tribes

1.7. An evolutionary perspective is not the only criterion for judging the success of a species. It only considers survival and reproduction, regardless of individual pain or happiness. Although domesticated chickens and cows are probably the most successful representatives in terms of evolution, they actually lead the worst lives in the history of living things.

1.8. In order to train cattle, horses, donkeys, and camels into obedient draft animals, their natural and social connections must be broken, their aggression and sexual abilities must be suppressed, and their freedom of movement must be restricted. Farmers also invented various control techniques, such as keeping animals in pens and cages, putting shackles and chains on them, using whips and goads to train them, and even deliberately causing animals to be maimed. The process of domesticating animals almost always involves castration of males, to curb male aggression and to allow humans to control the fertility of selective livestock

1.9. Possibly the most important lesson we can learn from the Agricultural Revolution is that the evolutionary success of a species does not necessarily translate into individual happiness.

2.1. Before the late modern period, more than 90% of the total population were farmers, working at sunrise with their hands and feet covered. The excess food they produced fed a small elite: kings, officials, warriors, priests, artists, and thinkers, but history is almost exclusively about these people. Therefore, history only tells us what a very small number of people are doing, while the life of the vast majority of other people is just to carry water and cultivate the fields.

2.2. We know people are not biologically equal! But if everyone believes that everyone is essentially equal, a stable and prosperous society can be created. "I completely agree with this, but this is exactly what I call "an order constructed by imagination." We believe in a certain order, not because it is an objective reality, but because we believe that it can improve the efficiency of cooperation and create A better society. This kind of order constructed by imagination is not an evil conspiracy or useless talk, but the only life-saving elixir that can make large groups of humans cooperate. But don’t forget, Hammurabi could use the same. He used logic to defend his class principle: “I know that the so-called superiors, commoners, and slaves are not essentially different. But if we believe so, we can create a stable and prosperous society.

2.3. The order of nature is stable and unchanging. Even if humans no longer believe that there is gravity in the world, gravity will not disappear overnight. But on the contrary, the order constructed by imagination is always at risk of collapse, because these orders are all based on fictional stories. As long as people no longer believe it, everything will change. In order to maintain the order constructed by imagination, a lot of effort must be continuously invested, and even some elements of violence and coercion must be added. For example, in order to prevent the people from violating the imagined order, the country needs to have military, police, courts and prisons functioning day and night.

2.4. Whether it is Christianity, democracy or capitalism, they are all orders constructed by imagination. And how can we make people believe in these orders? First, external statements must absolutely insist that they are absolutely true and not fiction. It must always be emphasized that this order that maintains social stability is an objective fact, created by the great God or the laws of nature.

2.5. Second, the same set of principles must be thoroughly implemented in education. From the moment people are born, they must be constantly reminded of this set of imaginatively constructed orders, and this set of principles must be integrated into everything, whether it is fairy tales, dramas, paintings, songs, etiquette, political propaganda, architecture, recipes, or... Fashion

2.6. There are three major reasons why humans do not discover that the various orders that organize their lives are actually imagination:

3.1. Certain other species, such as ants and bees, can form large societies that are stable and flexible. But that's because their genomes already store most of the information they need to cooperate.

3.2. Because the social order of Homo sapiens is constructed through imagination, the key information required to maintain the order cannot be passed on to future generations simply by DNA replication. Various efforts are required to maintain various laws, customs, procedures, and etiquette, otherwise social order will quickly will collapse

3.3. The human brain is not a very good storage device for three main reasons:

3.4. Sumerian geniuses invented a system that could store and process information outside of the human brain, tailor-made for handling large amounts of digital data. From then on, the Sumerian social order was no longer limited by the processing power of the human brain, and began to move toward cities, kingdoms, and empires. The number processing system invented by the Sumerians was precisely the "written word"

3.5. And this is the most important impact that writing has had on human history: it gradually changed the way humans think and view the world. The past free connections and holistic thinking have transformed into segmented thinking and bureaucracy.

4.1. Class has important functions. With class, strangers can know how to treat each other without wasting time and energy on truly understanding each other.

3.1.1. Almost from birth to death, human beings are surrounded by fictional stories and concepts that make them think a certain way, act by certain standards, want certain things, and abide by certain norms. This is how millions of strangers can cooperate seamlessly, following this artificial rather than innate intuition. This artificial intuition is “culture”

3.1.2. Just as the Middle Ages could not resolve the conflict between chivalry and Christianity, modern society cannot resolve the conflict between freedom and equality. But this is not a disadvantage. Contradictions like this are inevitable for every human culture. They can even be said to be the engine of culture, bringing creativity and power to mankind.

3.1.3. Of these three global orders, the first is an economic and monetary order, the second is a political imperial order, and the third is a religious global religion, such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.

3.2.1. People are willing to do this precisely because they accept this collective imagination. "Trust" is the most basic ingredient of all forms of money

3.2.2. Money is the most universal and effective trust system ever created.

3.2.3. Because "trust" is so critical, we can understand why the financial system is so closely linked to political, social and ideological systems, why financial crises are often triggered by political developments, and why stock traders alone one morning Feelings can affect the rise and fall of the stock market

3.2.4. The emergence of writing was in response to the increasingly frequent administrative activities, while the emergence of Mai Yuan was in response to the increasingly active economic activities.

3.2.5. Even Christians and Muslims, who are incompatible with each other religiously, can come to the same belief in the monetary system. The reason is that the focus of religious belief is to believe in oneself, but the focus of money belief is "others believe"

3.3.1. According to traditional Chinese political theory, all political authorities in the world come from "Heaven". God will select the best individuals or families and give them the "mandate of heaven" to rule the world and benefit the people. In this way, the so-called monarchy should be able to spread throughout the world. If the monarch does not receive the "mandate of heaven", let alone the world, he will not even have the power to rule a city.

3.4.1. Precisely because all social orders and classes are only products of imagination, they are also very fragile, and the larger the society, the more fragile it becomes. Historically, the importance of religion has been to give these fragile structures superhuman legitimacy.

3.4.2. If a religion wants to bring under its banner a vast and diverse group of people, it must possess two other qualities. First, the transhuman order it believes in must be universal and true regardless of time and space. Second, it must also firmly spread this belief to the masses. In other words, religion must possess both "universal qualities" and "promotional qualities"

3.4.3. What really makes polytheism different from monotheism is that polytheism believes that the highest power that rules the world has no selfish motives or biases, and therefore is indifferent to human beings' various worldly desires, worries and worries. Therefore, it is completely meaningless to pray to this supreme power for victory in war, health or rain, because from the perspective of his omniscience, the victory or defeat of a certain kingdom's war, the success or failure of a certain city, and so on. Or a person's birth, old age, illness and death do not make any difference at all

3.4.4. If God is really omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect in everything, how could he allow so much suffering in the world? This troubles the Unitarians

3.4.5. These beliefs also believe that there is some kind of superhuman order that controls the world, but the order they worship is the law of nature, not some divine will. Although some of these natural law religious beliefs also believe in the existence of gods, they believe that gods are subject to the same laws of nature as humans, animals, and plants.

3.4.6. Gautama Buddha found a way to break out of this vicious cycle. When things bring happiness or pain, the focus is to see the essence of the thing clearly, rather than focusing on the feelings it brings, so that you can no longer be trapped by it.

3.4.7. Sakyamuni implemented meditation on various moral codes so that believers can focus more on actual feelings instead of falling into various desires and fantasies. He asked believers not to kill, engage in sexual misconduct, or steal, because these actions would surely set off desires like wildfire and lead to the pursuit of power, sensual enjoyment, or wealth. When these flames are completely extinguished, the original desires are replaced by perfection and silence, which is called nirvana (the original meaning of Sanskrit is "extinguishing"). Reaching nirvana means being freed from all pain and being able to experience the reality around you with incomparable clarity, without any illusions or illusions. Although people may still experience pain, it no longer affects them. After all, there is no suffering without desire

3.4.8. But just like monotheistic religions, pre-modern natural law religions like Buddhism still cannot get rid of the worship of gods. Buddhism tells believers that they should constantly pursue the state of nirvana and never stop for fame and fortune. However, 99% of Buddhists are unable to achieve this state, and even if they wholeheartedly hope to achieve this goal in the end, most of them still pursue worldly achievements in their daily lives.

3.5.1. It is an iron rule of history that what seems inevitable in hindsight was never obvious at the time. This remains the case to this day

3.5.2. History is still the so-called "secondary" chaotic system. Chaotic systems are divided into two levels. Level one chaos refers to "not changing due to prediction". For example, weather is a first-level chaotic system.

3.5.3. As for the second-level chaotic system, it means that it will be "changed by the influence of predictions", so it can never be accurately predicted. For example, the market is a second-level chaotic system. What if we developed a computer program that could predict tomorrow's oil price with complete accuracy?

4.1.1. Modern science differs from previous knowledge systems in three major ways:

4.1.2. There are also some scholars who want to imitate Newton and organize biology, economics and psychology into simple formulas, but find that these fields are too complex and it is impossible to follow the same pattern. However, this does not mean that they give up on mathematics. Over the past two hundred years, a new branch of mathematics has developed to deal with more complex aspects of reality: statistics.

4.1.3. Throughout history, there are two types of poverty in society: (1) social poverty, which refers to the fact that some people have opportunities but are unwilling to release them to others; (2) biological poverty, which refers to the lack of opportunities. food and shelter, putting people's survival at risk. Perhaps social poverty will always exist and cannot be eradicated, but in many countries around the world, biological poverty has become a thing of the past.

4.1.4. Imagine what Islam, Christianity, or the ancient Egyptian religions would be like without death. These religions tell believers that they should come to an agreement with death and focus on the afterlife rather than trying to overcome death and seek eternal life in this life. The brightest minds at the time were thinking about how to give meaning to death, rather than escaping it.

4.1.5. Scientists themselves are not necessarily aware of the various political, economic, and religious interests that control the flow of money, and many scientists do research purely for the sake of knowledge. However, it is rarely scientists who truly control the progress of scientific development.

4.2.1. Europe seemed to be in a remote corner of the world, and the climate was so cold that it would make your fingers stiff. How on earth did they jump out and conquer the world? Some people often think that the biggest contributors are European scientists. Indeed, since 1850, Europe has been able to dominate the world largely due to cooperation in the military, industrial and scientific fields, as well as magical technology like wizardry.

4.2.2. China and Persia did not actually lack the technology to make steam engines (it was no problem to copy or buy them at that time). What they lacked were Western values, stories, judicial systems, and social and political structures that took centuries to develop in the West. Formation and maturity, even if you want to copy it, you cannot internalize it overnight

4.2.3. Western culture is rooted and developed in Europe, and has many characteristics of democracy, tolerance, and gender equality, while Muslim culture is rooted and developed in the Middle East, and therefore has the characteristics of class politics, religious fanaticism, and discrimination against women. Because the two cultures are so different, and because many Muslim immigrants are unwilling (and perhaps unable) to adopt Western values, Europe should not allow them to immigrate into Western societies, lest they cause internal conflicts and undermine European democracy and liberalism

4.3.1. What really allows banks (and the economy as a whole) to survive and even prosper is our trust in the future. "Trust" is the only backing for most money in the world

4.3.2. Before history came to modern times, this ability to exchange was still very limited. The reason is that at that time money could only represent some items that "actually existed in the present". This is incompatible with the concept of "entrepreneurship" and therefore makes it difficult to promote economic growth.

4.3.3. Humans have developed the concept of money, "credit," to represent goods that do not yet exist and exist only in imagination. It is the concept of "credit" that allows us to advance the future and build the present. There is a basic assumption behind this, that is, future resources will definitely far exceed current resources; as long as we use future income to invest in the present, it will bring many new and wonderful business opportunities.

4.3.4. The problem in the past was not whether there was a concept of credit, or whether people knew how to use this concept, but that people at that time did not believe that "tomorrow will be better", so they were not willing to extend credit.

4.3.5. In terms of economic concepts, they believe that the total amount of wealth is limited and may shrink. Therefore, at that time, whether it was talking about individuals, kingdoms, or the world, everyone generally did not believe that more wealth would be produced after ten years. Business looks like a zero-sum game

4.3.6. This is actually a lose-lose situation. Because credit is limited, it is even more difficult to raise funds to start a business. Because entrepreneurship stagnates, the economy will not grow. Because the economy is not growing, everyone thinks that the economy cannot grow. Even people who do have funds are unwilling to provide credit loans to others. Therefore, the expectation of economic stagnation has indeed resulted in economic stagnation.

4.3.7. Adam Smith clearly stated: The basis of all human wealth lies in the selfish desire to increase personal profits. This can be said to be the most revolutionary concept in human history, not only from an economic perspective, but also from a moral and political perspective. He actually tells us: Greed is good, and when we make ourselves happy, we not only benefit ourselves, but also benefit others. "Self-benefit" means "altruism"

4.3.8. Adam Smith overturned the traditional concept that wealth and morality are opposed to each other. Now the door to heaven will also be open to the rich, and having money means having morality. In Adam Smith's version of the story, people become rich not by exploiting their neighbors but by making the pie bigger. As the pie gets bigger, everyone benefits

4.3.9. Adam Smith constantly emphasized that "when profits increase, the landowner or weaver will hire more assistants", rather than "when profits increase, the miser will hide all the money tightly and only count the money." take it out". A major focus of modern capitalist economy is the emergence of a new moral standard: profits should be taken out and continued investment in production

4.3.10. Funders behind scientific research are often governments or private companies. When capitalist governments and companies want to invest in a specific scientific research, the first question they often ask is - "Will this research increase production and profits? Will it promote economic growth?" If the research plan cannot cope with it For these problems, the possibility of obtaining research funding is extremely slim.

4.3.11. This is the wonderful cycle of imperial capitalism: credit finances new discoveries, which lead to colonies, which lead to profits, which build trust, which translates into more credit.

4.3.12. How did the Netherlands win the trust of its financial system? First, they insist on on-time and full repayments, making it less risky for lenders to lend to them. Secondly, the Netherlands has an independent judiciary and protects individual rights, especially private property rights. In contrast, authoritarian countries are unwilling to protect individuals and their property, so capital leaves bit by bit and flows to countries that are willing to abide by the rule of law and protect private property.

4.3.13. Today, when judging a country's credit rating, the soundness of its economic system is far more important than the amount of natural resources. Credit ratings represent a country's likelihood of paying off its debts. In addition to purely economic data, political, social and even cultural factors are also taken into account. Even oil-producing countries with rich oil reserves usually have poor credit ratings if their governments are authoritarian and their judiciary is corrupt. In this way, because it is difficult to obtain the necessary funds to develop oil resources, it is very likely that this country will have to sit on the gold mines and live in poverty.

4.3.14. Today, the most common and influential incarnation of capitalist dogma is free marketism. If you are the most die-hard supporter of the free market, you will not only believe that the country should not send troops to influence international affairs, but will even criticize various domestic welfare policies. Their suggestions for the government will coincide with the thoughts of Lao and Zhuang: govern by doing nothing and don’t care about anything.

4.3.15. The most important resource in the economy is "trust", and trust always has to face all kinds of deception. Markets alone cannot prevent fraud, theft and violence. These things have to be dealt with by the political system, which legislates against fraud and uses police, courts and prisons to enforce the law. If the king or the government fails to enforce proper market regulations, trust will be lost, credit will shrink, and the economy will decline. Whether it is the Mississippi Bubble of 1719 or the credit crunch and economic recession caused by the U.S. real estate bubble in 2007, we have been reminded of these lessons again and again.

4.3.16. If a shoemaker pays too little and demands too much, of course his best employees will leave to work for his competitors. Now, this black-hearted boss only has the worst employees left, not even a single employee. So he must change his management style, otherwise he will have to close down. His greed will force him to treat his employees well. This theory sounds perfect, but in fact it is full of loopholes. If it were truly a completely free market, with no king or clergy to oversee it, greedy capitalists would be able to crack down on labor through monopoly or collusion

4.3.17. The masterminds behind the slave trade were not states or governments. This industry is entirely economic, organized and funded by the free market based on the laws of supply and demand. Private slave-trading companies were even listed on the Amsterdam, London and Paris stock exchanges, selling shares. Some middle-class Europeans just wanted a good opportunity to invest and make money, so they bought these stocks. With this money, the company was able to buy ships, hire sailors and soldiers, buy slaves in Africa, and then transport them to America to sell to manor owners.

4.3.18. This is the fly in the ointment of free market capitalism. It cannot guarantee that profits will be earned fairly or distributed equitably. And on the contrary, because humans have the desire to pursue profits and economic growth, they will decide to blindly eliminate all possible obstacles. When "growth" becomes the supreme goal and is not checked by other moral and ethical considerations, it can easily lead to a disaster.

4.4.1. Almost everything humans have accomplished in history began by converting solar energy obtained by plants into muscle power. Because of this, human history has been dominated by two major cycles: the growth cycle of plants, and the changing cycles of solar energy (day and night, summer and winter)

4.4.2. The core of the industrial revolution is actually the revolution of energy conversion. We have seen time and time again that the energy available to us is infinite. To be more precise, the only limit is our ignorance. Every few decades, we find new sources of energy, so the total amount of energy available to humans is actually increasing.

4.4.3. The Industrial Revolution brought an unprecedented variety of energy and raw materials to mankind, which were not only rich in variety, but also cheap. The result is an explosive development of human productivity. The first detonation and the most profound impact was agriculture.

4.4.4. It was precisely because agriculture freed up billions of people to be absorbed into factories and offices that new products began to pour out like an avalanche. We produce more steel, make more clothes, build more buildings, and create a mind-boggling variety of products than ever before, including light bulbs, cell phones, digital cameras, and dishwashers. For the first time in human history, production exceeded demand. Because of this, a brand new question arises: who wants to buy these products?

4.4.5. After it is produced, someone has to buy it, otherwise the industry or investors will have to close down. In order to avoid this disaster and ensure that no matter what new product is sold, someone will buy it, a new ethics has emerged: consumerism

4.4.6. Obesity can be said to be a double victory for consumerism. On the one hand, if everyone eats too little, the economy will shrink, which is not good; on the other hand, if everyone eats too much, they will have to buy weight-loss products to once again promote economic growth.

4.5.1. The greatest social revolution in human history: the collapse of family and local communities, replaced by the state and the market. As far as we know, humans lived more than 1 million years ago in small, close-knit communities in which most members were related. The cognitive and agricultural revolutions have not changed that

4.5.2. The state is also increasingly involved in family relationships, especially the relationship between parents and children. Parents are now obliged to send their children to a state education. If parents are particularly abusive or violent towards their children, such parents may have their rights restricted by the state

4.5.3. Just like the nuclear family, the community will not disappear from the modern world as long as its emotional function is not completely replaced. Most of the material functions of communities in the past have now been taken over by the market and the state, but there is still work to be done on the emotional aspects of tribal camaraderie and solidarity in times of hardship.

4.5.4. The form of wealth has become human capital, technological knowledge, and complex social and economic structures such as banks, which are very difficult to rob or occupy.

4.6.1. Money does bring happiness, but there is a certain limit. After the limit is exceeded, the effect is not so obvious. Therefore, for people at the bottom of the economic class, the more money they have, the happier they are.

4.6.2. When we try to guess or imagine how happy someone else is (perhaps someone now or in the past), we always want to put ourselves in their shoes and think about how we would feel in that situation. But in this way, we put our expectations on other people's material conditions, and the results will of course be inaccurate.

4.6.3. Throughout history, the poor and oppressed have found comfort in the fact that death is the only thing that is completely fair. No matter how rich or powerful one is, one cannot escape death. Just the thought of dying while the rich are immortal makes the poor furious and uncontrollable.

4.6.4. Evolution treats pleasure as a reward, encouraging men and women to have sex and pass on their genes. If intercourse does not lead to orgasm, probably many men will not be so enthusiastic about it. But at the same time, evolution also ensures that the climax recedes quickly. If the orgasm lasts forever, you can imagine that the man will be very happy, but he will not even have the motivation to find food, and will eventually die of hunger, and he will not be interested in finding the next woman who can reproduce.

4.6.5. Now that we finally realize that the key to happiness lies within our biochemistry, we stop wasting our time dealing with political and social reforms, rebellions, and ideologies, and instead start working on the only way to truly make us happy: manipulating our biochemistry. mechanism. If we invest billions of dollars in understanding our brain chemistry and developing appropriate treatments, we can make people far happier than they were before without having to launch any revolutions.

4.6.6. As long as you have a reason to live, you can endure almost anything. If life is meaningful, you can enjoy it even in difficult times; if life is meaningless, you can live like a year even in good times.

4.6.7. If we cut our lives into minute-by-minute chunks and assess whether we were happy or not at the time, people in the Middle Ages must have looked pretty miserable. However, if they believe that they will receive eternal blessings after death, they are likely to believe that life is truly full of value and meaning.

4.6.8. Any meaning we attach to life is really just an illusion. Whether it is the otherworldly meaning of life in the Middle Ages or modern humanism, nationalism and capitalism, they are essentially the same and there is no difference between them.

4.6.9. The so-called happiness may just be the synchronization of personal illusions of meaning with the prevailing collective illusion. As long as my own thoughts are consistent with those of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and I can also get happiness from this belief.