Inequality for All • 2013

59:17

From the moment we first drilled for oil, we opened a Pandora's box that changed the world forever. It transformed the way we lived our lives, spawned foreign wars and turned a simple natural resource into the most powerful political weapon the world has ever known. But when exactly did geology turn into such a high-stakes game?

S1E1 • Planet Oil • Economics

60:03

Crash course into the peer-to-peer revolution that is now disrupting banks and Governments. Whatever Bitcoin may be; most people do not yet understand what this controversial and influential innovation is about and how it works. This award-winning documentary answers these questions. Bitcoin: The End Of Money As We Know It traces the history of money from the ancient world to the modern trading floors of Wall St. This film exposes the practices of central banks and other financial actors who brought the world to its knees in the last crisis. It highlights Government influence on the money creation process and how it causes inflation. Moreover, this film explains how most money we use today is created out of thin air by commercial banks when they make loans. Epic in scope, this film examines the patterns of technological innovation and questions everything you thought you knew about money. Is Bitcoin an alternative to national currencies backed by debt? Will Bitcoin and crypto-currencies spark a revolution in how we use money peer to peer?Or is it simply a new tool for criminals and the next bubble waiting to burst? If you trust in your money just as it is, this film has news for you.

2015 • Economics

93:47

Jan Leeming narrates a look at controversies, scandals and surprises in TV, film, music and politics in 1988, including Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses igniting a literary and religious firestorm and Ian Paisley daring to heckle the Pope. On the global stage, US president Ronald Reagan and USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev reshaped geopolitics, while a soundbite from Tory MP Edwina Currie dented the UK's confidence in eggs, leading to a nationwide salmonella scare.

S1E4 • Controversially: That Was the Year that Was • 2023 • Economics

58:58

Behind the scenes with the team who look after all 843 acres of Central Park, revealing the hidden systems and organisational miracles that keep the world's busiest urban park clean and green. Plus, Ant Anstead sees how an entirely new district is being built on top of a functioning rail depot in Manhattan and Dan Snow is in Coney Island, where he discovers that television, air conditioning and extreme weather almost killed off this historic amusement zone.

Part 3 • New York: America's Busiest City • 2016 • Economics

59:09

Jamie Bartlett reveals how Silicon Valley's mission to connect the world is disrupting democracy, helping plunge us into an age of political turbulence. Many of the Tech Gods were dismayed when Donald Trump - who holds a very different worldview - won the American presidency, but did they actually help him to win? With the help of a key insider from the Trump campaign's digital operation, Jamie unravels for the first time the role played by social media and Facebook's vital role in getting Trump into the White House. But how did Facebook become such a powerful player? Jamie learns how Facebook's vast power to persuade was first built for advertisers, combining data about our internet use and psychological insights into how we think. A leading psychologist then shows Jamie how Facebook's hoard of data about us can be used to predict our personalities and other psychological traits. He interrogates the head of the big data analytics firm that targeted millions of voters on Facebook for Trump - he tells Jamie this revolution is unstoppable. But is this great persuasion machine now out of control? Exploring the emotional mechanisms that supercharge the spread of fake news on social media, Jamie reveals how Silicon Valley's persuasion machine is now being exploited by political forces of all kinds, in ways no one - including the Tech Gods who created it - may be able to stop.

S1E2 • Secrets of Silicon Valley • 2017 • Economics

59:01

Wayne Pacelle, President of the Humane Society of the United States, draws a practical roadmap for how we can use the marketplace to promote the welfare of all living creatures, and how industries, innovators and consumers are coming together in this powerful social movement.

S1E6 • Curiosity Retreats: 2016 Lectures • 2016 • Economics