人类简史：从动物到上帝

This lesson examines how humans fit into the broader story of life, tracing the timeline from the Big Bang to the emergence of Homo sapiens and clarifying the distinction between "human" (all species in the genus Homo) and "Homo sapiens" as just one species. It also explores how early humans occupied a middle position in the food chain rather than being natural apex predators, challenging the assumption that humans are evolutionarily special or destined for dominance.

本课围绕认知革命展开，重点分析其时间范围与可能的基因突变成因，并区分动物沟通与智人语言，解释“讨论虚构事物”为何是智人语言最独特的功能。

本课通过“亚当和夏娃的一天”探讨狩猎采集社会在人类历史中的常态地位，重点分析演化心理学如何解释现代人的高热量饮食偏好等采集者遗留特征，并比较关于远古社会结构、暴力倾向与泛灵论信仰的不同理论及考古证据。

本课探讨智人如何凭借航海与协作能力走出亚非大陆、殖民澳大利亚并进入美洲，重点分析澳大利亚与美洲巨型动物灭绝的原因，比较气候说与人类说的证据强弱，并概括三波灭绝浪潮的共同模式。

本课围绕“农业革命为何被称为史上最大骗局”展开，重点分析农业的多地独立起源、作物如何反向塑造智人，以及农耕生活在个体层面的代价与脆弱性，帮助区分物种演化成功与个体幸福这两个不同尺度。

本课通过农业革命、想象建构的秩序及其主体间性，以及《汉谟拉比法典》与《独立宣言》的对比，帮助学生理解人类如何在空间、时间和心理上被重塑，以及共同信念如何支撑大规模合作与社会制度。

This lesson examines how the scale of human cooperation created an information bottleneck that exceeded the brain's memory capacity, and how external memory systems like writing, archives, and bureaucracy emerged to overcome these limits. It traces the development of cuneiform from accounting tools to full writing and explores how archives and standardized records became essential infrastructure for governing large states.

This lesson examines how imagined orders create and sustain social hierarchies, using the Code of Hammurabi, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the Indian caste system, and American racial segregation to show how power relations get legitimized as natural or divine. It also distinguishes biological sex from culturally constructed gender and traces how the self-reinforcing cycle of difference, institution, narrative, and reproduction makes contingent inequalities appear inevitable.

This lesson explores whether history has a direction, arguing that over the long term human societies have moved from thousands of separate small worlds toward an increasingly connected global system. It also explains how cultural change is driven by internal value conflicts (such as freedom versus equality) and external contact, and challenges the idea of "pure" unchanging cultures.

This lesson explores why money works as a system of shared belief and trust, examining how gold, shells, cigarettes, and digital numbers can all serve as currency. It analyzes the limitations of barter in large-scale stranger cooperation and explains how money reduces transaction and accounting costs, using early monetary forms like barley money, silver shekels, and Lydian coins to illustrate the relationship between stamps, royal authority, and sovereign guarantees.

本课围绕“帝国的愿景”展开，核心是掌握帝国的两项判准——统治多个文化认同不同的民族与疆界具有弹性，并理解起源、政体、领土与人口都不是判准。同时通过努曼西亚悖论、罗马与阿拉伯等案例，学习分开检验帝国的治理绩效与伦理正当性，认识帝国既是压迫机器也是文化熔炉的双重面貌。

本课围绕宗教如何为脆弱的社会秩序提供超人类合法性展开，梳理了从泛灵论、多神教、一神教到二元论及自然法则型宗教（如佛教）的演变，并区分普世/推广型与区域/排他型宗教。同时比较自由、社会与演化人文主义对“人性”的定义，评估纳粹种族理论的伦理与科学问题。

This lesson examines why historical outcomes are not inevitable, introducing the hindsight fallacy, the distinction between "how" and "why" in historical explanation, and the concept of second-order chaotic systems that make prediction self-defeating. It also explores how cultural memes spread regardless of human welfare, using cases like Constantine's conversion, the Bolshevik Revolution, and early Islamic expansion to show that success results from contingent conditions and choices rather than destiny.

This lesson examines the Scientific Revolution by contrasting the world of 1500 with today, explaining how modern science differs from premodern knowledge systems through its admission of ignorance, reliance on observation and mathematics, and pursuit of new powers. It also explores the feedback loop between science, politics, and economics, using cases like Newton and the Scottish Widows' Fund to show how mathematical and probabilistic thinking transformed knowledge production.

本课围绕“科学与帝国的联姻”展开，重点分析现代科学与欧洲帝国如何在远征、测绘、博物学等领域形成双向支撑的回馈循环，并探讨“承认无知”的探索心态如何体现在地图留白与全球扩张中。学习目标包括评价库克远航的多重影响、比较欧洲扩张与郑和下西洋等非欧洲政权的不同路径，以及理解科学知识在帝国治理中的实用价值与非对称流动。

This lesson examines the relationship between modern economic growth, credit, and trust, using bank and bakery examples to explain how credit money is created. It also covers Adam Smith's capitalist doctrine—including profit reinvestment and the distinction between capital and wealth—and analyzes how capitalism drove scientific exploration, European imperial expansion, and the joint-stock company system.

工业革命本质上是一次能源转换的革命，人类从依赖太阳当年的生物质能量流量转向大规模释放地质时期积累的化石燃料存量，蒸汽机、内燃机与电力依次改变了生产地点与运输距离，而能源和原料“有限”的忧虑则被知识扩展与技术突破不断化解。

工业革命被视为一场仍在持续、不断自我加速的“永远的革命”，其核心是能量转换方式的根本转变，使人类从依赖本地生态转向间接依赖全球供应链，同时放大了生态危机与物种灭绝。课程还分析了精确时刻表如何从工厂扩散到学校、医院、交通和日常生活，以及家庭与社群功能被国家与市场取代的过程，并界定“想象的社群”如何成为现代情感认同的载体。

This lesson examines the relationship between historical progress and human happiness, showing that collective measures like economic growth and technological power do not automatically translate into individual well-being. It explores how happiness is measured through subjective well-being questionnaires, the biochemical mechanisms underlying pleasure, and how factors like expectations, wealth, health, and social ties shape our sense of fulfillment.

This lesson examines whether Homo sapiens might be replaced by its own technologies, shifting from natural selection to intelligent design. It distinguishes three paths—biological engineering, bionic engineering, and inorganic life—and explores their technical logic, ethical controversies, and challenges to human identity and the definition of life.