Our past tells us a lot about the threats that we have going forward and the opportunities we have going forward.

And so if you really want the world to be a better place, we need to know where we came from.

I'd spent the last dozen years trying to get my head around this story. Three million years, barely any increase in brain power, and then we just take off when we

start socially bonding together.

And so that's the key.

It's the requirement that we start working together.

We're fundamentally group-oriented.

We're fundamentally cooperative.

We can use that cooperative energy for evil just as well as we can use it for good.

It's an unfortunate feature of human nature that we're much more motivated to deal with things when they're bad than when they're good.

And there's a super negative consequence of that, and that is we don't notice when the world's

getting a lot better.

Populous leaders are gaining a big advantage because the local people think things aren't going well.

I worry about that a lot.

Let's focus on those aspects of human nature that are really positive,

like our kindness and our cooperation. And how can we aim them more broadly?

The world is becoming a much better place,

so we are doing a good job with that. You're going to.