WEBVTT 00:00:00.849 --> 00:00:03.000 First, a video. 00:00:09.397 --> 00:00:12.199 Yes, it is a scrambled egg. 00:00:14.151 --> 00:00:15.484 But as you look at it, 00:00:15.508 --> 00:00:19.619 I hope you'll begin to feel just slightly uneasy. 00:00:21.389 --> 00:00:24.727 Because you may notice that what's actually happening 00:00:24.751 --> 00:00:26.976 is that the egg is unscrambling itself. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:29.699 And you'll now see the yolk and the white have separated. 00:00:29.723 --> 00:00:32.746 And now they're going to be poured back into the egg. 00:00:32.770 --> 00:00:35.238 And we all know in our heart of hearts 00:00:35.262 --> 00:00:38.277 that this is not the way the universe works. 00:00:39.436 --> 00:00:42.541 A scrambled egg is mush -- tasty mush -- but it's mush. 00:00:42.565 --> 00:00:44.976 An egg is a beautiful, sophisticated thing 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.239 that can create even more sophisticated things, 00:00:47.263 --> 00:00:48.580 such as chickens. 00:00:49.072 --> 00:00:50.976 And we know in our heart of hearts 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.764 that the universe does not travel from mush to complexity. 00:00:55.190 --> 00:00:57.585 In fact, this gut instinct 00:00:57.609 --> 00:01:00.481 is reflected in one of the most fundamental laws of physics, 00:01:00.505 --> 00:01:03.330 the second law of thermodynamics, or the law of entropy. 00:01:03.902 --> 00:01:05.661 What that says basically 00:01:05.685 --> 00:01:08.812 is that the general tendency of the universe 00:01:08.836 --> 00:01:12.439 is to move from order and structure 00:01:12.463 --> 00:01:15.127 to lack of order, lack of structure -- 00:01:15.151 --> 00:01:16.615 in fact, to mush. 00:01:16.639 --> 00:01:19.862 And that's why that video feels a bit strange. 00:01:20.425 --> 00:01:23.154 And yet, look around us. 00:01:24.194 --> 00:01:27.670 What we see around us is staggering complexity. 00:01:28.289 --> 00:01:31.578 Eric Beinhocker estimates that in New York City alone, 00:01:31.602 --> 00:01:35.156 there are some 10 billion SKUs, or distinct commodities, being traded. 00:01:35.672 --> 00:01:39.640 That's hundreds of times as many species as there are on Earth. 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:43.976 And they're being traded by a species of almost seven billion individuals, 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:47.385 who are linked by trade, travel, and the Internet 00:01:47.409 --> 00:01:51.098 into a global system of stupendous complexity. 00:01:52.566 --> 00:01:54.042 So here's a great puzzle: 00:01:54.931 --> 00:01:59.578 in a universe ruled by the second law of thermodynamics, 00:01:59.602 --> 00:02:01.406 how is it possible 00:02:01.430 --> 00:02:03.976 to generate the sort of complexity I've described, 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:07.788 the sort of complexity represented by you and me 00:02:07.812 --> 00:02:09.501 and the convention center? 00:02:10.859 --> 00:02:12.812 Well, the answer seems to be, 00:02:12.836 --> 00:02:15.976 the universe can create complexity, 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:17.555 but with great difficulty. 00:02:18.610 --> 00:02:19.707 In pockets, 00:02:19.731 --> 00:02:22.048 there appear what my colleague, Fred Spier, 00:02:22.072 --> 00:02:24.214 calls "Goldilocks conditions" -- 00:02:24.238 --> 00:02:26.289 not too hot, not too cold, 00:02:26.313 --> 00:02:28.976 just right for the creation of complexity. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:31.267 And slightly more complex things appear. 00:02:31.291 --> 00:02:33.530 And where you have slightly more complex things, 00:02:33.554 --> 00:02:35.926 you can get slightly more complex things. 00:02:35.950 --> 00:02:39.976 And in this way, complexity builds stage by stage. 00:02:40.875 --> 00:02:43.153 Each stage is magical 00:02:43.177 --> 00:02:46.750 because it creates the impression of something utterly new 00:02:46.774 --> 00:02:49.577 appearing almost out of nowhere in the universe. 00:02:49.601 --> 00:02:52.832 We refer in big history to these moments as threshold moments. 00:02:53.871 --> 00:02:56.976 And at each threshold, the going gets tougher. 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:00.242 The complex things get more fragile, 00:03:00.266 --> 00:03:01.976 more vulnerable; 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:05.531 the Goldilocks conditions get more stringent, 00:03:05.555 --> 00:03:08.542 and it's more difficult to create complexity. 00:03:09.468 --> 00:03:12.772 Now, we, as extremely complex creatures, 00:03:12.796 --> 00:03:14.976 desperately need to know this story 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:19.658 of how the universe creates complexity despite the second law, 00:03:19.682 --> 00:03:24.714 and why complexity means vulnerability and fragility. 00:03:25.485 --> 00:03:28.405 And that's the story that we tell in big history. 00:03:28.429 --> 00:03:30.136 But to do it, you have do something 00:03:30.160 --> 00:03:32.865 that may, at first sight, seem completely impossible. 00:03:32.889 --> 00:03:36.069 You have to survey the whole history of the universe. 00:03:37.488 --> 00:03:38.488 So let's do it. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:40.909 (Laughter) 00:03:40.933 --> 00:03:44.379 Let's begin by winding the timeline back 00:03:44.403 --> 00:03:47.299 13.7 billion years, 00:03:47.323 --> 00:03:50.000 to the beginning of time. 00:03:57.321 --> 00:03:58.975 Around us, there's nothing. 00:03:59.726 --> 00:04:02.432 There's not even time or space. 00:04:03.214 --> 00:04:06.912 Imagine the darkest, emptiest thing you can 00:04:06.936 --> 00:04:10.253 and cube it a gazillion times and that's where we are. 00:04:10.732 --> 00:04:13.072 And then suddenly, 00:04:13.096 --> 00:04:14.104 bang! 00:04:14.128 --> 00:04:16.335 A universe appears, an entire universe. 00:04:16.359 --> 00:04:18.215 And we've crossed our first threshold. 00:04:18.239 --> 00:04:20.612 The universe is tiny; it's smaller than an atom. 00:04:20.636 --> 00:04:21.976 It's incredibly hot. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:24.525 It contains everything that's in today's universe, 00:04:24.549 --> 00:04:26.343 so you can imagine, it's busting. 00:04:26.367 --> 00:04:28.976 And it's expanding at incredible speed. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:30.913 And at first, it's just a blur, 00:04:30.937 --> 00:04:34.047 but very quickly distinct things begin to appear in that blur. 00:04:34.483 --> 00:04:35.976 Within the first second, 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:38.976 energy itself shatters into distinct forces 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:42.082 including electromagnetism and gravity. 00:04:42.106 --> 00:04:44.534 And energy does something else quite magical: 00:04:44.558 --> 00:04:47.790 it congeals to form matter -- 00:04:47.814 --> 00:04:50.144 quarks that will create protons 00:04:50.168 --> 00:04:52.306 and leptons that include electrons. 00:04:52.330 --> 00:04:54.433 And all of that happens in the first second. 00:04:54.457 --> 00:04:58.686 Now we move forward 380,000 years. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:02.647 That's twice as long as humans have been on this planet. 00:05:02.671 --> 00:05:07.411 And now simple atoms appear of hydrogen and helium. 00:05:08.617 --> 00:05:10.220 Now I want to pause for a moment, 00:05:10.244 --> 00:05:12.976 380,000 years after the origins of the universe, 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:16.976 because we actually know quite a lot about the universe at this stage. 00:05:17.513 --> 00:05:20.434 We know above all that it was extremely simple. 00:05:20.458 --> 00:05:24.257 It consisted of huge clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms, 00:05:24.281 --> 00:05:26.209 and they have no structure. 00:05:26.233 --> 00:05:28.600 They're really a sort of cosmic mush. 00:05:29.392 --> 00:05:31.062 But that's not completely true. 00:05:31.472 --> 00:05:32.976 Recent studies 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:35.861 by satellites such as the WMAP satellite 00:05:35.885 --> 00:05:37.462 have shown that, in fact, 00:05:37.486 --> 00:05:40.235 there are just tiny differences in that background. 00:05:40.259 --> 00:05:41.976 What you see here, 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:46.306 the blue areas are about a thousandth of a degree cooler 00:05:46.330 --> 00:05:47.722 than the red areas. 00:05:47.746 --> 00:05:49.119 These are tiny differences, 00:05:49.143 --> 00:05:51.413 but it was enough for the universe to move on 00:05:51.437 --> 00:05:53.412 to the next stage of building complexity. 00:05:53.436 --> 00:05:54.628 And this is how it works. 00:05:55.635 --> 00:05:59.883 Gravity is more powerful where there's more stuff. 00:06:00.557 --> 00:06:02.875 So where you get slightly denser areas, 00:06:02.899 --> 00:06:06.816 gravity starts compacting clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms. 00:06:06.840 --> 00:06:10.390 So we can imagine the early universe breaking up into a billion clouds. 00:06:10.414 --> 00:06:12.216 And each cloud is compacted, 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.256 gravity gets more powerful as density increases, 00:06:15.280 --> 00:06:18.374 the temperature begins to rise at the center of each cloud, 00:06:18.398 --> 00:06:19.687 and then, at the center, 00:06:19.711 --> 00:06:22.549 the temperature crosses the threshold temperature 00:06:22.573 --> 00:06:24.139 of 10 million degrees, 00:06:24.163 --> 00:06:26.568 protons start to fuse, 00:06:26.592 --> 00:06:28.976 there's a huge release of energy, 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:30.433 and -- 00:06:30.457 --> 00:06:31.473 bam! 00:06:31.497 --> 00:06:33.012 We have our first stars. 00:06:33.678 --> 00:06:37.536 From about 200 million years after the Big Bang, 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:40.967 stars begin to appear all through the universe, 00:06:40.991 --> 00:06:42.062 billions of them. 00:06:42.499 --> 00:06:45.355 And the universe is now significantly more interesting 00:06:45.379 --> 00:06:46.474 and more complex. 00:06:47.928 --> 00:06:51.044 Stars will create the Goldilocks conditions 00:06:51.068 --> 00:06:52.967 for crossing two new thresholds. 00:06:53.371 --> 00:06:55.950 When very large stars die, 00:06:55.974 --> 00:06:58.295 they create temperatures so high 00:06:58.319 --> 00:07:01.952 that protons begin to fuse in all sorts of exotic combinations, 00:07:01.976 --> 00:07:04.806 to form all the elements of the periodic table. 00:07:04.830 --> 00:07:07.126 If, like me, you're wearing a gold ring, 00:07:07.150 --> 00:07:09.976 it was forged in a supernova explosion. 00:07:10.618 --> 00:07:13.817 So now the universe is chemically more complex. 00:07:13.841 --> 00:07:16.206 And in a chemically more complex universe, 00:07:16.230 --> 00:07:18.674 it's possible to make more things. 00:07:18.698 --> 00:07:22.190 And what starts happening is that, around young suns, 00:07:22.214 --> 00:07:23.976 young stars, 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:26.191 all these elements combine, they swirl around, 00:07:26.215 --> 00:07:28.995 the energy of the star stirs them around, 00:07:29.019 --> 00:07:33.744 they form particles, they form snowflakes, they form little dust motes, 00:07:33.768 --> 00:07:35.964 they form rocks, they form asteroids, 00:07:35.988 --> 00:07:38.583 and eventually, they form planets and moons. 00:07:38.607 --> 00:07:41.557 And that is how our solar system was formed, 00:07:41.581 --> 00:07:43.976 four and a half billion years ago. 00:07:45.193 --> 00:07:50.566 Rocky planets like our Earth are significantly more complex than stars 00:07:50.590 --> 00:07:53.352 because they contain a much greater diversity of materials. 00:07:53.376 --> 00:07:56.157 So we've crossed a fourth threshold of complexity. 00:07:57.671 --> 00:08:00.298 Now, the going gets tougher. 00:08:01.151 --> 00:08:05.429 The next stage introduces entities that are significantly more fragile, 00:08:05.453 --> 00:08:07.365 significantly more vulnerable, 00:08:07.389 --> 00:08:09.976 but they're also much more creative 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.976 and much more capable of generating further complexity. 00:08:13.346 --> 00:08:16.770 I'm talking, of course, about living organisms. 00:08:17.474 --> 00:08:19.617 Living organisms are created by chemistry. 00:08:19.641 --> 00:08:22.024 We are huge packages of chemicals. 00:08:22.855 --> 00:08:25.976 So, chemistry is dominated by the electromagnetic force. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:28.239 That operates over smaller scales than gravity, 00:08:28.263 --> 00:08:32.178 which explains why you and I are smaller than stars or planets. 00:08:32.773 --> 00:08:35.067 Now, what are the ideal conditions for chemistry? 00:08:35.614 --> 00:08:37.384 What are the Goldilocks conditions? 00:08:37.408 --> 00:08:39.765 Well, first, you need energy, 00:08:39.789 --> 00:08:40.976 but not too much. 00:08:41.405 --> 00:08:43.660 In the center of a star, there's so much energy 00:08:43.684 --> 00:08:46.826 that any atoms that combine will just get busted apart again. 00:08:46.850 --> 00:08:47.976 But not too little. 00:08:48.382 --> 00:08:49.613 In intergalactic space, 00:08:49.637 --> 00:08:52.520 there's so little energy that atoms can't combine. 00:08:53.118 --> 00:08:54.976 What you want is just the right amount, 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:57.000 and planets, it turns out, are just right, 00:08:57.024 --> 00:08:59.531 because they're close to stars, but not too close. 00:09:00.134 --> 00:09:03.729 You also need a great diversity of chemical elements, 00:09:03.753 --> 00:09:06.761 and you need liquids, such as water. 00:09:06.785 --> 00:09:07.832 Why? 00:09:07.856 --> 00:09:11.728 Well, in gases, atoms move past each other so fast 00:09:11.752 --> 00:09:13.205 that they can't hitch up. 00:09:13.690 --> 00:09:15.412 In solids, 00:09:15.436 --> 00:09:17.976 atoms are stuck together, they can't move. 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:19.718 In liquids, 00:09:19.742 --> 00:09:22.780 they can cruise and cuddle 00:09:22.804 --> 00:09:25.106 and link up to form molecules. 00:09:25.780 --> 00:09:28.135 Now, where do you find such Goldilocks conditions? 00:09:28.674 --> 00:09:30.666 Well, planets are great, 00:09:30.690 --> 00:09:33.976 and our early Earth was almost perfect. 00:09:34.777 --> 00:09:36.825 It was just the right distance from its star 00:09:36.849 --> 00:09:38.976 to contain huge oceans of liquid water. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:40.976 And deep beneath those oceans, 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:42.976 at cracks in the Earth's crust, 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:45.976 you've got heat seeping up from inside the Earth, 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:48.127 and you've got a great diversity of elements. 00:09:48.151 --> 00:09:50.697 So at those deep oceanic vents, 00:09:50.721 --> 00:09:52.976 fantastic chemistry began to happen, 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:56.000 and atoms combined in all sorts of exotic combinations. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:01.365 But of course, life is more than just exotic chemistry. 00:10:01.794 --> 00:10:05.551 How do you stabilize those huge molecules 00:10:05.575 --> 00:10:06.932 that seem to be viable? 00:10:07.690 --> 00:10:12.046 Well, it's here that life introduces an entirely new trick. 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:15.495 You don't stabilize the individual; 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:17.622 you stabilize the template, 00:10:17.646 --> 00:10:19.751 the thing that carries information, 00:10:19.775 --> 00:10:21.992 and you allow the template to copy itself. 00:10:22.016 --> 00:10:25.167 And DNA, of course, is the beautiful molecule 00:10:25.191 --> 00:10:27.517 that contains that information. 00:10:27.541 --> 00:10:30.356 You'll be familiar with the double helix of DNA. 00:10:30.380 --> 00:10:32.896 Each rung contains information. 00:10:32.920 --> 00:10:37.493 So, DNA contains information about how to make living organisms. 00:10:38.055 --> 00:10:39.979 And DNA also copies itself. 00:10:40.003 --> 00:10:41.209 So, it copies itself 00:10:41.233 --> 00:10:43.915 and scatters the templates through the ocean. 00:10:43.939 --> 00:10:45.733 So the information spreads. 00:10:45.757 --> 00:10:48.395 Notice that information has become part of our story. 00:10:48.877 --> 00:10:52.522 The real beauty of DNA though is in its imperfections. 00:10:52.546 --> 00:10:56.474 As it copies itself, once in every billion rungs, 00:10:56.498 --> 00:10:58.243 there tends to be an error. 00:10:58.267 --> 00:11:02.976 And what that means is that DNA is, in effect, learning. 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:06.320 It's accumulating new ways of making living organisms 00:11:06.344 --> 00:11:07.964 because some of those errors work. 00:11:07.988 --> 00:11:09.186 So DNA's learning 00:11:09.210 --> 00:11:12.444 and it's building greater diversity and greater complexity. 00:11:12.468 --> 00:11:15.650 And we can see this happening over the last four billion years. 00:11:15.674 --> 00:11:17.849 For most of that time of life on Earth, 00:11:17.873 --> 00:11:20.110 living organisms have been relatively simple -- 00:11:20.134 --> 00:11:21.522 single cells. 00:11:21.546 --> 00:11:24.976 But they had great diversity, and, inside, great complexity. 00:11:25.411 --> 00:11:28.315 Then from about 600 to 800 million years ago, 00:11:28.339 --> 00:11:30.430 multi-celled organisms appear. 00:11:30.454 --> 00:11:32.955 You get fungi, you get fish, 00:11:32.979 --> 00:11:34.494 you get plants, 00:11:34.518 --> 00:11:37.229 you get amphibia, you get reptiles, 00:11:37.253 --> 00:11:39.683 and then, of course, you get the dinosaurs. 00:11:40.739 --> 00:11:43.248 And occasionally, there are disasters. 00:11:44.326 --> 00:11:46.715 Sixty-five million years ago, 00:11:46.739 --> 00:11:48.703 an asteroid landed on Earth 00:11:48.727 --> 00:11:50.517 near the Yucatan Peninsula, 00:11:50.541 --> 00:11:53.509 creating conditions equivalent to those of a nuclear war, 00:11:53.533 --> 00:11:55.422 and the dinosaurs were wiped out. 00:11:55.906 --> 00:11:58.976 Terrible news for the dinosaurs, 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:02.755 but great news for our mammalian ancestors, 00:12:02.779 --> 00:12:03.976 who flourished 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.657 in the niches left empty by the dinosaurs. 00:12:07.681 --> 00:12:12.736 And we human beings are part of that creative evolutionary pulse 00:12:12.760 --> 00:12:15.096 that began 65 million years ago 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:17.000 with the landing of an asteroid. 00:12:18.536 --> 00:12:21.250 Humans appeared about 200,000 years ago. 00:12:21.274 --> 00:12:25.622 And I believe we count as a threshold in this great story. 00:12:25.646 --> 00:12:26.853 Let me explain why. 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.471 We've seen that DNA learns in a sense, 00:12:30.495 --> 00:12:32.282 it accumulates information. 00:12:32.306 --> 00:12:33.976 But it is so slow. 00:12:34.868 --> 00:12:38.340 DNA accumulates information through random errors, 00:12:38.364 --> 00:12:40.500 some of which just happen to work. 00:12:41.230 --> 00:12:43.864 But DNA had actually generated a faster way of learning: 00:12:43.888 --> 00:12:46.666 it had produced organisms with brains, 00:12:46.690 --> 00:12:49.909 and those organisms can learn in real time. 00:12:49.933 --> 00:12:52.259 They accumulate information, they learn. 00:12:52.283 --> 00:12:55.108 The sad thing is, when they die, 00:12:55.132 --> 00:12:56.830 the information dies with them. 00:12:57.219 --> 00:13:01.206 Now what makes humans different is human language. 00:13:01.230 --> 00:13:03.993 We are blessed with a language, a system of communication, 00:13:04.017 --> 00:13:06.638 so powerful and so precise 00:13:06.662 --> 00:13:09.820 that we can share what we've learned with such precision 00:13:09.844 --> 00:13:12.733 that it can accumulate in the collective memory. 00:13:12.757 --> 00:13:13.976 And that means 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:17.779 it can outlast the individuals who learned that information, 00:13:17.803 --> 00:13:20.976 and it can accumulate from generation to generation. 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:25.056 And that's why, as a species, we're so creative and so powerful, 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:27.136 and that's why we have a history. 00:13:27.755 --> 00:13:31.056 We seem to be the only species in four billion years 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:32.322 to have this gift. 00:13:32.797 --> 00:13:36.362 I call this ability collective learning. 00:13:36.735 --> 00:13:38.124 It's what makes us different. 00:13:38.426 --> 00:13:41.976 We can see it at work in the earliest stages of human history. 00:13:42.689 --> 00:13:45.976 We evolved as a species in the savanna lands of Africa, 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:49.460 but then you see humans migrating into new environments, 00:13:49.484 --> 00:13:51.634 into desert lands, into jungles, 00:13:51.658 --> 00:13:54.094 into the Ice Age tundra of Siberia -- 00:13:54.118 --> 00:13:55.563 tough, tough environment -- 00:13:55.587 --> 00:13:57.920 into the Americas, into Australasia. 00:13:57.944 --> 00:13:59.981 Each migration involved learning -- 00:14:00.005 --> 00:14:02.488 learning new ways of exploiting the environment, 00:14:02.512 --> 00:14:04.686 new ways of dealing with their surroundings. 00:14:04.710 --> 00:14:06.526 Then 10,000 years ago, 00:14:06.550 --> 00:14:09.545 exploiting a sudden change in global climate 00:14:09.569 --> 00:14:11.141 with the end of the last ice age, 00:14:11.165 --> 00:14:12.746 humans learned to farm. 00:14:13.363 --> 00:14:15.799 Farming was an energy bonanza. 00:14:15.823 --> 00:14:19.650 And exploiting that energy, human populations multiplied. 00:14:19.674 --> 00:14:23.261 Human societies got larger, denser, more interconnected. 00:14:23.841 --> 00:14:27.192 And then from about 500 years ago, 00:14:27.216 --> 00:14:29.255 humans began to link up globally 00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:31.660 through shipping, through trains, 00:14:31.684 --> 00:14:33.976 through telegraph, through the Internet, 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:39.191 until now we seem to form a single global brain 00:14:39.215 --> 00:14:41.347 of almost seven billion individuals. 00:14:41.371 --> 00:14:44.533 And that brain is learning at warp speed. 00:14:45.312 --> 00:14:47.884 And in the last 200 years, something else has happened. 00:14:47.908 --> 00:14:50.574 We've stumbled on another energy bonanza 00:14:50.598 --> 00:14:51.725 in fossil fuels. 00:14:51.749 --> 00:14:54.452 So fossil fuels and collective learning together 00:14:54.476 --> 00:14:58.000 explain the staggering complexity we see around us. 00:15:01.245 --> 00:15:02.245 So -- 00:15:03.408 --> 00:15:04.725 Here we are, 00:15:04.749 --> 00:15:06.273 back at the convention center. 00:15:06.297 --> 00:15:11.003 We've been on a journey, a return journey, of 13.7 billion years. 00:15:11.707 --> 00:15:14.176 I hope you agree this is a powerful story. 00:15:14.200 --> 00:15:18.865 And it's a story in which humans play an astonishing and creative role. 00:15:19.206 --> 00:15:21.421 But it also contains warnings. 00:15:22.214 --> 00:15:26.547 Collective learning is a very, very powerful force, 00:15:26.571 --> 00:15:30.976 and it's not clear that we humans are in charge of it. 00:15:31.863 --> 00:15:34.932 I remember very vividly as a child growing up in England, 00:15:34.956 --> 00:15:36.976 living through the Cuban Missile Crisis. 00:15:37.587 --> 00:15:41.198 For a few days, the entire biosphere 00:15:41.222 --> 00:15:43.521 seemed to be on the verge of destruction. 00:15:44.214 --> 00:15:47.379 And the same weapons are still here, 00:15:47.403 --> 00:15:48.976 and they are still armed. 00:15:49.744 --> 00:15:52.976 If we avoid that trap, others are waiting for us. 00:15:53.387 --> 00:15:55.976 We're burning fossil fuels at such a rate 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:59.411 that we seem to be undermining the Goldilocks conditions 00:15:59.435 --> 00:16:01.663 that made it possible for human civilizations 00:16:01.687 --> 00:16:04.769 to flourish over the last 10,000 years. 00:16:05.373 --> 00:16:07.649 So what big history can do 00:16:07.673 --> 00:16:10.994 is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility 00:16:11.018 --> 00:16:12.942 and the dangers that face us, 00:16:12.966 --> 00:16:16.546 but it can also show us our power with collective learning. 00:16:17.326 --> 00:16:19.278 And now, finally -- 00:16:20.397 --> 00:16:22.552 this is what I want. 00:16:24.188 --> 00:16:27.220 I want my grandson, Daniel, 00:16:27.244 --> 00:16:30.001 and his friends and his generation, 00:16:30.025 --> 00:16:31.818 throughout the world, 00:16:31.842 --> 00:16:34.682 to know the story of big history, 00:16:34.706 --> 00:16:36.745 and to know it so well 00:16:36.769 --> 00:16:40.435 that they understand both the challenges that face us 00:16:40.459 --> 00:16:42.976 and the opportunities that face us. 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:44.880 And that's why a group of us 00:16:44.904 --> 00:16:47.916 are building a free, online syllabus 00:16:47.940 --> 00:16:49.258 in big history 00:16:49.282 --> 00:16:51.433 for high-school students throughout the world. 00:16:51.965 --> 00:16:54.401 We believe that big history 00:16:54.425 --> 00:16:56.976 will be a vital intellectual tool for them, 00:16:57.000 --> 00:16:59.843 as Daniel and his generation 00:16:59.867 --> 00:17:02.215 face the huge challenges 00:17:02.239 --> 00:17:04.294 and also the huge opportunities 00:17:04.318 --> 00:17:07.773 ahead of them at this threshold moment 00:17:07.797 --> 00:17:10.976 in the history of our beautiful planet. 00:17:11.733 --> 00:17:13.281 I thank you for your attention. 00:17:13.305 --> 00:17:18.000 (Applause)