Thinking On Paper Technology Podcast From the KGB to ChatGPT │Nexus Book Club, Yuval Noah Harari
What do Caesar, Stalin, and ChatGPT have in common? Power. In this episode of Thinking on Paper, Mark and Jeremy rip open Chapter 5 of Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus to trace the dark arc of information control—from ancient empires to today’s algorithmic warfare.
Forget the talking points. This is about the real fight: democracy vs. totalitarianism in an age where AI systems write the rules, rewrite the facts, and never sleep.
You’ll hear:
Why ancient hunter-gatherers might understand democracy better than you.
How Nero’s propaganda machine isn’t so different from your TikTok feed.
Why pamphlets once toppled kings—and why AI memes might do the same.
Whether book clubs are the last real firewall against algorithmic dictatorship.
The past isn’t prologue—it’s ammunition. If you want to understand where this is heading, you’ve got to know how we got here.
Subscribe. Listen. And maybe, survive.
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TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Disruptors and book lovers
(00:34) Chapter 5 summary
(01:14) Jeremy's first impressions
(01:53) The difference between democracy and totalitarianism
(03:58) Flipping democracy
(05:01) Populism
(09:34) A brief history of democracy
(12:23) Scale and Ancient Rome
(14:56) What is meaningful discourse?
(16:10) Do people like being governed?
(18:43) The rise of the pamphlet
(20:30) The spectrum of democracy
(24:27) Totalitarianism
(25:54) Don't be Stalin's general
(30:00) Will AI be democratic or a dictator?
(30:58) Book clubs as self-correcting mechanisms
(33:24) Will AI remove the human from the loop?
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