The Middle East and Global Security • 2014 • episode "8/10" Curiosity Retreats: 2014 Lectures

Category: Economics

Ambassador Henry Crumpton, a veteran CIA operative with experiences on the front line of America's initial campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, considers the paradigm shift caused by the increased role of non-state actors in the Mid-East and other issues facing that region and the world.

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Curiosity Retreats: 2014 Lectures • 2014 • 10 episodes •

The Future of the Mind and Beyond

Michio Kaku, best-selling author and physicist, imagining the not-so-distant future, offers his projections for advancements in humanity's understanding of the brain over the next century. Kaku envisions a world in which progress in neuroscience and biotechnology will demystify the human mind.

2014 • Brain

The future of the Internet

Vint Cerf, co-author of the TCP/IP protocol suite that provides the Internet with its basic architecture, is known as "one of the founding fathers of the Internet." Cerf discusses what the future may hold for the internet: will it ultimately connect us with the universe?

2014 • Technology

Frontiers of Science

As the director of one of a world renowned institute for scientific research -- the Institute for Advanced Study -- Robbert Dijkgraaf is a pioneer in the field of mathematical physics. This string theory specialist draws from his experiences to elucidate current advances in physics.

2014 • Science

The Future of Nanotechnology

Eric Drexler, the "founding father of nanotechnology," and Jim Phillips, the CEO of Nanomech, discuss the potential applications and implications of nanotechnology. How will this atomically precise manufacturing impact the future of technology, global governance, and the environment?

2014 • Technology

The Science of Happiness

Dr. Nancy Etcoff, a leading researcher in the field of positive psychology, reveals why it is crucial to understand exactly how our mental and physical health is benefited by emotions like happiness and joy, and how we are affected by anxiety and depression.

2014 • Lifehack

A Universe of Big Numbers

John Hendricks, founder of the Discovery Channel and CuriosityStream, explores the largest numbers in the Universe and describes how the average person might be able to comprehend their scale. How can a normal person understand "quadrillion" in real terms?

2014 • Math

Discovery in Cosmology and Particle Physics

Harvard professor and best-selling author, Dr. Lisa Randall, simplifies and expounds upon some of modern physics' most basic questions. What is dark matter and dark energy? What is the fundamental nature of space and time? What do we not know yet about the universe and its fundamental properties?

2014 • Astronomy

The Middle East and Global Security

Ambassador Henry Crumpton, a veteran CIA operative with experiences on the front line of America's initial campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, considers the paradigm shift caused by the increased role of non-state actors in the Mid-East and other issues facing that region and the world.

2014 • Economics

Modern China

Sheryl WuDunn, a best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, illuminates the economic, financial, political and social issues in East Asia and around the world, and the economic and political uncertainties facing China today.

2014 • Economics

Super Brain

The best-selling authors of Super Brain, Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Rudy Tanzi, describe the basic rules about how our brain functions. Your brain always eavesdrops on your thoughts. Can you teach your brain to become unlimited, by thinking that you have that potential?

2014 • Brain

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Inside Lehman Brothers

In the autumn of 2007, Matthew Lee, a worried accounting executive at Lehman Brothers, began to notice serious financial irregularities in the company's practices. When he refused to approve tens of billions of dollars' worth of suspicious transactions, he was fired. Six months later, Lehman Brothers sank with 631 billion dollars of debt. Lee, who has since emerged as a crucial figure in Lehman's downfall, and other whistleblowers recount their personal stories of fraud and deception that went right to the top of the bank. Ultimately, they paid the price for trying to expose the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis.

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How China Fooled the World

Robert Peston travels to China to investigate how this mighty economic giant could actually be in serious trouble. China is now the second largest economy in the world and for the last 30 years China's economy has been growing at an astonishing rate. While Britain has been in the grip of the worst recession in a generation, China's economic miracle has wowed the world. Now, for BBC Two's award-winning strand This World, Peston reveals what has actually happened inside China since the economic collapse in the west in 2008. It is a story of spending and investment on a scale never seen before in human history - 30 new airports, 26,000 miles of motorways and a new skyscraper every five days have been built in China in the last five years. But, in a situation eerily reminiscent of what has happened in the west, the vast majority of it has been built on credit. This has now left the Chinese economy with huge debts and questions over whether much of the money can ever be paid back. Interviewing key players including the former American treasury secretary Henry Paulson, Lord Adair Turner, former chairman of the FSA, and Charlene Chu, a leading Chinese banking analyst, Robert Peston reveals how China's extraordinary spending has left the country with levels of debt that many believe can only end in an economic crash with untold consequences for us all.

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The Paradox of Choice

Professor Renata Salecl explores the paralysing anxiety and dissatisfaction surrounding limitless choice. Does the freedom to be the architects of our own lives actually hinder rather than help us? Does our preoccupation with choosing and consuming actually obstruct social change?

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Doubt

Watch part two of The Power of Big Oil, a three-episode FRONTLINE docuseries investigating the fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. This part chronicles how, as scientific evidence of human-caused climate change mounted in the 2000s, the industry continued to question the science, and went to new lengths to shape American politics and stall climate policy.

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