history of the entire world, i guess
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters list it among favorite long-form, info-dense YouTube videos and as a representative piece of Wurtz's quirky creativity.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends IanCal · 2018-06 · on “Ask HN: Which YouTube channels do you watch regularly?”
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
Recommends Isinlor · 2021-12 · on “Ask HN: Long-form info-dense videos on YouTube you would recommend to anyone?”
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]
Recommends purgedreality · 2024-10 · on “Ask HN: What's your favorite YouTube video, ever?”
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]
Cites adhesive_wombat · 2022-08 · on “How Can We Create a Manual for Civilization? (2017)”
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]
Cites ben_w · 2025-04 · on “UK Effort to Keep Apple Encryption Fight Secret Is Blocked”
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 l