> If you only trust facts that you verify yourself firsthand, you can’t really live on the accumulated progress of human expertise. Arguably, the differentiati

> If you only trust facts that you verify yourself firsthand, you can’t really live on the accumulated progress of human expertise. Arguably, the differentiating factor between humans and animals is our ability to organize on large scales. Monkeys and killer whales can coordinate behavior in groups of sometimes up to 50 or maybe 100 individuals. However, humans can coordinate behavior across millions of people. Building a modern automobile, a computer chip, or the social security system requires coordination across so many individuals, no one person can fully and deeply understand the entire system. The ability of humans to believe information that they do not fully know is true, is probably one of the defining traits of humanity.