Nexus is engagingly written, fast-paced, and full of elegant and perceptive observations. Nevertheless, the book’s central thesis is excessively reductionist. The trajectory of humanity is determined by more than mere information. Human desires, interests, and values play crucial roles.
Harari is correct that information creates a social nexus and therefore “states and markets are information networks absorbing information from the environment.” But to describe the way states and markets operate we cannot consider merely information in the abstract, but also human interests and desires. As Adam Smith famously wrote, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” ~ John O. McGinniss