How Language Began | Dan Everett | TEDxSanFrancisco
The new linguistic skills that modern Sapiens acquired about seventy millennia ago enabled them to gossip for hours on end. Reliable information about who could be trusted meant that small bands could expand into larger bands, and Sapiens could develop tighter and more sophisticated types of cooperation.1 The gossip theory might sound like a joke,
... See moreYuval Noah Harari • Sapiens
And the challenge has only increased with the development of the printing press, the nightly news, and social media—innovations that allow our species to spread language mechanically.
Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths • Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
They maintain that the people who drove the Neanderthals to extinction, settled Australia, and carved the Stadel lion-man were as intelligent, creative and sensitive as we are. If we were to come across the artists of the Stadel Cave, we could learn their language and they ours. We’d be able to explain to them everything we know – from the adventur
... See moreYuval Noah Harari • Sapiens
By exchanging, human beings discovered ‘the division of labour’, the specialisation of efforts and talents for mutual gain. It would at first have seemed an insignificant thing, missed by passing primatologists had they driven their time machines to the moment when it was just starting.
Matt Ridley • The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (P.S.)
Our species is the only one that voluntarily shares information: we learn a lot from our fellow humans through language.