Sapiens: How Shared Myths Change the World

Shared myths are presented as the human force that lets people escape game-theoretic traps like the prisoner's dilemma and build large cooperative societies. The author uses a prisoner's dilemma example to show that a shared belief in a God who punishes defectors can make cooperation a stable equilibrium, even for people who do not share the belief, once the myth is enforced through social norms. The article attributes the broader view that money, law, human rights and nations are shared myths to Yuval Noah Harari, citing his book Sapiens, and quotes his point that Sapiens changed social structures within a decade or two while its DNA stayed the same.