This channel made my mother understand why cable television died. She’s flabbergasted this kind of content is completely free.

Fun fact: some birds here in Australia have actually worked out how to flip the cane toads and attack their undersides, another example of nature adapting

Emp went from making YTPs to having an existenial crisis while detailing myths

That box was such a shit gift. "Here's a box, don't open it though. I will not elaborate further."

this might be kind of a random compliment but I appreciate how perfect your audio levels and quality always are

i would have never expected one of the hardest quotes ever written to go along with a rat skeleton in a computer

"I dunno man, these man-made horrors seem pretty comprehensable to me"

Interesting sidenote; locusts don't actually exist under normal circumstances. They are grasshoppers until certain conditions are met, at which point they transform into locusts and begin swarming, exhibiting the associated behaviours and characteristics.

kind of insane that some random dude can be like 'this animal is annoying' and boom its gone and replaced with even worse complications

Learning that tumbleweeds are an invasive species is probably the most mind-blowing thing I've learned in the past year

Contrary to popular belief, Roman lead pipes likely didn't have a massive impact. Lead pipes have been used in America before, and generally stop leaching into water after calcium deposits build up along the inside of the pipes, which is known as "pipe scaling". However, the Romans were fond of heating their drinking wine in large lead containers, and that likely did drive more than a few aristocrats mad.

The asbestos cigarette filter is truly a deadly look back on recent history. "Double the Cancer, Double the Flavor!"

Hearing that the only thing remaining the box was hope, my first thought was that, while every evil had escaped, hope remained, still trapped inside.

This video reminded me of how many existential threats have attacked Springfield over the years

thanks for mentioning PCB/dioxin poisoning. i'm from a town that was extremely tainted with the stuff, specifically, in our schools. me and many of my classmates have developed lifelong debilitating chronic conditions because of it, from chronic fatigue, to cognitive decline, to even organ failure. the worst part is that although they shut down the schools, nobody is doing anything to help the victims. doctors won't even touch us because not enough is known about the effects of dioxins in humans, let alone how to treat it, or even how to detect and diagnose it. i will most likely live the rest of my life in pain and poverty because of a few greedy bastards who decided to open pandora's box, fully knowing how dangerous it was, and make the rest of us suffer the consequences.

"Mao's plan began to immediately backfire"
Well that hardly narrows it down when you think about it.

"Down the line people way smarter than us will come along and just figure it out"

I have seen quite a number of people echo this exact sentiment, politicians included, and their braindead hopeful optimism is as frightening as it is unhelpful. The reason we're in the trouble we're in is because of people just ignoring problems for another day/someone else.


We should be doing what we know works now and wait for something better to come along. Not do nothing and be an IRL version of the "this is fine" meme

Humanity as a species is specialized at taking risks. We evolved to think about what risks to take for the possibility of a benefit. We try new things out since our birth, limits are taught to us by life and the words of many who have hit said limits before and yet there are still those who will try to go beyond them.

Opening the Pandora Box is not much of a tale about we creating an unsalvageable situation knowingly, it is simply the most modest of lessons passed to us by those who can't give them to us directly.

The Pandora Box, and other tales are the lesson every caveman who ate the wrong berry, every starved mountain climber, every overly tyrannical emperor, every unwise tamer, every unlucky metalworker, every submarine company CEO, every  ex-risktaker, every daring person who paid the price would teach their successors should they be able to. The lesson that if you play with fire and ignore the risks and signs of danger, you will get burned, and many times that burn won't simply heal completely. It is in a way an Ode to Unluck, a Memento of Failure.

Of course, it's existence also proves the contrary in a way. For every person getting burned discovering the practical uses of fire, another learnt how to cook meat with it after watching their peer get cooked themselves. For every known failure we get to learn and progress beyond it. That is why Hope is all that remains inside the box in many retellings of the story.


The Pandora Box story comes with two lessons inherent to it: The first is to not take risks, not let yourself do something dangerous simply because you feel like it or someone tempts you to.

The second one is that should you actually do it — open the Pandora Box and go against all common sense — and should it really be as bad as it was described, that you go ahead and try your best to get something out of it, for it is all you can do and letting the chance go means allowing that loss to forever remain one.

"As was the case with Emperor  Qin, we are still searching for eternal youth by ingesting poison"
That is some high level writing right there

28:57  every video i just know there is going to be a genius moment like this, where everything links together. Mastery of your craft is an understatement