a book
Nexus
Ramez Naam · 2012 · 527 pages
Mankind gets an upgrade
In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it.
When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he’s thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage – for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes.
From the halls of academe to the halls of power, from the headquarters of an elite US agency in Washington DC to a secret lab beneath a top university in Shanghai, from the underground parties of San Francisco to the illegal biotech markets of Bangkok, from an international neuroscience conference to a remote monastery in the mountains of Thailand – Nexus is a thrill ride through a future on the brink of explosion.
File Under: Science Fiction [Humanity 2.0 | Mind Matters | Hive | This Will Happen]
recommended by 2 people
sourced from public statements
Andrej Karpathy
“Nexus is a (programmable) operating system layer over the brain that allows people to program their minds (e.g., download a "Bruce Lee" package), and communicate directly with the minds of others. The book's plot involves a protagonist scientist who wants to release the technology for good, and a government organization who wants to stop it (or at least massively slow it down) in its tracks for fear of unintended consequences. I quite enjoyed the world-building pieces of this book. The Nexus operating system is interesting and is described in quite a lot of technical detail. More generally, the world features a large number of human body/mind augmentations that can be purchased. We also get a glimpse of some post-humans and we're teased with ideas of human hive minds. Unfortunately, after the awesome world-building is over in the first ~third of the book, the plot mostly transitions into what feels like a long chase sequence / thriller, and loses some of its grandeur.”↗
Naval Ravikant
“Nexus is fantastic. I’ll check out Red.”↗
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