If you were setting out to make a country rich, what kind of mindsets and ideas would be most likely to achieve your goals? We invent a country, Richland, and try to imagine the psychology of its inhabitants.
If you were setting out to make a country rich, what kind of mindsets and ideas would be most likely to achieve your goals? We invent a country, Richland, and try to imagine the psychology of its inhabitants.
2015 • Economics
The reason why some countries are rich and others poor depends on many things, including the quality of their institutions, the culture they have, the natural resources they find and what latitude they're on.
2014 • Economics
The rules for how to doom a relationship are relatively easy to follow. Here are a selection that are guaranteed to blow up love.
2015 • Lifehack
Nowadays, many atheists declare not just that god is dead but that anyone who believes in him must be stupid. This seems a little harsh – we prefer to think about where religious beliefs come from: the pained parts of ourselves.
2015 • Lifehack
Plato was one of the world's earliest and possibly greatest philosophers. He matters because of his devotion to making humanity more fulfilled.
2014 • People
Karl Marx remains deeply important today not as the man who told us what to replace capitalism with, but as someone who brilliantly pointed out what was inhuman and alienating about it.
2014 • People
This is a thought experiment about what the perfect country might be like. It's not an idle daydream, it's a way of highlighting some of the problems with our own nations and a way of signalling what the true opportunities might be.
2016 • Lifehack
The key to finding fulfilling work is to think a lot, analyse one's fears, understand the market, reflect on capitalism.
2015 • Lifehack
It’s an odd quirk of relationships that, after a time, we tend to develop the sincere conviction that it is all always our partner’s fault.
2016 • Lifehack
We’re still only at the dawn of learning how to use drugs properly – knowing what drugs we need and when we should take them. We look forward to a brighter future for drug use.
2016 • Health
Why are we so captivated and fascinated by news stories about disasters? Is it ghoulish and voyeuristic? Not at all...
2015 • Lifehack
Part I of this three-part documentary series explores the determinants of behavior to dispel the myth of “human nature” demonstrating that environment shapes behavior. Part II illustrates how our social structures impose our values and behaviors demonstrating that our global monetary system is obsolete and increasingly insufficient to meet the needs of most people. Part III, to be released January 2016, will depict the vision of The Venus Project to build an entirely new world from the ground up, a “redesign of the culture” where all enjoy a high standard of living, free of servitude and debt, while also protecting the environment.
2015 • Economics
There are more billionaires than ever. But how does this vast accumulation of wealth affect the world?
Part two explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses. Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires.
2/4 • The Century of the Self • Economics
Over 10% of the world's electricity comes from nuclear power. But with radioactive waste and the threat of nuclear meltdown, are we playing with fire?
S1E8 • History 101 • 2020 • Economics
Retiring comfortably middle-class in America requires more than $1 million in savings. How did the dream of golden years leisure get so out of reach?
S1E5 • Money Explained • 2011 • Economics
One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today's dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first institution to defy history. Based on Joel Bakan's book, "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power," this documentary is a timely, critical inquiry that examines the very nature of the corporation--its inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. We begin by learning that under the law, corporations have all the rights and yet few of the responsibilities of people. By viewing the behavior of the corporation through the prism of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (or DSM III, the gold standard of psychiatric evaluation) the filmmakers discover that if the corporation were indeed a person, the person would be considered a psychopath. Featuring candid interviews with CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits, the chronicle charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this seemingly invincible force. Once you see it, you may find yourself thinking twice about what you eat, what you wear, what you watch and what you read.
2003 • Economics