"In some ways, the concept of course that you're describing is the most important concept of our evolution," he says. "I think one fun way to think about this, actually, Lafe was over a couple of weeks ago, and we were having dinner and sitting around, you know, our job was making sure that none of the food got burnt on the grill." He asks his audience: How much can you bend the arc of civilization with the knowledge you have now? 5000 years ago? Yeah, well, that depends.