Our Human Superpower

What are the differences between a chimpanzee and a human?

A chimp can’t survive in either the Sahara or Antarctica.
Humans can.

What’s the most damage a chimp on the rampage can do?
Compared to a nuclear bomb, it’s nothing.

A chimp can use basic tools - they use sticks to dig out termites. Give them a choice of sticks, and a chimp knows the difference between ‘sharp’ and ‘sharper’.

But they can’t innovate in the way humans can. We will make a stone sharper, then add a handle to become a knife … and a longer handle to become a spear … or make it smaller and lighter for arrows … and so on, all the way to nuclear bombs …

This is one of the things that makes us fundamentally different to all other life forms [that we know of]. We can separate the essential parts of something: we can figure out why this stone is sharper than that one - and then improve on it.

It has led to all the technology that shapes our lives - from language and writing, to the things we build - and the things we use to destroy.

Our capacity for abstraction is our human superpower - it has enabled us to transform the world.

But as Uncle Ben always said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Are we using our power wisely?