I’ve started reading Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. It is an absorbing and gripping read. Yuval is to the point, and the objectivity is refreshing.

  1. Complex language is our biggest invention: Compared to the rest of living species on Earth, our language is the most nuanced and complex. We can describe situations, events, reality in most rich and nuanced ways. Not only that, we use language to connect intimately with our peers. We love to gossip. This creates social and community bonds.
  2. Making up fictional stuff is our biggest skill: we use language to make up stuff that does not exist, this can be as grandiose as Gods, or as mundane as legal laws and corporations. However, we believe in them as if they are real.

Combined, this allows humans to scale to ever larger number of cooperating organisms. This scale is the main reason why humans sit atop the evolutionary pyramid.