Yuval Noah Harari's Nexus - points to ponder - 2

Yuval Noah Harari's "Nexus" -  points to ponder - 2

    Important points in Yuval Harari Nexus, a book on information revolution.

Religion and Science 

1.   In science, self correcting mechanism is in place. The academic results which come out are subject to rigorous scrutiny by peer reviewers. No such mechanism is in religions. Even when errors are admitted after many decades, religion blames the individual rather than the system. Here it is clear that the attitude of Christian church is noted by Yuval. What I want to add here is Church admitted it's folly at least after science opened its eyes on some matters. Other mainstream religions don't even acknowledge mistakes by any authority whatsoever. Science allows itself to be critical of the system itself. Religious doctrines are considered to be sacrosanct which is non questionable and unalterable at all times. Unfortunately these days, some people who call themselves Marxists, believe exactly the same way. They consider Marxist principles as all encompassing and relevant at all times. I think, may be because of that reason, Yuval Harari rightly calls Marxism as humanity based religion of modern times. He says that most religions are God centric and Marxists are humanity centric. If realisation of God is the ultimate aim in religions, making of more humane and heaven like society is the end aim for Marxist believers and faithfuls.

2. Evolving of spirituality & irrelevancy of religions

      Yuval says that all the present day religions would become irrelevant and new religions will get evolved using AI and these new age religions would be based on scientific principles. I remember having heard about evolving of spirituality in one of the seminars in Aazhiyar, Head quarters of spiritual guru Vethathri maharishi in the Nineties. I attended as a follower of the Guru during those days . Like that of science, spiritual concepts must evolve with newer ideas, thus opined Vethathri. Now, it seems that Yuval almost echoes Vethathri's thoughts when he says newer, intellectual religious concepts would emerge in future when AI and technology are dominant. We know that in general, the words religion and spirituality are used interchangeably, though there are differences. 

3. Inter subjective truth

    Another interesting concept under discussion in the book is Inter subjective reality. Objective  and Subjective truth are well known. But what is inter subjective is described as societal,  subjective reality like God concept, nationalism, currency, etc. Things like these are recognised and adopted by society/country based on faith, belief and/or stories. They exist only in the minds of people. Religions  political outfits & countries are run using this inter subjective reality according to Yuval Harari. 

4. Information as a political weapon 

     In this age of Internet and information revolution political populism takes a centre stage like never before. Massive Propaganda blitz is unleashed to take information which suits a particular outfit or individual 's political agenda amongst the target population. Though lies and deceits have always been used as a weapon in political sphere, the availability of social media these days gives it a massive advantage. Those outfits which handle them effectively turns out to be the winners. Some political pundits feel that this situation negates the concept of democracy itself as some vested interests with enormous money and media clout, can influence outcomes of elections and thereby defeat the core of democracy, i e people' s power in people's hands. As of now, no solution is in sight to overcome this evil nexus of politico-religious-corporates set up in countries like India. As people become more educated, the situation may change for the better in future.

5. Social credit system using algorithms 

      Another thought provoking concept under discussion in the book is social credit rating of individual members of society. Like financial credit rating agencies which decide the score of financial worthiness of people, there may be a social credit system for good and bad behaviour online as well as offline. We all know people are  being monitored through mobile phones and every activity is recorded by mobile service providers or by Google. Yuval says there might come some mechanism to rate people's social behaviour and it would be used to determine jobs, loans, public posts, etc. If states start using this suppress dissent in public life, this would be another blow to free society.