Human societies are built on shared stories—from nations to money. These fictions allow cooperation at scale but also shape our values, often unconsciously.“We control the world not with muscles, but with stories.”

The Power of Narratives

We’re drowning in data—but the power lies with those who organize, interpret, and control it. Harari warns of a future where data knows us better than we know ourselves.

The Data Deluge

AI may soon outperform humans in intelligence, but not in consciousness. Harari distinguishes between the two—and questions whether consciousness even matters in the marketplace.“Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness.”

Intelligence vs Conciousness

With enough data, systems can “hack” us—predicting, manipulating, and even shaping our desires. Harari warns this is no longer science fiction, but emerging reality.“To hack a human, you need data and computing power. Both are now abundant.”

Hacking Humans

The skills of the past—memorization, repetition—are obsolete. Harari urges a focus on adaptability, emotional intelligence, and lifelong learning.“In a world of change, the ultimate skill is learning.”

Education Must Evolve

We now have the power to shape our own evolution. Harari calls for wisdom to match our power—lest we become slaves to the very tools we build.

Conscious Evolution

Liberalism, once triumphant, now faces challenges from within—polarization, inequality, and the erosion of truth. Harari urges us to rebuild trust in institutions.“The liberal story is faltering. What replaces it?”

The Collapse of the Liberal Order

Challenges like pandemics, climate change, and AI demand global responses. Harari warns that tribalism and nationalism are incompatible with survival.“Humanity must choose: unite or fall.”

Global Cooperation is Crucial

Nexus is a sweeping exploration of humanity’s interconnected future. Harari weaves data, biology, and ethics into a warning and a call to consciousness. He urges us to question the narratives we live by—and to wield our growing power with responsibility, not hubris.

Tech giants aren’t just businesses—they’re geopolitical actors shaping economies, ethics, and truth. Harari sees them as the new centers of power.“Google may soon know what you will do before you do.”

The Rise of Tech Empires

In the tech age, biology is back—not in its natural form, but engineered, edited, and monetized. From CRISPR to wearables, we are redesigning life itself.“The future belongs to those who hack biology.”

The Return of Biology

Neuroscience and algorithms suggest free will is more illusion than fact. Harari doesn’t dismiss it, but challenges us to understand its limits.“You think you choose, but your brain often chooses for you.”

The Illusion of Free Will

With filter bubbles and deepfakes, truth is fragmented. Harari highlights the need for critical thinking in a world of curated realities.“In the post-truth era, trust is more valuable than truth.”

The Myth of Objective News

Technology enables unprecedented surveillance. Harari questions whether we can preserve freedom when everything can be monitored and predicted.“Total surveillance may be the price we pay for safety.”

Surveillance vs Freedom

Tech moves fast. Ethics crawls. Harari believes we’re building tools without discussing their consequences.“We build first and ask ‘should we?’ later—if ever.”

Ethics Lag Behind Innovation

As algorithms guide more choices—from purchases to relationships—human agency is at risk. Harari pushes us to guard the freedom to think and choose.“If you don’t program your mind, someone else will.”

The Fragility of Human Agency

Explore the deep forces that connect data, power & humanity in Harari’s thought-provoking Nexus.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. “Striking original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the zeitgeist perfectly.”—The Economist “This deeply important book comes at a critical time as we all think through the implications of AI and automated content production. . . . Masterful and provocative.”—Mustafa Suleyman, author of The Coming Wave For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our 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.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

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Technology & The Future

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Books

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

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Science & Nature

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli public intellectual, historian and professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the popular science bestsellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

The Return of Biology

Similar ideas to The Return of Biology

References

The Importance of Community

The elusiveness of "natural"