Exploring How Harari’s “Nexus” Illuminates the Power of Story in BuildUSA and the Building Industry.
This post explores key concepts from Yuval Harari’s 2024 book Nexus and how they connect to the world of Building and the BuildUSA (BUSA) initiative. The focus is on how human information networks — powered by shared stories — shape the realities we build, both digitally and physically.
A Eureka Moment
Shortly after reading Nexus, I had a realization: the ideas Harari presents about information networks and collective belief systems directly mirror how the building process — and by extension, BuildUSA — functions. Harari describes three distinct types of reality that explain how humans build meaning, trust, and collaboration:
1. Objective Reality
This reality exists independently of human belief. It’s governed by physical laws and continues even if humans disappear. Examples: steel, concrete, glass, masonry, or HVAC systems — tangible, measurable things.
2. Subjective Reality
This reality exists only within the mind of an individual — personal feelings, sensations, and perceptions. Examples: the pride of completing a project, or the excitement of arriving at the job site each morning.
3. Intersubjective Reality
This is the most fascinating — a shared story that exists within the communication network connecting many minds. It’s not physical, but it’s powerful. Money, nations, contracts, and corporations all fall into this category. They exist because people believe in them. If belief fades, so does their power.
Building as an Intersubjective Reality
In construction, intersubjective realities are everywhere: contracts, insurance policies, drawings, specifications, and financial agreements — all stories we collectively agree to believe in. When those shared beliefs hold, a building rises from its foundation — the story becomes an objective reality. But when that shared belief falters — when team members no longer trust the contracts or documentation — the project collapses into conflict, delay, or litigation. In short, a construction project is a story that must be told clearly and believed collectively.
The Power of Information and Story
Harari goes further, defining how information shapes power and order. His insights map directly to BuildUSA’s approach to building collaboration and digital infrastructure.
Key Concepts from Nexus and Their Connection to Building:
1. Information must do two things: discover shared truth and create order.
2. Stories were the first information technology; documents were the second.
3. Stories create shared realities — but human memory limits their scale.
4. Stories bind people; lists and documents organize information for action.
5. Stories inspire and are remembered; lists are functional but forgettable.
6. Information and attention now compete with money for influence and value.
7. Learning is the process of recognizing patterns.
8. Human power stems from the ability to connect vast networks of people.
9. The best systems allow stories to evolve as new information emerges.
10. Land ownership once relied on human honor — until documents defined it.
11. Documents replaced human memory as the final authority of truth.
12. Bureaucracy — literally ‘rule by the writing desk’ — emerged to manage these documents.
13. Forms and filing systems were built for bureaucratic order, not for human convenience.
14. Because bureaucracies simplify complexity, they depend on fictional structures to stay functional.
15. The most resilient systems include self-correction mechanisms that keep them adaptive and truthful.
Connecting Harari’s Insights to BuildUSA
Many of Harari’s observations were already emerging as BuildUSA’s business plan, data structures, and strategies were being developed. But Nexus provided a language — and a philosophical framework — that clarified what BuildUSA was already striving to accomplish.
BuildUSA’s mission aligns with Harari’s view of how human cooperation scales:
– Information networks must be structured around shared truths.
– Digital documentation must remain flexible enough to evolve.
– Stories — like the construction documentation and workflows within the BCE (BuildUSA Collaborative Environment) — must bind teams together in belief and purpose.
To succeed, BuildUSA and Optimized Building must ensure that every piece of project data contributes to a story that helps teams:
1. Discover shared truth, and
2. Create and maintain order throughout the building process.
That is the essence of transforming a digital plan into a physical structure — and the foundation of BuildUSA’s vision for a collaborative, data-driven future.
Conclusion: Story Is the Infrastructure of Building
In the end, Nexus reminds us that the real power in building lies not only in materials or machines — but in stories. Stories create alignment, inspire belief, and guide collective action. Every building begins as an intersubjective idea — a story of what could be. BuildUSA exists to ensure that story is told clearly, managed intelligently, and built into enduring reality.
Next Up: We’ll explore how BuildUSA’s storytelling framework aligns with Optimized Building — transforming abstract data into actionable collaboration.
Photo by Tobias Bjerknes on Unsplash