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A New History for Humanity – The Human Era

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell · 10.1M views · 2016-12-07 · 7:09

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Overview

Kurzgesagt explains the Holocene or Human Era calendar, which adds 10,000 years to the current year to anchor dates to the start of human civilization. It argues this gives a more sensible frame for human history.

On Hacker News

Linked whenever year numbering or the Holocene calendar comes up as the accessible introduction to the idea.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2018–2025

Topics

World historyScientific method & science communication
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human eracalendarholocenehistorykurzgesagt

What people said

daeken · 2025-10 · Strong recommendation

I've become an unironic proponent of HE, the Human Era. For CE dates, we just add 10000 (I'm writing this from 12025). But for BCE dates, they're subtracted and it makes things so much clearer when it comes to telling how long ago something was. E.g. the sundial was invented around 6000 HE, steel was developed around 9000 HE. Kurtzgesagt has a really great video about the subject: [VIDEO] There's also a timeline in HE that covers many major historical events: [LINK]

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ASalazarMX · 2018-02 · Recommendation

I'm all for leaving a religious calendar and using the Holocene calendar. Just add 10,000 to your dates and you're set. [LINK] If you don't mind videos, here's a good explanation of it [VIDEO]

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doctoboggan · 2018-01 · Recommendation

It might not be what you were thinking, but the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt has 2 very good videos on the topic: [LINK] [VIDEO] His stuff is well sourced and generally reliable.

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Sources

Video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, played through YouTube.

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