How to Change the World: The History of Invention

Did civilization start with a beat? You might think music is a perfectly lovely but non-essential tool for survival and world domination. However, music might well be most misunderstood superpower of humanity. This episode explores one of the most impactful and overlooked inventions of history and how it shaped our species into the dominating power it is today. Long before we were writing sonnets...

Why are we here? Can the patterns of history and nature tell us anything new? In this episode of How to Change the World we trace a clear line. From ancient molecules learning to copy themselves, to religions and nations learning to spread, to algorithms that now compete for your attention. All on a subversive quest for immortality . This hidden history of innovation maps the evolution of the univ...

How humanity invented clothes. In the process, accidentally warping our psychology, sparking civilization, and changing what it means to be human forever. A fish doesn’t know it’s wet, and a human doesn’t know they are hiding. But every morning, you participate in a ritual that separates you from nature, and your own biology. For 90% of human history, we were naked. Then, in a blink of evolut...

Behind the scenes access to extra content and surprising stories. Sam reveals all sorts of chaos from the weird pages of history, science and the even stranger insides of his mind... You can support the show and claim your place in history by joining the VIP members club. What's occurring? As every episode has a lot research that goes unused, we're making an extra sister episode for all every main...

The most important innovations are invisible. Yet they are reliable building blocks of creativity that fuel human imagination. The same 26 letter alphabet lets Shakespeare write a play, a researcher publish science or you can text your mum. A standardised screw thread lets you build a house, a car or a space station. This is the story of primitives; the fundamental components that make everything...

From Stone flakes to the Bow and Arrow. How Stone Age weapons innovation shaped humanity and triggered global extinction events. Three million years ago, we were semi-hairless apes hiding from lions. Today we're the apex predator of planet Earth. This episode traces the entire weapons journey through Ancient History; sharp rocks, hand axes, spears, atlatls, and bows and arrows. Learn how we became...

This episode explores Systems Thinking, it's impact on innovation across history and how to use it as we build the future of technology. Most problems in the world aren't random accidents, they're built into the systems we live in. They drive the currents that change the world. Systems Thinking is a key idea in science, politics and business, but it knows no boundaries as systems show up everywher...

How complex language evolved during the cognitive revolution, changing humanity and the world. Discover how language transformed from simple grunts and hand signals to complex communication, enabling us to cooperate, create cultures, invent stuff and build civilizations. We explore the evolution of human imagination, the role of gossip, the development of societal morals, and the paradoxical natur...

Why do some ideas and technologies proliferate across history, whilst others die painfully? Innovations aren't just bound by the laws of Physics, but also the powerful laws of Nature and Biology. In the "Lessons of History", Will and Ariel Durant propose the 3 Laws of Biology. Extending on the work of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution with a lens of human history. They explain the rules that go...

Do we really control fire? A curious fact about fire is that an individual human is completely dependent on it to survive. Furthermore, human society itself is built on fire and would collapse totally without it While you're patting yourself on the back for lighting that barbecue, fire has been pulling the strings for 2 million years, reshaping our anatomy, rewiring our brains, and dictating our s...

Innovations have huge impacts on humanity. But which ideas matter the most? Sam W. Harris builds out a system to rank world change and compare the impact of technology and inventions. It's easy to tell that the invention of Writing itself is more important than Velcro. But... Is Netflix more important than Baseball? Has TikTok changed the world as much as the Longbow? Was Steve Jobs more impactful...

What lies at the core of human progress? This episode asks ancient history what created human innovation and what stopped it for so long? For 3.5 million years, humans and our ancestors were stuck in the Stone Age until 10,000 years ago we finally broke out of it and all manner of inventions was let loose. We study tribal life across the world from anthropological records and archeology of the sto...

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it" - Alan Watts This opening episode invites you on a journey, not just through time, but through perspective. From fire-starting hominids to spacefaring technologists, "How to Change the World" is going to trace the ripples of human imagination that turned tools into empires, and sparks into systems. In this introduction episode: Set th...

What is the best way to tackle the question "How to change the world"? Learn about our plan to dissect the history innovation and peer into the future of technology. This show will dissect how the world really works and the impact of the biggest inventions that changed both the world and humanity for good. We'll also tell the stories of the greatest innovators from history and understand their men...