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.

Reasoning about factors and multiples

Multiplying 3-digit by 2-digit numbers | Grade 5 (TX TEKS) | Khan Academy

View All

Definite integral involving natural log | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

Let’s now take the definite integral from 2 to 4 of (6 + x^2) over (x^3) dx. At first, this might seem pretty daunting. I have this rational expression, but if we just rewrite this, it might jump out at you how this could be a little bit simpler. So, thi…

What's Left?

Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. And today, we’re going to talk about this. Just kidding. We’re going to talk about this. Left. What’s left? First of all, 90% of humans, regardless of culture or language, are right-handed. And we choose a dominant hand before …

The Coronavirus Explained & What You Should Do

In December 2019, the Chinese authorities notified the world that a virus was spreading through their communities. In the following months, it spread to other countries, with cases doubling within days. This virus is the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-…

Lecture 11 - Hiring and Culture, Part 2 (Patrick and John Collison, Ben Silbermann)

Part two of culture and team, and we have Ben Silberman, the founder of Pinterest, and John and Patrick Collison, the founders of Stripe. Um, founders that have obviously sort of some of the best in the world at thinking about culture and how they build t…

Worked examples: interpreting definite integrals in context | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

Julia’s revenue is r of t thousand dollars per month, where t is the month of the year. Julia had made three thousand dollars in the first month of the year. What does three plus the definite integral from one to five of r of t dt equals 19 mean? We have …

Energy dissipation across two resistors in series example

A student builds a circuit with a battery and two resistors in series. The resistance of R2 is double the resistance of R1. Below is the graph of the energy lost at R1 over time. So, that’s this graph. Which of the following shows the energy lost at R2 ov…

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

More Articles