Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Shared fictions” are beliefs and ideas that facilitate the formation of community and society. The ability to communicate ideas about things that do not exist is one of the reasons humans are so successful in an evolutionary sense, Harari argues. These shared fictions allow our societies to function and cooperate as large units. Humans rule the world because they are the only animals who can believe and share ideas from their collective imagination.

The ability to create and believe fiction is an attribute unique to humans. While other animals communicate to share realities such as the location of food sources, humans imagine new realities. These realities vary by nation, culture, city, and even family. Over time, our shared beliefs have changed. While our societies used to share ideas of polytheistic gods, now they are often built around pieces of paper, or even just digital records of this paper—money. Money has no real value except in our imaginations, and it is one reality that virtually everyone believes in. 

There is some false belief that evolution is working towards humans as the perfect outcome. From a scientific perspective, humans are not biologically singled out.