Talks to Watch

history of the entire world, i guess

185.6M views · May 10, 2017 · 19:26 · 3 HN recommenders · 7 mentions · discussed 2018–2025

A fast, absurdist 19-minute animated run through the history of the whole world, narrated and scored by Bill Wurtz in his distinctive style. It compresses millennia of events into jokes, songs and quick visuals.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters list it among favorite long-form, info-dense YouTube videos and as a representative piece of Wurtz's quirky creativity.

“history of the entire world, i guess”HN comment, 2021

What Hacker News said 7

RecommendsIanCalJun 2018

“Bill Wurtz - Ranging from absurd 5 second clips to, well, this”

Bill Wurtz ranges from absurd short clips to this history video.

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smartereveryday I love (particularly the enthusiasm), numberphile too. Anything (not a channel name, just anything) by Tom Scott, his recent gameshow has been pretty good as it's like Only Connect but I've got a better chance of answering the questions. Huge backlog of things too and as he's got more popular he's got more access to interesting places and things. Just seems like a genuinely nice guy explaining things he finds interesting. Probably worth starting with "things you might not know" or "amazing places". CollegeHumor - can be hit and miss but the ratio is good enough for me. They did a series of a gameshow called "Umm actually" which was great. Gus Johnson - never quite sure where I am on things going too far on these but it keeps me laughing and coming back. exurb1a ClarkeAndDawe - teaching me about Australian politics, one fake interview at a time. What got me into it: link Bill Wurtz - Ranging from absurd 5 second clips to, well, this: this video CasuallyExplained

in “Ask HN: Which YouTube channels do you watch regularly?” · view on HN
RecommendsIsinlorDec 2021

“history of the entire world, i guess”

Listed among recommended long-form info-dense videos.

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Everything from 3 blue 1 brown: link Visualization of Quantum Physics (Quantum Mechanics): link history of the entire world, i guess: this video TIMELAPSE OF THE FUTURE: A Journey to the End of Time (4K): link Humanity was born way ahead of its time. The reason is grabby aliens. and Grabby aliens: when we'll meet them, how big they are, and other predictions link link Everyday Astronaut videos (he has 90 min documentary on Soviet rocket engine): link Cool Worlds - a lot of 25-35 min very nice astronomy explanations: link 'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss: link

in “Ask HN: Long-form info-dense videos on YouTube you would recommend to anyone?” · view on HN
RecommendspurgedrealityOct 2024

“History of the entire world, I guess -”

Included in a personal list of favorite YouTube videos.

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Journey to the End of Time - link Veritasium on Thermite reaction - link Problems of a Shared Office - link History of the entire world, I guess - this video Colin Furze Underground Activities - link Future of Reasoning - link Sex in Trek - link

in “Ask HN: What's your favorite YouTube video, ever?” · view on HN
Cites itadhesive_wombatAug 2022

Footnote linking the video for the river valley landowner point.

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Presumably it caused some kind of problem back then too, so that's why they put it in. Also, it's bad for the guy who owns all the land in that sweet dank river valley near you[1] if the people who do the work on that land start to covet his things in particular. [1]: this video

in “How Can We Create a Manual for Civilization? (2017)” · view on HN
Cites itben_wApr 2025

Link appears in a long comment on encryption and secrecy.

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Unfortunately, I don't see there is any healthy middle ground with even existing tech, let alone future tech. -- From the perspective of tech, secrets are mandatory and impossible: Mandatory for the functioning of identification, of logging in with a secure password that remains secure. The modern world would just stop functioning if passwords were not secure, if online orders or banking could be intercepted by criminals, and there's no way to limit encryption to "just the people who need it", because that's approximately everyone on approximately all economically relevant websites. Impossible, because surveillance tech is already powerful, and also improving so fast. Drones with telephoto lenses to watch you type your password, or duplicate every key on your physical keyring. WIFI used as wall-penetrating radar. Laser microphones to hear your conversation. Side-channel attacks from Van Eck phreaking onwards. The attacks are increasingly affordable, I have to assume at this point that organised crime uses them. (For future tech, I think we're only a few years from "smart dust" that's actually dust-sized). -- From politics, it's no better: We all know about our own secrets, the importance of keeping them. Many of us are familiar with the lessons of history, where governments use secret police to engage in covert ops against a political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents — even the term "secret police" is a shorthand for authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. And

in “UK Effort to Keep Apple Encryption Fight Secret Is Blocked” · view on HN
JokeTuna-FishOct 2023

“my first thought was Bill Wurtz saying "you could make a religion out of this”

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Funny, my first thought was Bill Wurtz saying "you could make a religion out of this"[1], and my second thought was that if it actually happened, they probably made a whole bunch of religions about it. [1]: this video

in “A prehistoric cosmic airburst preceded the advent of agriculture in the Levant” · view on HN
JokemarciNov 2023

“History of the human race, i guess”

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It's an LLM, "pretending" and "truly beleiving" are the same, or rather don't exist. It's like, when you use prompts like : "You're an helpful assistant", is it believing, pretending, or beleiving to be pretending to be an helpful assistant? It's as funny as disconcerting to see intent and will attributed to probabiltities. Feels sometimes like we're close to making a religion out of this. History of the human race, i guess ( this video for the ref).

in “MonadGPT – What would have happened if ChatGPT was invented in the 17th century?” · view on HN