Wise Words from TED Speaker David Christian

David Christian: The history of our world in 18 minutes

 

 

This talk is worth each of the 18 minutes, but I especially love what he says towards the end:

"Collective learning is a very, very powerful force, and it's not clear that we humans are in charge of it. I remember very vividly as a child growing up in England, living through the Cuban Missile Crisis. For a few days, the entire biosphere seemed to be on the verge of destruction. And the same weapons are still here, and they are still armed. If we avoid that trap, others are waiting for us. We're burning fossil fuels at such a rate that we seem to be undermining the Goldilocks conditions that made it possible for human civilizations to flourish over the last 10,000 years. So what big history can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power with collective learning."