Are We Weaker Than Our Ancestors? 

The problem isn't so much that we cannot survive, it's that we cannot survive alone. We've become a society of specialized workers where one person who knows how to fix the toaster is assigned the task of fixing toasters. We don't need everyone to know how to fix a toaster as long as one guy knows how to fix them. So long as we work together as a community to survive, we'll probably be ok. We can have someone who knows how to hunt do the hunting, we can have cooks, cook. The problem is more that every time there's a "survival" situation, be it in reality or even a movie, our selfish nature borks everything up. We don't need electricity, but we certainly need everyone to be useful in the group to survive. However, I acknowledge if we do end up surviving alone for whatever reason, we might be as good as dead.

"We can go the distance like Disney's Hercules" Oh my god, that reference is golden.

We have Bear Grylls to lead us

this episode could be summed up with the phrase 1st world problems.

I like how his hair is shaped like a triangle

i know how to make a toaster

I'm a mechanical engineer. I can probably build a toaster.

If we lost power forever, the species would survive. A lot of individuals would die but the species survives. Yeah we're pretty dependent on technology. But I'm willing to take the risk for the benefits we get from it.

I am not ashamed to admit I have a few weeks worth of food, water and some medical stuff stored up in my house with a smaller bag of goodies in my car for if the world goes to hell, which most likely will be due to a failure of the power grid in my country. Also been pretty interested in survival shows, but not to “prepare” or anything. Just find them interesting and I would like to think if I had to skin a rabbit, build a shelter, make a fire or whatever I wouldn’t be completely hopeless at it.

humans are very adaptive species, we have not lost intelligence. We can learn and adapt to new environments very quickly. We as a species can handle anything.

If we lost all of our infrastructure and power, cities would likely become material scrap yards, places to acquire things like metal, rubber, and raw chemicals. While people lived mostly in the more suburban or rural areas to facilitate farming. We'd likely regress to around the period around the flint lock pistol era. I feel like critical thinking is one of the things which remains a massive survival skill throughout history, from understanding mechanical motion well enough to come up with a atlatl for throwing spears, to understanding how you can run electricity through a coil with a high resistance to produce heat (in the case of a toaster). They concepts of motion and electron theory are useless until someone is clever enough to put them to use.

The question is "Are we weaker than our ancestors?" The answer is: Yes. Depending on where you grew up and live in this modern world. In the fist world nation states we have a very soft comfortable life; for the clear majority of us. Very few of us actually have to sweat and physical exert our selves out side of a few hours in a gym in a week. How strong were our ancestors who walk to were ever they were going, chopped wood, picked the vegetables, carried the same to were ever they were going and even wore armor. All on a daily basis.

Dayz taught me how to survive.

we're definetelly weaker. we use little "toys" to claim that we have power over things. but if we run out of ammo we curl up into a ball and cry

Does that mean plumbers, mechanics and electricians are wizards?

I prefer the ancestors way

It is near impossible to get a decent job without a computer, today. No one will read a had written resume, most businesses only have online job applications and nearly every job requires a basic knowledge of how to use a PC (word processing, web browsing and email). For this reason, I have argued for years that a computer and internet access needs to be moved to the very bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, because without it you can't begin to afford decent food, reliably safe water or basic shelter. I would even go so far as to argue that basic technology is even below the physical in the 1st world. As many people like to say 'it's practically illegal to be homeless nowadays'.

This guy could never survive without reading from a laptop. He can't ever enter a dialogue.

If theres something i learned from minecraft, its that making your own food and finding materials in a city without modifying buildings is nearly impossible or just really frustrating.

Trace I love your stuff! Keep up the good work

we are not more intelligent, we just know more.

I'm a survival expert, nothing can kill me

the way he said "could you make a toaster" made me die

I can build a toaster. Even did it by mistake once. Point taken though.

This one was amazing, it real made me think

but there is less contact with snakes than with tv's right?

Trace i love to sit and listen to your voice while you talk about topics. you are good to make them intriguing and thanks for that. :-D

I was going to laugh at the idea that someone couldn't get home without their phone, but then I remembered people live in cities and that actually could be a problem.

"what do you do if the power goes out at 7pm" This isn't a problem Just like read a f*ucking book

there's a TV show called revolution where the power goes out all around the world and it shows the adventure of the main character's to turn the power back on in the US. very good sow you should watch it Trace and anyone who has seen this comment. (:

sick video. But how many t-shirts does one man need?

I bet I could make a toaster. It's just a really inefficiant electrical circuit, right? OK, my toaster would probably catch fire, but still, things would get toasty.

When all my bullets have been used... When my firearms sit useless... I will always have my bow, my axes, my knives and my ability to use these.

I love this show!!!!

the lack of music and segway makes this video hilarious

First TestTubePlus video I've favorited. It was just very interesting! I think I'd be able to feed myself without power, but I wouldn't know how to get water. No idea. Conclusion: I need one of those magic straw things!

I bet if you replace every tv with a snake even more people would be dead.

I've survived for a year without technology with my dad before in the wild we set up tents and survived it was fun our tour guide tought us how to make fire it was awesome and i also killed a snake

I can make a roof and bake cakes but if my computer dies i resort to reasoning with it he he ;)

I would say that hairstyle is an evolutionary dead-end.

It's crazy to think about stuff like this. . . my opinion: ancient human were more athletic and physically stronger, but modern humans are extremely smarter. Now we have to think about the future humans. Actually, you should make a video on that: What Future Humans Will Most Likely Be Like.

Why do you never ever in any of your videos address the topic at hand? Why? Why is every title from your videos always misleading?

Skinning a rabbit is definitely still a survival skill. I live in Alaska & there's something called "subsistence living". Many people here live in small villages, not cities, and still hunt & gather food, and we're not even an undeveloped/ underdeveloped country, this is in one of the States for god sake! It's not completely gone, at all. Most people here would look at you with more respect for knowing how to hunt & skin animals, than go into a city & do paperwork. It's DEFINITELY not gone. This should be addressed & not overlooked.

My survival skil is the way I blend the dollar bill so the vending machines can't reject it. 😂😂😂😂

I agree with most of what was said. But we are completely weaker now. We are multiple generations into fat, lazy, entitled, selfish, 8 hour minimum per day video game players, 50 per day selfie takers who are unwilling to do the work for today's survivalist skills; like he said with paying bills, getting good food, exercising and doing something as simple as cleaning the house; so I have zero faith in the ability of 90% of first world, urbanized people to survive in the event that just one single thing in their environment changes. We are weak and demanding and want everything done for us by others. The easiest example? Have you ever been in an airport/bus stations/train station/subway station whenever the mode of transportation is late or canceled? Or even something smaller, like refreshments run out at an event. There are fucking riots! "What are YOU going to do to fix this FOR ME?!?" is what is demanded. No, humans have evolved to be worthless.

Humans really need to stop having babies. There are millions of babies who need to be adopted. Why don't we cut down on that before we add more?

toasters are just lightbulbs without the glass/vacuum (ie wont pop out in the air) and in a metal box to contain the heat, obviously not made the same but technically the same.. can't get much simpler than that.

Great channel! Thank you!

You should make an episode about how people adept to prison survival mentally and physically, it's actually a pretty interesting topic.

Dude, I love your Chanel

"Our survival is basically independent on *US AIR FORCE logo pops up *"

"Skinning a rabbit is not a survival skill.." How dare you Trace.... ;)

If the world went through some post-apocalyptic situation and power was limited I think I'd stand a chance of surviving.

In northern areas like where I live, if a city lost electricity or natural gas during the winter for an extended period, people WOULD die. We need these things for our furnaces to run to heat our houses - and very few houses have wood stoves or fireplaces anymore.

Great episode!

I am not afriad of snakes and i contribute this to the environment i live in however in the very same environment there are tarantulas which freaks me, which begs the question, am i afraid of specific things due to me or is my fear a direct representation of the very same things that scared or caused danger to my "direct" ancestors

I could make a toaster. I need two different types of metal wire, and a magnet, preferably a rectangular magnet, and some sort of heat resistant object, like two flat rocks of about equal size, or clay. Take the metal wire which conducts electricity better, and create a coil. Then, use the second type of wire to create two heating pads for the toaster. To do this, bend the wire so it covers most of one side of one of the flat rock. It may be necessary to wrap the wire around to the rock to keep it fixed on. If so, exercise extreme caution, since you don't want to touch the wire. Make two heating pads. If one flat rock is bigger than the other, use that as the bottom of the toaster. Use the first wire to create a circuit, connecting the two heating pads to the metal coil in a way that allows the two heating pads to be pressed together, and for the top pad to be pulled away from the bottom one far enough to operate as a toaster. You'll likely want to create some method of support to force a gap between the two heating pads, so that the toast isn't squished. If you do, use a heat-resistant material, such as rocks or clay (if using clay, bake clay before using the toaster. You can make the entire toaster out of clay too. It may be easier.) To operate the toaster, put the magnet inside the coil, push it in, then pull it out, and keep doing this. It generates an A/C electric current. Due to the increased resistance of the second type of metal, that metal will become hot, and the heating pads will toast the bread between them.

A good point was one from Asimov, in the foundation series, How technology was becoming a relegion because no one knew how to used it or how it worked Also stuff like this is in warhammer 40k

wow, this is random, just yesterday the power went out at 10 pm.... pure dark, a few blocks without power... never happened before to me, living in the city. I learned how to walk down the 8 flights of stairs in the dark cause the elevator was off as well. I took a nice walk in the dark, I always wanted to see the city with the lights off at night, haha. when I came home the power was back on.

so basically the tv show 'the last survival' should teach us how to make a toaster?

None of this matters when we welcome new robot overlords

Hey @TestTube+ can you make a video about explaining dreams? like do dreams know they're gonna get interrupted? i could swear sometimes my family members wakes me up right before... for example i'm falling from the sky (in my dream) and i wake up VERY SHORTLY before i reach the ground. you get my point i guess, i'm sure all of us had it.

A film about the decline of electricity and infrastructure would be a awesome idea

Actually, since we're moving to a nicer home, we had to remove the entire wall setup. Our entire flatscreen is duct taped to a table we have that can support the TV. I guess we are scared of TVs falling on us.

A 21 year old lady (point being she is more than old enough)at the local grocery store replied to a customer who asked if they have any parsnips - "No we don't have any". I clearly saw them in a high basket by the veg. I thought maybe she didn't know they were there being just at eye level. She then turned to my sister who works in the shop. "What's a parsnip". Not even what does it look like but. What. Is. It. We are most certainly the the aloi or at least most of they way there.

alot of comments yellin about books XD lets take 1 example -a fishing net. cos i used to make them n also repair some types of netting by hand in factory which is currently made from strong nylon 'string' tied in fancy knots to make the squares. You cld find the technique on how to use the shuttle to make the knots, realise that the net is made at 90 degrees in a diamond shape etc from books sure But how will u make the string? braid/plait or twist it? how?, which is easier to make the nets keep their shape n strength? how wld u grow it? which plants will u choose? the bendy ones or the strong ones? how long before u have the completed string from seeds? where wld u get the seeds? how would u capture future seeds? what length string do u need? how much land? what size to make the knots? how much size difference between the knots can u get away with n still have a useful net that doesnt break every time it's used? what overall size? what fish? what season to catch them? what season to seed, grow and cut the fibre crops to make the string? what about drought, flood n pests? how much land can u afford to redirect away from food production? are there any secondary applications to crop you choose? such as rapeseed oil, or hemp sailcloth? n then theres all the knowledge u'd need if u were to be successful at catching fish (location, fish behaviour etc) then theres preservation techniques to choose from which all have their pro's n con's n depend on other resources such as salt n what if u dont live near the sea n this is for lake fishing? n there's no plentiful wood supply nearby to smoke the fish in a smoke house? a book on how to make a net by hand wouldnt cover even half of the answers ud need. these skills take trial n error. they are SKILLS and skills require practice by their very nature just to get to a basic functional standard How would u know about all these little 'extras' that can hamper u at any time n destroy ya chance of catching fish in the net, if it's not written in the book because such things deemed to be under another subject, such as agriculture and you didnt think of it in time? what if you were having to figure out how to make leather shoes, grow food, find n purify water, raise kids, protect ur resources etc all at once? n had no time to read any books cos everything takes so long cos u dont know any of the shortcuts n keep making mistakes that u keep failing n having to start from scratch each day? What if u dont know anyone who has 'survival' skills? what if u do find such a group, but they see u as a deadweight n drain on their resources n dont want u in their community? Plus, making a fire with wet wood on a windy n rainy day with inadequate shelter n clothing requires a different skill set than doing it in ideal conditions at a campsite with a wind n waterproof tent n -15degree Celcius sleepingbag

in a toaster there is tungston, a bad conducter of electricty, so if there's an electrical current going through it, it heats up ect.

when my phone is out and need to get home? i walk, 7pm and power is out? i turn on my 3ds lol

Hi Trace,There was a TV show on the syfy channel that had this same premise. I don't remember the name though:P Most people I know would be dead in a week without their phones! The information withdrawal alone would drive most of them mad anyway:) What good is it knowing how to make a toaster when you don't know how to make a turbine to make the electricity to run the thing. Or how to make the turbine make electricity in the first place. If the world goes dark I think the vast majority of us are screwed!:) Thanks.

You can make a mechanical toaster. You need, two mini fires with conducters that block the fire then you get a casing to hold the toast or bread. Then you get a handle like thing and attach it to the rubber band and the casing. Finally, you put a blocker that you press up or down to either open or close the block way for the handle to move up again. Lastly, you cover it with a plastic cover.

Are we weaker than our ancestors? um yes, when we have people that lose their shit when you say their "trigger" word and cry when they lose an argument, yes we're weaker

Interesting take on this topic. Good job Trace.

Great video,Thanks!

I love this intro music so so much. I also love you Trace you beautiful inspiring man!

Daaaaaaaammmmmnnnnn..... That's quite the query you propose Trace. Fantastic video!

I immediately searched, "how to make a toaster before I die"

I believe in concept of Renaissance man, person must be able to defend himself, survive in the wild, fix his immediate tech, earn money and continue on path of self transcendence.

"To date online"... Lol. I agree on how survival skills change throughout history and geography. I've always thought so, and though it's an interesting fact, not many people seem to think about it. People just go on repeating patterns because that's what they learned from a previous generation or whatnot. What humanity needs is more of a critical sense, if you may. To look inside and be able to question what we do, what we think, even what we feel. Anyway, good vid. Clinical Psychologist here, keep it up!

Ha ha. I kneeded that laugh. Thanks trace... T.V.s... lol

I can make cup holders, tablet holders, things with googly eyes, prehistoric-like hammers(I use tape), and other things. I actually tried making things like these

great episode

OK, I can probably make a toaster, line some high resistance metal wires to fill in a square shape, make two, run some electricity through the wires to heat it up until red hot and clamp your bread between them until toasted. Now for a bigger challenge, can anyone make a microwave?

Nice to see the context being considered.

I love listening to this while I get ready for work!

"Brought to you by US Airfoce" ILLUMINATTI CONFIRMED

"What's more dangerous? Snakes or TV's?"

the problem in rural areas is that there's not enough to go hunt. there's cattle ranches but how long would it last. we need electricity to transport and refrigerate

This was awesome!

"what do you do then?" i go play lego, im 21, if i dont got lego, i make lego, theres clay at the bottom o that river! .. or somewhere near it

There's no way of knowing from the descriptions if its the first video or the fourth or what.

Well how big is the TV? Lol

if my power goes out at 7pm I'd just watch this video on RU-vid saved videos

This was the funniest test tube plus by far! TEEVEES!

Next video: Are we younger than our ancestors?

Take it from this retired prof. of communication arts, English, writing, and public speaking, Trace is a fine teacher and his videos are clear and reasonably truthful, and full of good historical info. and science. He gets a bit weird about the paranormal, and he should point out even more that religion has been really bad in holding science back, and creating horrible wars and suffering fromThe Inquisition to the Crusades, to Ganghis Khan to the suffering today in Palestine, Israel, Syria, and Yemen. But, saying there's no way to prove "God" does or doesn't exist is true. Who knows what happened BEFORE the BIG BANG and where did the FIRST HYDROGEN MOLECULE COME FROM? I'm a Mystical Humanist who worships the Great Mystery Beyond Us way out there beyond our fish bowl which grows bigger and more full of exploding super novas every year! I'm subscribing to Trace. He's reasonable and a good lecturer! He teaches with a fine upbeat style. I've written 17 books and have an American Book Award, and edit www.Eco-Poetry.org receiving thousands of global visitors, and I've give hundreds of public speeches and readings, and I say this--not to brag--but to give ethos to my compliments about Science Plus and Trace's videos. His videos are better than most on You Tube for interesting information and learning about the world and science. I've turned my grandsons onto his talks.

i know how to make a toaster, its not that complicated... just some metal that heats by making elctricity through it and some not melting material that lets heat through it. then a timer... ready to toast some toast

I love this channel and it has a lot of really great information about a lot of interesting subjects. But I have to disagree with this episode. Yes, in modern society survival is based on social performance and economics and such and he is right that "survival" has a different meaning today than it did say 6,000 years ago. The question was "are we weaker than our ancestors". This is a question that is not uncommon among "survivalists" and while in modern cities you don't need to know how to skin a rabbit, you are just replacing that need for dependence on getting food at a grocery store which you need a whole different set of skills to accomplish, i.e. making money. That doesn't mean nobody needs to know how to skin and butcher an animal anymore though. Someone still has to do that job. But today instead of everyone knowing how to do that job, only a very small amount of people have that knowledge and the rest of us just benefit from it. Most "survivalists" would tell you that this does indeed make us weaker than our ancestors. 6,000 years ago there were many more threats to the survival of every person on the planet than we face today. Weather, predators, starvation, dehydration and disease are all things that killed our ancestors regularly. Today, most people don't worry about any of these things under normal circumstances but it is because of our dependence on technologies and services. For most people, if you took away all of these services and technologies, they wouldn't survive long term. In this video he uses the example of a loss of electricity and points out how mostly people band together for survival until power is restored. But this is only taking away one element of modern life. You still have modern clothing to keep you warm, modern transportation to get somewhere where there is still power, you still have canned foods, a lot of homes have wells for water, we have candles and pre-cut firewood or pellet stoves, etc, etc, etc. But what if you took an average city dweller and dropped them in the middle of the desert out in the Southwest or up in the Canadian Rockies? How long would they survive? Would they know how to get water in the desert? Would they know how to stay cool during the day and warm at night? Could they figure out how to make a shelter in the desert? Would they know how to find food and what can be eaten and what can't? Would they know how to avoid snakes? Would they know how to keep from freezing to death in the Rockies? How to build a proper shelter? How to start a fire when it's wet? How to make a snare? How to fish without a fishing pole, hook, fishing line, or bait? Campers and hikers get lost in the woods every year and die of exposure or starvation. Most people these days wouldn't even know how to walk a straight line back to civilization without a compass. Some people wouldn't be able to figure it out even if they did have a compass and a map! A lot of people wouldn't even be able to figure out where they are on a map if they were out in the middle of the woods. So if we lost all modern technology, all modern medical care, all food services, all water and sewer services, no cell phones, no internet and people had to live like people lived 6,000 years ago, a huge number of them probably wouldn't make it without help from people who do still have these skills, like hunters and military veterans. We are "stronger" today in the sense that society makes it easier to stay alive from one day to the next and to stay alive longer than what we could without medical technology. But people themselves are weaker in the sense that without society making everything easier for them, they wouldn't survive in environments that our ancestors thrived in 6,000 years ago. In other words, if you took a group of 100 modern city dwelling people, confined them to a 500 square mile area of wilderness, with no tools, no clothes, no transportation and no instruction on how to survive and told them they would have to live the rest of their lives in that area using only what they could produce themselves from the wilderness, in all likelihood probably half of them would be dead within two weeks from exposure, starvation or dehydration, another quarter of them would eventually die within a matter of months from the same effects and the remaining 25 or less would probably die within a few years from extremes of weather, animal attack, poison or disease. If you took 100 people who lived 6,000 years ago and put them in the same situation, most of them would be fine. They probably wouldn't live to be 90 years old, but they would live long enough and survive well enough that they could rebuild some form of successful, thriving society.

Studies have become unimaginally tough these days and kids and teens are getting tired and dropping out just as a hunter gatherer becomes old and is killed by a stampede of buffalo

if I didn't have a toaster I'd use a stick and a fire

see this is what we need when we go to space x or marsone we need to learn how to take advantage of the resourcez around us i mean an asteroid could hit the planet any time or a super nova hits the earth what will we do if we survive and there is still a chance