Words Are the Most Powerful Drug | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

Humans stand alone in the animal kingdom. Our power over nature is unparalleled. What separates us? What is it that makes us human? The answer lies in our mastery of communication: the power to express complex thoughts and ideas; to organize and think collectively. These are the engines of our success, driving our ascent from hunter-gatherers to a global civilization.

Communication is everywhere. Our technology has propelled us to a new age of interconnectedness. Waves of data pass through us at the speed of light. Music, language, art, the written word—through these tools, the boundless human imagination has been given a voice. They give us self-expression and collective knowledge.

But they have a dark side. These tools are so powerful that they distort our very perception of reality. They can subvert and corrupt, and even manipulate entire populations. Communication is what makes us, us. How did it emerge? How did it transform us into a creature that could dream, into a creature that could imagine, where millions could eventually learn to cooperate, to overcome, to transcend?

This is the story of how our world came to be; how communication defined our species and created the modern age. How it connected humanity and sent our voice on a course for the stars. This is Origins.

Buying a $45,000,000 Home In Los Angeles

Calming an Overly Excitable Dog | Cesar Millan: Better Human Better Dog

View All

Safety Sealing a Jar of Smoke

Let’s make a fresh jar of smoke. The problem with old jars is their safety buttons are popped up. Everyone can tell they’ve been opened. But you can reverse this by sparking up some combustion. Dump the flame in the jar, and the flame will turn oxygen int…

Everything Is Falling - The Evergrande Crisis Explained

What’s up, Graham? It’s Guys here. So, I had another video that was scheduled to post today, but that could wait because we have to talk about what’s happening throughout the entire markets and the severity of the Evergrande fallout. Not only in terms of …

Justification with the mean value theorem: table | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

The table gives selected values of the differentiable function f. All right, can we use a mean value theorem to say that there is a value c such that f prime of c is equal to 5 and c is between 4 and 6? If so, write a justification. Well, to use the mean…

Why Scorpions Glow in the Dark

Finding scorpions in the desert at night is surprisingly easy. All you need is an ultraviolet torch because scorpions are incredibly fluorescent. Fluorescence means their bodies absorb ultraviolet light and reradiate it in the visible part of the spectrum…

Vlog: I counted almost $30,000,000 worth of cars in this parking lot!

What’s up you guys? It’s Graham here. So it seems like every 10,000 subscribers, I end up doing another vlog, and since I just hit 30,000 subscribers, here’s another vlog! I actually think it’s more like 34,000 by the time I’m actually doing this. I’m pro…

Advice for Students and Recent Graduates on Finding Jobs – Liz Wessel of WayUp

At what point did you know you wanted to start a company? Um, so my sophomore year of college, I was at Penn, and I actually started my first business at the end of sophomore year. I went to Stanford for a three-day boot camp called Basis Entrepreneurial…

Words Are the Most Powerful Drug | Origins: The Journey of Humankind

More Articles