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

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

 

Yuval Noah Harari’s recent book, Nexus, explores the history of human communication. As a renowned historian, Harari provides a sweeping narrative of how humanity evolved from the early days of the telegraph to the present information revolution.

The Power of Information Networks

Large-scale information networks are the primary reason for human success. Homo sapiens created powerful structures through imagination—not just machines, but religions and ideologies. However, Harari notes that these often bring unintended consequences; religions, for instance, have sometimes flooded the world with blood instead of the intended love and joy.

As humans shared more information, living standards generally improved. For example, a child's survival rate beyond age 15 was only 50% in Germany in 1797; today, it is 99.5% (with a world average of 96.5%). While technology has granted us unprecedented access—every smartphone contains more data than the ancient Library of Alexandria—this abundance brings new risks.

From Tools to Agents: The Rise of AI

Harari argues that "the singularity is nearer." We are moving from an era where human minds controlled machines to one where AI acts as an agent capable of independent decision-making.

The Silicon Curtain:

During the Cold War, we had the "Iron Curtain." Today, we face a "Silicon Curtain"—non-human intelligence that can exercise complete control through machine surveillance.

The End of Objective Truth: 

In the age of social media, populism uses information as a weapon. Harari points out that some leaders adopt a almost "Marxist" view where power is the only reality, and objective truth is sacrificed to vanquish rivals.

The Secret of Our Success: Stories and Delusions

Harari elaborates on his "pet theory" from Sapiens: our ability to spin stories.

Intersubjective Reality: 

Humans live in three realities: objective (trees, rivers), subjective (my feelings), and intersubjective (laws, money, gods, nations). These become "real" only because we talk about them.

Fiction vs. Truth: Fiction is simple and easy to digest; truth is complex. This is why people often understand ancient Puranas better than complicated scientific facts.

The Personality Cult: 

Modern communication allows for the careful crafting of stories to create a gap between an actual person and their public image.

Self-Correcting Mechanisms: Science vs. Religion

A major theme in Nexus is the "Self-Correcting Mechanism."

Science: 

Thrives because of independent institutions that prioritize the "discovery of ignorance" and the possibility of falsification. Scientists are incentivized to find faults in existing theories.

Religion and Totalitarianism: 

These systems are often based on the "Theory of Sacrosanctity"—the idea that the party or the text is infallible. Harari uses the Soviet Union and the Catholic Church as examples where institutional loyalty often prevents the admission of collective failure.

The Dark Side of Information: The Soviet Experience

Harari provides a chilling account of the Bolsheviks' refusal to adopt self-correcting mechanisms.

The Kulak Liquidation: 

The Soviet experiment, fueled by a doctrine of party infallibility, led to the deaths of millions during the collective farming era (1931–32).

Bureaucracy and Terror: Stalin didn't just use an army; he used a secret police force that held absolute command over information.

The Future: 

Algorithms and Alien Intelligence

As we move toward 2050, Harari warns of several shifts:

Consciousness vs. Intelligence: 

AI may not have feelings (consciousness), but it can make intelligent decisions. We cannot rule out that non-organic entities might one day develop their own form of consciousness.

The End of Human-Dominated Culture: 

AI (or "Alien Intelligence") could "eat" human culture and produce new cultural artifacts, scriptures, and art, potentially making democracy untenable.

Data Colonialism: 

By 2030, a vast majority of the wealth generated by AI will likely be cornered by the US and China, creating "information cocoons" that split humanity.

The Job Market: 

It won't be that all jobs disappear, but that adapting will be difficult. Interestingly, Harari notes it may be easier to automate the job of a doctor (pattern recognition) than that of a nurse (emotional intelligence).

Conclusion

Despite these warnings, Harari’s message is that the future is not yet written. Every major historical change was man-made. If humans make the effort to create better global rules and prioritize long-term cooperation over short-term "info-wars," we can navigate the challenges of the Silicon Curtain. As history shows, the only constant is change