Starts out with a presentation of Terror Management Theory and some of its evidence, using excerpts from various talks & documentaries. Followed by a perspective on world history derived from Ernest Becker's Escape From Evil, The Denial of Death and the University of Amsterdam's study Things Will Get Better: The Anxiety-Buffering Qualities of Progressive Hope http://www.academia.edu/534931/Things_will_get_better_The_anxiety-buffering_qualities_of_progressive_hope_2009_ The video is also informed by historical evidence about ecological degradation and the unpredictability of technological developments. From the perspective of Ernest Becker & TMT, death represents insignificance and finitude, so we try to achieve significance and durability in life beyond our animal life/ biology. We do so mainly through the self-esteem generating activities and beliefs of culture, including future projections of legacy or an afterlife. These activities and beliefs tend to have a somewhat arbitrary narrow focus that counters the personal insignificance implicit in a broader cosmic perspective. When self-esteem is insufficient to suppress our death anxiety, and it starts to leak out of the unconscious mind into which we usually push it, we compensate with escapism. Evolutionarily, self-esteem and escapism developed largely as a result of an anxiety-producing conflict between our survival instinct and the knowledge of our mortality; which in turn developed as a byproduct of our intelligence. We generate evil by harming those beings who stand in the way of this self-esteem and escapism, and who we thus sacrifice as collateral damage or perceive as evil or unworthy. Studies show that reminders of death increase our attachment to cultural beliefs and activities, as well as aversion toward those who don't share or take part in them. And conversely, challenges to these beliefs and activities, even merely the presence of different others, increase reminders of death. For more info go here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289309102_Thirty_Years_of_Terror_Management_Theory Interestingly, the other competing (or complementary) major theory of self-esteem comes from CP - coalitional psychology (also known as Sociometer Theory) basically saying that what others think of us has survival & reproductive benefits, so that a sense of self-esteem would help us improve or maintain this fitness by self-monitoring - gauging others’ opinion and modifying our behavior accordingly. The problem with CP as a sole explanation is that 1) Our status or “what others think of us” is substantially mediated by invented, largely arbitrary cultural activities and beliefs (abstract meaning systems) that have virtually nothing to do with the specific adaptive threats we enc ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NELC2NLC3SQ