Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

For decades, Silicon Valley sold the idea that connecting the planet through high-speed networks would produce instant wisdom. All we needed was more data circulating, and truth would defeat age-old lies. Yuval Noah Harari opens Nexus by dismantling this myth: throughout human history, more communication has never, on its own, meant greater commitment to actual facts.

This naive view confuses the pursuit of truth with the creation of social order. While truth demands rigorous investigation and creates uncomfortable divisions, social order depends on simple myths capable of uniting crowds under the same banner. When it comes to coordinating millions of individuals, fanciful beliefs are often far more effective than detailed scientific explanations.

A neighborhood group chat illustrates this dynamic perfectly. An alarming rumor about contaminated water goes viral in ten minutes and empties the local supermarket's shelves. Meanwhile, residents completely ignore the city government's technical bulletin confirming the water's purity in formal language.

Truth suffers from a chronic disadvantage compared with fiction: establishing reality is expensive, time-consuming, and demanding. Scientists and investigators spend months cross-checking data, consulting sources, and testing hypotheses before reaching a conclusion. Truth also requires humility and constant self-criticism, attitudes that are difficult to maintain in public disputes.

Lies, on the other hand, cost almost nothing to produce. Anyone sitting at a bar can cook up an appealing conspiracy narrative in thirty seconds, playing on a listener's fear, vanity, or anger. Because reality is full of gray areas, made-up stories sell better by readily confirming people's prejudices.

You can see this clearly in household budgeting. Checking the take-home pay on your pay stub, adding up bills, and facing the electric bill delivers an uncomfortable shock that many people avoid. Believing in magical get-rich-quick schemes online is tempting precisely because it offers relief without demanding any sacrifice.

To hold empires together before the computer age, ancient civilizations created networks based on sacred texts. Faced with scattered populations telling contradictory stories about gods and laws, rulers confronted the constant risk of political fragmentation and internal revolt.

The priests' solution was to select certain scrolls, declare these writings sacred, and lock doctrine into an unchanging canon. Anyone who tried to add new accounts or point out inconsistencies in the official texts was branded a heretic and expelled from the community. The Bible and other foundational books functioned as pioneering networks for mass coordination.

The canon's purpose was never the scientific accuracy of its accounts, but social discipline. By establishing an unquestionable supreme text, elites secured compliance with taxation and military obligations, sacrificing the freedom to question in the name of the empire's lasting stability.