Nexus by Yuval Harari (2024)

[mbluett88]

I am currently reading a book entitled “Nexus - A Brief History Of Information Networks From The Stone Age To AI” (2024) by Yuval Noah Harari.

He also has a Youtube video to start you off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQYGid5uCPk

The book is very good. It offers a very insightful lens with which to view the world.

It talks about how truth and order are sometimes conflicting ideas. And that stories are constructed to create order. The stories can be any combination of lies, misinformation, disinformation and truth. Yuval says that truth is usually complicated so is not as frequently used. Maybe, it would be used moreso when it is in a simplified form.

As well, it talks about how these stories are used to gather people into groups so that these stories get carried forth over centuries.

An interesting comparison made in the book is that religious institutions are regarded as infallible; whereas, scientific institutions are regarded as fallible. The church cannot be accused of doing anything bad as it is infallible because of it’s belief in a god. Science acknowledges that it is only made up of humans and therefore is fallible. It therefore has self-correcting mechanisms; whereas, the church has very little self-correction.

As the book is presented as history, it connects the ideas it presents to past events.

Highly recommended.

[jessipinkman]

This is an incredibly thought-provoking book! Harari's ability to weave together history, philosophy, and current trends always provides a unique lens to understand the world. drift hunters

[andreeoren]

The observation about the interplay between truth and order, and how stories (regardless of their accuracy) are used to unify and sustain communities over time, is particularly striking. It resonates with Harari's characteristic ability to distill complex societal Retro Bowl College mechanisms into digestible concepts.