1
00:00:16,109 --> 00:00:18,260
First, a video.

2
00:00:24,657 --> 00:00:27,458
Yes, it is a scrambled egg.

3
00:00:29,411 --> 00:00:30,743
But as you look at it,

4
00:00:30,768 --> 00:00:34,878
I hope you'll begin to feel
just slightly uneasy.

5
00:00:36,649 --> 00:00:39,987
Because you may notice
that what's actually happening

6
00:00:40,011 --> 00:00:42,236
is that the egg is unscrambling itself.

7
00:00:42,259 --> 00:00:44,958
And you'll now see the yolk
and the white have separated.

8
00:00:44,982 --> 00:00:48,006
And now they're going to be
poured back into the egg.

9
00:00:48,030 --> 00:00:50,498
And we all know in our heart of hearts

10
00:00:50,521 --> 00:00:53,536
that this is not the way
the universe works.

11
00:00:54,695 --> 00:00:57,800
A scrambled egg is mush --
tasty mush -- but it's mush.

12
00:00:57,825 --> 00:01:00,236
An egg is a beautiful, sophisticated thing

13
00:01:00,259 --> 00:01:02,498
that can create even more
sophisticated things,

14
00:01:02,523 --> 00:01:03,840
such as chickens.

15
00:01:04,331 --> 00:01:06,235
And we know in our heart of hearts

16
00:01:06,260 --> 00:01:10,024
that the universe does not travel
from mush to complexity.

17
00:01:10,450 --> 00:01:12,844
In fact, this gut instinct

18
00:01:12,868 --> 00:01:15,740
is reflected in one of the most
fundamental laws of physics,

19
00:01:15,765 --> 00:01:18,590
the second law of thermodynamics,
or the law of entropy.

20
00:01:19,162 --> 00:01:20,921
What that says basically

21
00:01:20,944 --> 00:01:24,071
is that the general
tendency of the universe

22
00:01:24,096 --> 00:01:27,698
is to move from order and structure

23
00:01:27,722 --> 00:01:30,387
to lack of order, lack of structure --

24
00:01:30,411 --> 00:01:31,875
in fact, to mush.

25
00:01:31,899 --> 00:01:35,121
And that's why that video
feels a bit strange.

26
00:01:35,685 --> 00:01:38,414
And yet, look around us.

27
00:01:39,453 --> 00:01:42,929
What we see around us
is staggering complexity.

28
00:01:43,549 --> 00:01:46,838
Eric Beinhocker estimates
that in New York City alone,

29
00:01:46,861 --> 00:01:50,415
there are some 10 billion SKUs,
or distinct commodities, being traded.

30
00:01:50,932 --> 00:01:54,900
That's hundreds of times
as many species as there are on Earth.

31
00:01:55,260 --> 00:01:59,236
And they're being traded by a species
of almost seven billion individuals,

32
00:01:59,260 --> 00:02:02,645
who are linked by trade,
travel, and the Internet

33
00:02:02,668 --> 00:02:06,358
into a global system
of stupendous complexity.

34
00:02:07,825 --> 00:02:09,301
So here's a great puzzle:

35
00:02:10,191 --> 00:02:14,837
in a universe ruled
by the second law of thermodynamics,

36
00:02:14,861 --> 00:02:16,665
how is it possible

37
00:02:16,689 --> 00:02:19,235
to generate the sort
of complexity I've described,

38
00:02:19,259 --> 00:02:23,048
the sort of complexity
represented by you and me

39
00:02:23,072 --> 00:02:24,760
and the convention center?

40
00:02:26,118 --> 00:02:28,072
Well, the answer seems to be,

41
00:02:28,096 --> 00:02:31,235
the universe can create complexity,

42
00:02:31,259 --> 00:02:32,814
but with great difficulty.

43
00:02:33,870 --> 00:02:34,967
In pockets,

44
00:02:34,991 --> 00:02:37,308
there appear
what my colleague, Fred Spier,

45
00:02:37,331 --> 00:02:39,473
calls "Goldilocks conditions" --

46
00:02:39,497 --> 00:02:41,548
not too hot, not too cold,

47
00:02:41,573 --> 00:02:44,236
just right for the creation of complexity.

48
00:02:44,259 --> 00:02:46,526
And slightly more complex things appear.

49
00:02:46,550 --> 00:02:48,789
And where you have
slightly more complex things,

50
00:02:48,813 --> 00:02:51,185
you can get slightly more complex things.

51
00:02:51,210 --> 00:02:55,236
And in this way, complexity
builds stage by stage.

52
00:02:56,134 --> 00:02:58,412
Each stage is magical

53
00:02:58,437 --> 00:03:02,010
because it creates the impression
of something utterly new

54
00:03:02,033 --> 00:03:04,836
appearing almost out of nowhere
in the universe.

55
00:03:04,860 --> 00:03:08,091
We refer in big history to these moments
as threshold moments.

56
00:03:09,131 --> 00:03:12,235
And at each threshold,
the going gets tougher.

57
00:03:12,259 --> 00:03:15,501
The complex things get more fragile,

58
00:03:15,526 --> 00:03:17,236
more vulnerable;

59
00:03:17,259 --> 00:03:20,790
the Goldilocks conditions
get more stringent,

60
00:03:20,814 --> 00:03:23,801
and it's more difficult
to create complexity.

61
00:03:24,728 --> 00:03:28,032
Now, we, as extremely complex creatures,

62
00:03:28,056 --> 00:03:30,236
desperately need to know this story

63
00:03:30,259 --> 00:03:34,917
of how the universe creates complexity
despite the second law,

64
00:03:34,942 --> 00:03:39,974
and why complexity means
vulnerability and fragility.

65
00:03:40,745 --> 00:03:43,664
And that's the story
that we tell in big history.

66
00:03:43,688 --> 00:03:45,395
But to do it, you have do something

67
00:03:45,419 --> 00:03:48,125
that may, at first sight,
seem completely impossible.

68
00:03:48,149 --> 00:03:51,329
You have to survey the whole
history of the universe.

69
00:03:52,747 --> 00:03:53,747
So let's do it.

70
00:03:54,259 --> 00:03:56,168
(Laughter)

71
00:03:56,193 --> 00:03:59,639
Let's begin by winding the timeline back

72
00:03:59,663 --> 00:04:02,558
13.7 billion years,

73
00:04:02,582 --> 00:04:05,259
to the beginning of time.

74
00:04:12,580 --> 00:04:14,234
Around us, there's nothing.

75
00:04:14,985 --> 00:04:17,692
There's not even time or space.

76
00:04:18,473 --> 00:04:22,171
Imagine the darkest,
emptiest thing you can

77
00:04:22,196 --> 00:04:25,513
and cube it a gazillion times
and that's where we are.

78
00:04:25,992 --> 00:04:28,331
And then suddenly,

79
00:04:28,355 --> 00:04:29,363
bang!

80
00:04:29,387 --> 00:04:31,594
A universe appears, an entire universe.

81
00:04:31,619 --> 00:04:33,475
And we've crossed our first threshold.

82
00:04:33,499 --> 00:04:35,872
The universe is tiny;
it's smaller than an atom.

83
00:04:35,896 --> 00:04:37,235
It's incredibly hot.

84
00:04:37,259 --> 00:04:39,784
It contains everything
that's in today's universe,

85
00:04:39,809 --> 00:04:41,603
so you can imagine, it's busting.

86
00:04:41,627 --> 00:04:44,235
And it's expanding at incredible speed.

87
00:04:44,259 --> 00:04:46,173
And at first, it's just a blur,

88
00:04:46,197 --> 00:04:49,307
but very quickly distinct things
begin to appear in that blur.

89
00:04:49,742 --> 00:04:51,235
Within the first second,

90
00:04:51,259 --> 00:04:54,235
energy itself shatters
into distinct forces

91
00:04:54,259 --> 00:04:57,341
including electromagnetism and gravity.

92
00:04:57,365 --> 00:04:59,793
And energy does something
else quite magical:

93
00:04:59,817 --> 00:05:03,050
it congeals to form matter --

94
00:05:03,074 --> 00:05:05,403
quarks that will create protons

95
00:05:05,427 --> 00:05:07,565
and leptons that include electrons.

96
00:05:07,589 --> 00:05:09,692
And all of that happens
in the first second.

97
00:05:09,716 --> 00:05:13,945
Now we move forward 380,000 years.

98
00:05:14,259 --> 00:05:17,906
That's twice as long as humans
have been on this planet.

99
00:05:17,930 --> 00:05:22,670
And now simple atoms appear
of hydrogen and helium.

100
00:05:23,877 --> 00:05:25,480
Now I want to pause for a moment,

101
00:05:25,504 --> 00:05:28,236
380,000 years after the origins
of the universe,

102
00:05:28,259 --> 00:05:32,235
because we actually know quite a lot
about the universe at this stage.

103
00:05:32,773 --> 00:05:35,694
We know above all
that it was extremely simple.

104
00:05:35,718 --> 00:05:39,516
It consisted of huge clouds
of hydrogen and helium atoms,

105
00:05:39,540 --> 00:05:41,468
and they have no structure.

106
00:05:41,492 --> 00:05:43,860
They're really a sort of cosmic mush.

107
00:05:44,651 --> 00:05:46,322
But that's not completely true.

108
00:05:46,732 --> 00:05:48,236
Recent studies

109
00:05:48,259 --> 00:05:51,120
by satellites such as the WMAP satellite

110
00:05:51,144 --> 00:05:52,721
have shown that, in fact,

111
00:05:52,745 --> 00:05:55,495
there are just tiny differences
in that background.

112
00:05:55,519 --> 00:05:57,235
What you see here,

113
00:05:57,259 --> 00:06:01,565
the blue areas are about a thousandth
of a degree cooler

114
00:06:01,589 --> 00:06:02,981
than the red areas.

115
00:06:03,005 --> 00:06:04,378
These are tiny differences,

116
00:06:04,403 --> 00:06:06,673
but it was enough
for the universe to move on

117
00:06:06,697 --> 00:06:08,672
to the next stage of building complexity.

118
00:06:08,696 --> 00:06:09,888
And this is how it works.

119
00:06:10,894 --> 00:06:15,142
Gravity is more powerful
where there's more stuff.

120
00:06:15,817 --> 00:06:18,134
So where you get slightly denser areas,

121
00:06:18,158 --> 00:06:22,075
gravity starts compacting clouds
of hydrogen and helium atoms.

122
00:06:22,100 --> 00:06:25,650
So we can imagine the early universe
breaking up into a billion clouds.

123
00:06:25,673 --> 00:06:27,475
And each cloud is compacted,

124
00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:30,516
gravity gets more powerful
as density increases,

125
00:06:30,540 --> 00:06:33,634
the temperature begins to rise
at the center of each cloud,

126
00:06:33,658 --> 00:06:34,947
and then, at the center,

127
00:06:34,971 --> 00:06:37,809
the temperature crosses
the threshold temperature

128
00:06:37,833 --> 00:06:39,399
of 10 million degrees,

129
00:06:39,423 --> 00:06:41,827
protons start to fuse,

130
00:06:41,851 --> 00:06:44,235
there's a huge release of energy,

131
00:06:44,259 --> 00:06:45,692
and --

132
00:06:45,716 --> 00:06:46,733
bam!

133
00:06:46,757 --> 00:06:48,271
We have our first stars.

134
00:06:48,937 --> 00:06:52,795
From about 200 million years
after the Big Bang,

135
00:06:52,819 --> 00:06:56,226
stars begin to appear
all through the universe,

136
00:06:56,250 --> 00:06:57,322
billions of them.

137
00:06:57,759 --> 00:07:00,615
And the universe is now
significantly more interesting

138
00:07:00,639 --> 00:07:01,734
and more complex.

139
00:07:03,187 --> 00:07:06,303
Stars will create
the Goldilocks conditions

140
00:07:06,327 --> 00:07:08,226
for crossing two new thresholds.

141
00:07:08,630 --> 00:07:11,209
When very large stars die,

142
00:07:11,233 --> 00:07:13,555
they create temperatures so high

143
00:07:13,579 --> 00:07:17,211
that protons begin to fuse
in all sorts of exotic combinations,

144
00:07:17,235 --> 00:07:20,065
to form all the elements
of the periodic table.

145
00:07:20,089 --> 00:07:22,385
If, like me, you're wearing a gold ring,

146
00:07:22,410 --> 00:07:25,236
it was forged in a supernova explosion.

147
00:07:25,877 --> 00:07:29,076
So now the universe
is chemically more complex.

148
00:07:29,100 --> 00:07:31,466
And in a chemically more complex universe,

149
00:07:31,490 --> 00:07:33,934
it's possible to make more things.

150
00:07:33,958 --> 00:07:37,450
And what starts happening
is that, around young suns,

151
00:07:37,473 --> 00:07:39,235
young stars,

152
00:07:39,259 --> 00:07:41,450
all these elements combine,
they swirl around,

153
00:07:41,475 --> 00:07:44,254
the energy of the star stirs them around,

154
00:07:44,278 --> 00:07:49,004
they form particles, they form snowflakes,
they form little dust motes,

155
00:07:49,028 --> 00:07:51,224
they form rocks, they form asteroids,

156
00:07:51,247 --> 00:07:53,843
and eventually,
they form planets and moons.

157
00:07:53,867 --> 00:07:56,817
And that is how our
solar system was formed,

158
00:07:56,841 --> 00:07:59,235
four and a half billion years ago.

159
00:08:00,452 --> 00:08:05,825
Rocky planets like our Earth
are significantly more complex than stars

160
00:08:05,850 --> 00:08:08,612
because they contain
a much greater diversity of materials.

161
00:08:08,636 --> 00:08:11,417
So we've crossed a fourth
threshold of complexity.

162
00:08:12,930 --> 00:08:15,557
Now, the going gets tougher.

163
00:08:16,411 --> 00:08:20,689
The next stage introduces entities
that are significantly more fragile,

164
00:08:20,713 --> 00:08:22,625
significantly more vulnerable,

165
00:08:22,649 --> 00:08:25,235
but they're also much more creative

166
00:08:25,259 --> 00:08:28,235
and much more capable
of generating further complexity.

167
00:08:28,605 --> 00:08:32,029
I'm talking, of course,
about living organisms.

168
00:08:32,734 --> 00:08:34,877
Living organisms are created by chemistry.

169
00:08:34,900 --> 00:08:37,283
We are huge packages of chemicals.

170
00:08:38,115 --> 00:08:41,235
So, chemistry is dominated
by the electromagnetic force.

171
00:08:41,259 --> 00:08:43,499
That operates over smaller
scales than gravity,

172
00:08:43,523 --> 00:08:47,437
which explains why you and I
are smaller than stars or planets.

173
00:08:48,033 --> 00:08:50,326
Now, what are the ideal
conditions for chemistry?

174
00:08:50,874 --> 00:08:52,644
What are the Goldilocks conditions?

175
00:08:52,668 --> 00:08:55,024
Well, first, you need energy,

176
00:08:55,048 --> 00:08:56,235
but not too much.

177
00:08:56,664 --> 00:08:58,919
In the center of a star,
there's so much energy

178
00:08:58,943 --> 00:09:02,086
that any atoms that combine
will just get busted apart again.

179
00:09:02,110 --> 00:09:03,235
But not too little.

180
00:09:03,642 --> 00:09:04,873
In intergalactic space,

181
00:09:04,897 --> 00:09:07,780
there's so little energy
that atoms can't combine.

182
00:09:08,378 --> 00:09:10,235
What you want is just the right amount,

183
00:09:10,259 --> 00:09:12,259
and planets, it turns out, are just right,

184
00:09:12,283 --> 00:09:14,790
because they're close to stars,
but not too close.

185
00:09:15,394 --> 00:09:18,989
You also need a great diversity
of chemical elements,

186
00:09:19,013 --> 00:09:22,021
and you need liquids, such as water.

187
00:09:22,044 --> 00:09:23,091
Why?

188
00:09:23,115 --> 00:09:26,987
Well, in gases, atoms move
past each other so fast

189
00:09:27,011 --> 00:09:28,464
that they can't hitch up.

190
00:09:28,950 --> 00:09:30,672
In solids,

191
00:09:30,696 --> 00:09:33,235
atoms are stuck together, they can't move.

192
00:09:33,259 --> 00:09:34,977
In liquids,

193
00:09:35,001 --> 00:09:38,039
they can cruise and cuddle

194
00:09:38,063 --> 00:09:40,365
and link up to form molecules.

195
00:09:41,039 --> 00:09:43,394
Now, where do you find
such Goldilocks conditions?

196
00:09:43,933 --> 00:09:45,925
Well, planets are great,

197
00:09:45,950 --> 00:09:49,235
and our early Earth was almost perfect.

198
00:09:50,037 --> 00:09:52,085
It was just the right
distance from its star

199
00:09:52,109 --> 00:09:54,235
to contain huge oceans of liquid water.

200
00:09:54,259 --> 00:09:56,235
And deep beneath those oceans,

201
00:09:56,259 --> 00:09:58,235
at cracks in the Earth's crust,

202
00:09:58,259 --> 00:10:01,235
you've got heat seeping up
from inside the Earth,

203
00:10:01,259 --> 00:10:03,386
and you've got a great
diversity of elements.

204
00:10:03,410 --> 00:10:05,956
So at those deep oceanic vents,

205
00:10:05,980 --> 00:10:08,235
fantastic chemistry began to happen,

206
00:10:08,259 --> 00:10:11,259
and atoms combined in all sorts
of exotic combinations.

207
00:10:12,259 --> 00:10:16,625
But of course, life is more
than just exotic chemistry.

208
00:10:17,053 --> 00:10:20,810
How do you stabilize those huge molecules

209
00:10:20,835 --> 00:10:22,192
that seem to be viable?

210
00:10:22,950 --> 00:10:27,306
Well, it's here that life introduces
an entirely new trick.

211
00:10:28,220 --> 00:10:30,754
You don't stabilize the individual;

212
00:10:30,778 --> 00:10:32,881
you stabilize the template,

213
00:10:32,905 --> 00:10:35,010
the thing that carries information,

214
00:10:35,034 --> 00:10:37,251
and you allow the template to copy itself.

215
00:10:37,275 --> 00:10:40,426
And DNA, of course,
is the beautiful molecule

216
00:10:40,451 --> 00:10:42,777
that contains that information.

217
00:10:42,801 --> 00:10:45,616
You'll be familiar
with the double helix of DNA.

218
00:10:45,639 --> 00:10:48,155
Each rung contains information.

219
00:10:48,179 --> 00:10:52,752
So, DNA contains information
about how to make living organisms.

220
00:10:53,315 --> 00:10:55,239
And DNA also copies itself.

221
00:10:55,263 --> 00:10:56,469
So, it copies itself

222
00:10:56,493 --> 00:10:59,175
and scatters the templates
through the ocean.

223
00:10:59,198 --> 00:11:00,992
So the information spreads.

224
00:11:01,017 --> 00:11:03,655
Notice that information
has become part of our story.

225
00:11:04,136 --> 00:11:07,781
The real beauty of DNA though
is in its imperfections.

226
00:11:07,806 --> 00:11:11,734
As it copies itself,
once in every billion rungs,

227
00:11:11,758 --> 00:11:13,503
there tends to be an error.

228
00:11:13,527 --> 00:11:18,235
And what that means
is that DNA is, in effect, learning.

229
00:11:18,259 --> 00:11:21,580
It's accumulating new ways
of making living organisms

230
00:11:21,604 --> 00:11:23,224
because some of those errors work.

231
00:11:23,248 --> 00:11:24,446
So DNA's learning

232
00:11:24,470 --> 00:11:27,704
and it's building greater
diversity and greater complexity.

233
00:11:27,727 --> 00:11:30,909
And we can see this happening
over the last four billion years.

234
00:11:30,933 --> 00:11:33,108
For most of that time of life on Earth,

235
00:11:33,133 --> 00:11:35,370
living organisms have been
relatively simple --

236
00:11:35,394 --> 00:11:36,782
single cells.

237
00:11:36,806 --> 00:11:40,235
But they had great diversity,
and, inside, great complexity.

238
00:11:40,671 --> 00:11:43,575
Then from about 600
to 800 million years ago,

239
00:11:43,599 --> 00:11:45,690
multi-celled organisms appear.

240
00:11:45,714 --> 00:11:48,215
You get fungi, you get fish,

241
00:11:48,239 --> 00:11:49,754
you get plants,

242
00:11:49,778 --> 00:11:52,489
you get amphibia, you get reptiles,

243
00:11:52,513 --> 00:11:54,942
and then, of course,
you get the dinosaurs.

244
00:11:55,999 --> 00:11:58,508
And occasionally, there are disasters.

245
00:11:59,586 --> 00:12:01,975
Sixty-five million years ago,

246
00:12:01,999 --> 00:12:03,963
an asteroid landed on Earth

247
00:12:03,986 --> 00:12:05,776
near the Yucatan Peninsula,

248
00:12:05,801 --> 00:12:08,769
creating conditions equivalent
to those of a nuclear war,

249
00:12:08,793 --> 00:12:10,682
and the dinosaurs were wiped out.

250
00:12:11,166 --> 00:12:14,236
Terrible news for the dinosaurs,

251
00:12:14,259 --> 00:12:18,014
but great news
for our mammalian ancestors,

252
00:12:18,038 --> 00:12:19,235
who flourished

253
00:12:19,259 --> 00:12:22,917
in the niches left empty by the dinosaurs.

254
00:12:22,941 --> 00:12:27,995
And we human beings are part
of that creative evolutionary pulse

255
00:12:28,019 --> 00:12:30,355
that began 65 million years ago

256
00:12:30,379 --> 00:12:32,259
with the landing of an asteroid.

257
00:12:33,796 --> 00:12:36,510
Humans appeared about 200,000 years ago.

258
00:12:36,533 --> 00:12:40,881
And I believe we count
as a threshold in this great story.

259
00:12:40,905 --> 00:12:42,112
Let me explain why.

260
00:12:42,700 --> 00:12:45,730
We've seen that DNA learns in a sense,

261
00:12:45,754 --> 00:12:47,542
it accumulates information.

262
00:12:47,566 --> 00:12:49,235
But it is so slow.

263
00:12:50,128 --> 00:12:53,600
DNA accumulates information
through random errors,

264
00:12:53,624 --> 00:12:55,759
some of which just happen to work.

265
00:12:56,490 --> 00:12:59,124
But DNA had actually generated
a faster way of learning:

266
00:12:59,148 --> 00:13:01,926
it had produced organisms with brains,

267
00:13:01,950 --> 00:13:05,169
and those organisms
can learn in real time.

268
00:13:05,192 --> 00:13:07,519
They accumulate information, they learn.

269
00:13:07,543 --> 00:13:10,368
The sad thing is, when they die,

270
00:13:10,392 --> 00:13:12,090
the information dies with them.

271
00:13:12,479 --> 00:13:16,466
Now what makes humans different
is human language.

272
00:13:16,490 --> 00:13:19,253
We are blessed with a language,
a system of communication,

273
00:13:19,277 --> 00:13:21,898
so powerful and so precise

274
00:13:21,922 --> 00:13:25,080
that we can share what we've learned
with such precision

275
00:13:25,104 --> 00:13:27,993
that it can accumulate
in the collective memory.

276
00:13:28,017 --> 00:13:29,236
And that means

277
00:13:29,259 --> 00:13:33,038
it can outlast the individuals
who learned that information,

278
00:13:33,062 --> 00:13:36,235
and it can accumulate
from generation to generation.

279
00:13:36,259 --> 00:13:40,316
And that's why, as a species,
we're so creative and so powerful,

280
00:13:40,340 --> 00:13:42,396
and that's why we have a history.

281
00:13:43,014 --> 00:13:46,316
We seem to be the only species
in four billion years

282
00:13:46,340 --> 00:13:47,581
to have this gift.

283
00:13:48,057 --> 00:13:51,622
I call this ability collective learning.

284
00:13:51,995 --> 00:13:53,384
It's what makes us different.

285
00:13:53,686 --> 00:13:57,235
We can see it at work
in the earliest stages of human history.

286
00:13:57,948 --> 00:14:01,235
We evolved as a species
in the savanna lands of Africa,

287
00:14:01,259 --> 00:14:04,720
but then you see humans migrating
into new environments,

288
00:14:04,744 --> 00:14:06,894
into desert lands, into jungles,

289
00:14:06,918 --> 00:14:09,354
into the Ice Age tundra of Siberia --

290
00:14:09,378 --> 00:14:10,823
tough, tough environment --

291
00:14:10,846 --> 00:14:13,179
into the Americas, into Australasia.

292
00:14:13,203 --> 00:14:15,240
Each migration involved learning --

293
00:14:15,264 --> 00:14:17,747
learning new ways of exploiting
the environment,

294
00:14:17,772 --> 00:14:19,946
new ways of dealing
with their surroundings.

295
00:14:19,970 --> 00:14:21,786
Then 10,000 years ago,

296
00:14:21,809 --> 00:14:24,804
exploiting a sudden
change in global climate

297
00:14:24,828 --> 00:14:26,400
with the end of the last ice age,

298
00:14:26,424 --> 00:14:28,005
humans learned to farm.

299
00:14:28,623 --> 00:14:31,059
Farming was an energy bonanza.

300
00:14:31,082 --> 00:14:34,909
And exploiting that energy,
human populations multiplied.

301
00:14:34,933 --> 00:14:38,520
Human societies got larger,
denser, more interconnected.

302
00:14:39,100 --> 00:14:42,451
And then from about 500 years ago,

303
00:14:42,475 --> 00:14:44,514
humans began to link up globally

304
00:14:44,538 --> 00:14:46,919
through shipping, through trains,

305
00:14:46,943 --> 00:14:49,235
through telegraph, through the Internet,

306
00:14:49,259 --> 00:14:54,451
until now we seem to form
a single global brain

307
00:14:54,475 --> 00:14:56,606
of almost seven billion individuals.

308
00:14:56,630 --> 00:14:59,793
And that brain is learning at warp speed.

309
00:15:00,572 --> 00:15:03,144
And in the last 200 years,
something else has happened.

310
00:15:03,168 --> 00:15:05,834
We've stumbled on another energy bonanza

311
00:15:05,857 --> 00:15:06,984
in fossil fuels.

312
00:15:07,009 --> 00:15:09,711
So fossil fuels and collective
learning together

313
00:15:09,735 --> 00:15:13,259
explain the staggering complexity
we see around us.

314
00:15:16,504 --> 00:15:17,504
So --

315
00:15:18,668 --> 00:15:19,985
Here we are,

316
00:15:20,009 --> 00:15:21,533
back at the convention center.

317
00:15:21,557 --> 00:15:26,263
We've been on a journey,
a return journey, of 13.7 billion years.

318
00:15:26,966 --> 00:15:29,436
I hope you agree this is a powerful story.

319
00:15:29,460 --> 00:15:34,125
And it's a story in which humans
play an astonishing and creative role.

320
00:15:34,466 --> 00:15:36,681
But it also contains warnings.

321
00:15:37,474 --> 00:15:41,807
Collective learning is a very,
very powerful force,

322
00:15:41,831 --> 00:15:46,235
and it's not clear
that we humans are in charge of it.

323
00:15:47,123 --> 00:15:50,192
I remember very vividly
as a child growing up in England,

324
00:15:50,216 --> 00:15:52,235
living through the Cuban Missile Crisis.

325
00:15:52,846 --> 00:15:56,457
For a few days, the entire biosphere

326
00:15:56,481 --> 00:15:58,780
seemed to be on the verge of destruction.

327
00:15:59,474 --> 00:16:02,639
And the same weapons are still here,

328
00:16:02,663 --> 00:16:04,235
and they are still armed.

329
00:16:05,004 --> 00:16:08,235
If we avoid that trap,
others are waiting for us.

330
00:16:08,647 --> 00:16:11,236
We're burning fossil fuels at such a rate

331
00:16:11,259 --> 00:16:14,670
that we seem to be undermining
the Goldilocks conditions

332
00:16:14,695 --> 00:16:16,923
that made it possible
for human civilizations

333
00:16:16,947 --> 00:16:20,028
to flourish over the last 10,000 years.

334
00:16:20,633 --> 00:16:22,908
So what big history can do

335
00:16:22,932 --> 00:16:26,254
is show us the nature
of our complexity and fragility

336
00:16:26,278 --> 00:16:28,201
and the dangers that face us,

337
00:16:28,225 --> 00:16:31,806
but it can also show us
our power with collective learning.

338
00:16:32,586 --> 00:16:34,538
And now, finally --

339
00:16:35,657 --> 00:16:37,812
this is what I want.

340
00:16:39,447 --> 00:16:42,480
I want my grandson, Daniel,

341
00:16:42,504 --> 00:16:45,260
and his friends and his generation,

342
00:16:45,284 --> 00:16:47,077
throughout the world,

343
00:16:47,101 --> 00:16:49,942
to know the story of big history,

344
00:16:49,966 --> 00:16:52,004
and to know it so well

345
00:16:52,028 --> 00:16:55,695
that they understand
both the challenges that face us

346
00:16:55,719 --> 00:16:58,236
and the opportunities that face us.

347
00:16:58,259 --> 00:17:00,139
And that's why a group of us

348
00:17:00,163 --> 00:17:03,175
are building a free, online syllabus

349
00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:04,518
in big history

350
00:17:04,541 --> 00:17:06,692
for high-school students
throughout the world.

351
00:17:07,224 --> 00:17:09,660
We believe that big history

352
00:17:09,684 --> 00:17:12,235
will be a vital
intellectual tool for them,

353
00:17:12,259 --> 00:17:15,103
as Daniel and his generation

354
00:17:15,126 --> 00:17:17,474
face the huge challenges

355
00:17:17,499 --> 00:17:19,554
and also the huge opportunities

356
00:17:19,577 --> 00:17:23,032
ahead of them at this threshold moment

357
00:17:23,057 --> 00:17:26,236
in the history of our beautiful planet.

358
00:17:26,992 --> 00:17:28,540
I thank you for your attention.

359
00:17:28,565 --> 00:17:33,259
(Applause)