10 thoughts from Yuval Noah Harari's new book “NEXUS” (video)
10/25/2024
Yuval Noah Harari has once again placed the history of humanity under the magnifying glass in “NEXUS”. He draws our attention to the intricate relationships between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power.
1. AI
Slavery
We are also busy creating new technologies like artificial intelligence
(AI) that have the potential to escape our control and enslave or annihilate
us.
2. The
path of self-destruction
Yet instead of our species uniting to deal with these existential challenges,
international tensions are rising, global cooperation is becoming more difficult,
countries are stockpiling doomsday weapons, and a new world war does not seem
impossible.
3. Intelligent
and self-destructive
If we Sapiens are so wise, why are we so self-destructive?
4. Freedom
and equality
Even if 99 percent of the population wants to exterminate the remaining
1 percent, in a democracy this is forbidden.
5. Freedom
and Equality
Democracy doesn’t mean majority rule; rather, it means freedom and
equality for all.
6. The
typical strongman
The typical strongman either deprives courts of their powers or packs
them with his loyalists and seeks to close all independent media outlets while
building his own omnipresent propaganda machine.
7. The
fox guarding the chicken coop
Allowing the government to supervise the search for truth is like
appointing the fox to guard the chicken coop.
8. From
the lap of the people
The most novel claim populists make is that they alone truly represent
the people.
9. Idle
noise
People need at least a rudimentary understanding of what they are
talking about. Otherwise, they are just making noise, not holding a meaningful
conversation.
10. Nothing
is predetermined
History is not deterministic, and the future will be shaped by the
choices we all make in coming years.
The general partner of “NEXUS” is Bookinist. The book is
available in bookstores and on the newmag.am website.
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Yuval Noah Harari
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Description
For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite allour discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI—a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?
Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.
Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and in doing so, rediscovers our shared humanity.
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