Captain Cook was one of the greatest explorers of all time. And he also lived on of the most adventurous, exciting lives ever. On this episode we break down his discoveries and the strategies that allowed him to accomplish and discover so much. 00:00 - Introduction 09:00 - Early Life 14:00 - Cook in Canada 26:20 - First Voyage 1:14:00 - Second Voyage 1:25:30 - Third Voyage 1:30:00 - Takeaways --- Sponsors: Gains In Bulk - Use code BEN for 20% off VanMan - Use code TAKEOVER for 10% off Vesto Speechify.com/Ben - Use code Ben for 15% off Speechify Premium HTTOTW Premium - For all endnotes, takeaways, and bonus episode, subscribe to How to Take Over the World Premium --- Stay in touch: Twitter/X: @BenWilsonTweets Instagram: @HTTOTW Email me: [email protected] --- Writing, research, and production by Ben Wilson.
Chapter 1: What makes Captain Cook one of history's greatest explorers?
Hello and welcome to How to Take Over the World. This is Ben Wilson. Today we are talking about the great British captain and explorer James Cook. I think if I could trade places with anyone in history, James Cook is on the shortlist of people whose life that I most envy. What he was able to do just sounds so unbelievably fun and adventurous and exciting.
Chapter 2: What were the key elements of Cook's early life?
He's widely considered the greatest sea explorer of all time. He mapped the Pacific Ocean from Australia, New Zealand, up through the Polynesian Islands, all the way up to the west coast of the United States, Canada, and Alaska. Many of these islands were already known to Europeans, although many of them were not mapped. But even so, many others... were completely unknown to Europeans.
Chapter 3: How did Cook's expeditions change our understanding of the Pacific?
Like this is the closest you're going to get to exploring an alien planet. For example, the Hawaiian Islands just had never been visited by Europeans before. And so, yeah, it's just like a completely new place, new culture, new language, new customs that he gets to see and experience and explore for the first time. Same with the Aboriginal Australians.
The Europeans had never had contact with them before. I raised the comparison of exploring an alien planet. And this is because these areas would have been totally alien to him. It was terra incognita, just completely different world. And I'm not the first person to make this comparison. Actually, if you think about Star Trek, okay, the subject of this episode is James Cook.
The captain in Star Trek is named James Kirk. Okay. captain cook's ship was called the endeavor captain kirk's ship is called the enterprise the star trek mission is to explore new worlds seek out new life and boldly go where no one has gone before and that is reminiscent of exactly what james cook was trying to do with his journeys And this is not coincidental. This is intentional.
The creators of Star Trek really admired James Cook and used this as a template, a model when they created Star Trek. I'm not the first person to make this comparison. James Cook really was the closest thing we have to a real life Star Trek, you know, visiting, exploring all these completely new, adventurous, exciting places.
And so I was interested in this story because it is really interesting and exciting, but also because it's something I've been thinking a lot about recently is how does one live an adventurous life like this? How can we find excitement like someone like James Cook? Because we live in a world with no unexplored corners, no unknown peoples. And I don't know if I have the answer.
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Chapter 4: What leadership qualities did Captain Cook exhibit?
That's a really difficult one. But I do think in doing this episode, I came to some answers and I have some ideas that I'll explore at the end of how we can live a life like this. Like, no, you can't set out to the high seas like James Cook did. But I think there is a way. to capture a lot of the sense of thrill and adventure and excitement that he had in his life.
Chapter 5: How did Cook's voyages influence colonialism?
James Cook was also a great leader and a very accomplished man. He's worth studying for the leadership tactics that he used to keep his crew together and allowed him to accomplish so much. I should mention also that his life is not uncontroversial. During the madness of 2020 and all the riots that went on in the United States and all over the world,
Chapter 6: What were the significant events during Cook's first voyage?
statues of James Cook were defaced and sometimes torn down in places like Australia. And that is because, you know, setting aside some of the wider dynamics, to some of the indigenous peoples of Polynesia, Australia, New Zealand, you know, he's seen as a figure of colonization who brought violence and destruction to many Pacific islands.
And so, yeah, I can understand if you were a native Hawaiian or Tongan, you might have ambivalent feelings about colonization in general and what happened to your island through that process. I get that. However, James Cook really is kind of a misplaced target for those feelings. He was very liberal minded. He had quite an affection for the native islanders of Polynesia.
Chapter 7: What was the impact of Cook's second and third voyages?
He sought to understand them on their own terms. He was often though not always lenient in terms of punishing natives for crimes such as theft. He was just a very tolerant person in general and his missions were always to explore and not to set up commercial enterprises or colonize in really any meaningful way.
So I do think it's stupid to just condemn and slur him as some sort of genocidal maniac when that wasn't who he was at all. However, again, he did kind of kick off this process of colonization that would follow. So on some level, I kind of understand maybe the feelings of ambivalence about him as a figure.
And I also don't think it's illegitimate to talk about his treatment of native people and where he succeeded and where he failed, in part because Cook himself was deeply concerned about it. He was very self-reflective. He often wrote and talked about his relationship with the natives, what went well, what went wrong, what he could have done better.
Chapter 8: What are the key takeaways from Captain Cook's life?
So that was something that he himself talked a lot about. So it's obviously not like a weird point of inquiry to ask, you know, what could have gone better. So, for example, this is someone he never had sexual relations with any of the native islanders anywhere that he went. As far as I know, he never had sexual relations with anyone except for his wife. I was very faithful in that way.
But, and he strongly discouraged his men from doing the same, from having relationships and contact with these women on these islands. However, he wasn't always successful. And when he visited these islands, inevitably through sexual contact with these sailors, venereal diseases were introduced to these islands for the first time.
And so I get how you might have complicated feelings if you're a Polynesian of like, well, yeah, James Cook himself, not a bad guy, open, tolerant, very understanding, brilliant, you know, great man. But what he represented, what he brought with him was destructive in some ways. And so you might not want to celebrate that.
But, you know, setting all that aside, just looking at James Cook, the man, he's an extraordinary man. Brilliant, daring, the things that he accomplished, the life that he lived was extremely exciting. So I'm excited to take a look at his life and what we can learn from it. So let's jump into it. This is the life of James Cook. First, a brief word about James. Van Man. I love this company.
I love this brand. They make all natural products. They make lotion, deodorant, lip balm. I use a bunch of it. Like the thing I love about it is I've got right here. I'm not gonna show you the brand, but I've got a lotion and it says it's natural. It's all natural. So, you know, you gotta love that. All natural, right? This is the kind of stuff I used to use.
So let's look at the ingredients of this all natural lotion. First, water. Great. Great. We're starting so strong. Second, caprylic triglyceride. It's all natural. They must have pulled that one straight off the caprylic triglyceride tree. After that, glycerin, then soterol alcohol, pentolene glycol. Again, you know, that must be just really fresh squeezed pentolene glycol.
That's all I can figure for this all natural lotion. the other hand let's look at van man okay ingredients number one grass-fed beef tallow number two honey number three beeswax number four olive oil number five essential oil blend look all this stuff ends up in your body even if you're just putting it on your skin it ends up in your bloodstream
And maybe you want glycerol stearate in your bloodstream, but I don't. I feel much better putting in things like Van Man that are food grade that like, yeah, beef tallow, you can cook with. That's something that people eat, right? Honey, olive oil, like all this stuff. that you know is not bad for you.
And so you're not going to have, you know, people are just becoming aware of things like microplastics and what that does to your health. By the way, most lotion brands, yeah, they're in plastic. And what's Van Man in? Glass, right? So you're not getting microplastics from it either. So if you really care about your health, you need to get this kind of stuff right.
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