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Making Sense with Sam Harris · October 7, 2024 · 90m

#386 — Information & Social Order

Yuval Noah Harari, Yuval Noah Harari
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Yuval Noah Harari on his book Nexus and how information networks — from the Bible to AI — have always been about power, not truth. Every information revolution creates new forms of social organization and new forms of tyranny.

This summary was generated from show notes and public descriptions, not from a full transcript review. Details may contain inaccuracies.

Canon

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Falsehood spreads faster because fiction is optimized for human psychology
Harari: misinformation isn't a bug in human information systems — it's a feature. Fiction (myths, religions, ideologies) spreads faster than truth because it's designed to be compelling, not accurate.
ClaudeChatGPTGemini

Highlights

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Information networks select for power, not truth
Harari: the naive view is that more information leads to better decisions. Historically, information networks (churches, states, media) select for whatever maintains the network's power — truth is optional.
ClaudeChatGPTGemini
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