“What Explains the Rise of Human?” by Yuval Noah Harari
The talk discusses the reasons behind humans becoming the dominant species on the planet. The speaker argues that it is the imagination, the ability to cooperate, and the unique perception of reality that distinguish humans from other species. People are the only animals that can cooperate consciously, flexibly, and in large numbers, and, therefore, achieve common goals. The goals are set up with the help of imagination and include not only objectives within the scope of the real world, but also within the fictional reality that people construct themselves. Imagination allows people to make plans for the future, communicate with strangers, create, analyze, and invent.
The speaker makes an interesting point that the world that people live in is mostly the product of their imagination. The entities that it is made of, such as states, corporations, money, the internet, gods, and nations do not exist in the objective reality and are merely a product of people’s collective consciousness. As civilization developed, the fictional reality has gradually become more important than the actual reality, with most parts of human lives now being shaped and regulated by imaginary concepts.
Another issue that has been mentioned in the talk is manipulation. Imagination emerged and developed as an evolutionary advantage that allowed people to communicate with each other, ensuring that an idea created by one human can be understood by others. However, imagination can also be used to manipulate individuals into believing in something that would not otherwise believe. This quality of the human mind has been extensively used throughout history to make people pursue questionable political, social, financial, and religious ideas. Fascism, racism, slavery, and terrorism are all byproducts of imagination and people’s ability to cooperate with each other.
“Skin Color is an Illusion” by Nina Jablonski
In this talk, Nina Jablonski, the author of the book Skin: A natural history, talks about the evolution of skin color. She points out that when Charles Darwin first addressed the topic of human evolution, he claimed that there is no correlation between skin color and climate. However, he proved to be wrong when later studies showed a direct connection between the amount of UV radiation in different regions of the world and the skin color of their inhabitants. Our ancestors initially lived in high-UV environments close to the equator, and their skin was dark. As they moved to other parts of the world that receive less amount of UV radiation, their skin started to lose its pigmentation. Now, light-colored people mainly inhabit the northern hemisphere, and darker skin colors are widespread in the southern hemisphere, with people with the darkest skin living at the equator.
The speaker makes an interesting point about the way human bodies, through evolution, are adapted to the environments their ancestors lived in. People with dark skin need to receive a larger amount of UV radiation to produce enough Vitamin D because of the excessive pigmentation of their skin. People with lighter skin are adapted to living in colder and darker regions, where they get little sunlight. A light-colored person living in a high-UV area is more vulnerable to skin cancer and the destruction of folate in the body because of the excessive amount of sun. Black people living in low-UV countries do not get enough sunlight, which can lead to bone problems, the gradual decay of the immune system, and loss of immune functions, as well as mental health problems. An individual’s skin shows where they belong because it evolved to sustain a particular way of existence in a particular climate.