[~1.8 Mya] - Fire: The Innovation that Forged Humanity and Sparked World Domination

2025-06-27

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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 itWhile 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 social structures.The ultimate innovator, it transformed us from ape-like creatures with a neat standing trick into the cunning apex predator of the world....

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 social structures.

The ultimate innovator, it transformed us from ape-like creatures with a neat standing trick into the cunning apex predator of the world. Along the way, it upended both ecosystems, gender roles, and how we use energy.

Today, as we face the dawn of AI, we're seeing a similar pattern. Fire marked a huge leverage of energy that freed us up to think. AI uses energy to do our thinking for us, which frees us up for who knows what.

Three takeaways:

Transformative technologies change what we are, not just what we do
Dependency often disguises itself as control and mastery
The biggest innovations create irreversible psychological and social shifts

Ready to understand how fire forged the human mind and what it might mean for the future of technology and humanity?

ABOUT

How to Change the World is an independent podcast on a mission to document the entire history of innovation. One world-changing event at a time. In the process we are building out frameworks and mental models to think more coherently about global change.

Learn more and contact us - ChangeTheWorldPod.com

Written, edited, recorded, and produced by Sam Webster Harris. (incl the music)

Help from:

Designs - Francisca Correia (available to hire)
Mentorship - Jeremy Enns (available to hire)

References

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human - Richard Wrangham

A great overview of fire and human anthropology (apes etc...). I can highly recommend listening/watching some of interviews Richard Wrangham on other podcasts (Lex Friedman, Modern Wisdom, Jordan Peterson)

The Pyrocene: How We Created An Age Of Fire - Stephen Pyne

Some good ideas on the different eras of human fire use: Cooking food -> Cooking land -> Cooking the planet.

Fire: The Spark That Ignited Human Evolution - Frances Burton

The insights on the importance of light helped.

Chapters

00:00 The Role of Fire in Civilization

04:32 First Fire - 500 million years ago

07:56 Humans and fire - ~2 million years ago

10:08 Discovery of Fire

12:21 Stadium of Grandmothers

13:24 Fire's Influence on Human Biology

15:55 Fire and Human Digestion