In the 21st century, China has become a global economic powerhouse. Why was the rest of the world so slow to notice its rise to the top?
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Fifteen international agencies spend $62 billion every year on space travel. What's fueling our costly - and dangerous - drive to explore the universe?
2020 • Astronomy
In the 21st century, China has become a global economic powerhouse. Why was the rest of the world so slow to notice its rise to the top?
2020 • Economics
Plastics have transformed how we live, but progress comes at a high price: 7.8 billion tons of waste. Are plastics a miracle or a catastrophe?
2000 • Environment
Oil has brought great wealth to the Middle East and ignited major wars. Is it a blessing or a curse for the region, as well as the rest of the world?
2020 • Economics
We share the planet with an estimated 9 million robots, from self-driving cars to surgical arms. Could they one day completely replace humans?
2020 • Technology
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?
2020 • Economics
Today, GPS is guiding - and following - pretty much anything that moves, all around the world. It's so accurate it can track you down to the head of a pin. But where is GPS leading us? Is it helping us find the way, or lose it?
2022 • Technology
MP3s transformed how we listen to music - and spawned digital piracy. Streaming helped the industry recover, but how can artists get their fair share?
2022 • Technology
Credit cards changed the global economy and attitudes about personal spending, but record levels of consumer debt beg the question: Just who's in charge?
2022 • Technology
Growing evidence suggests that psychedelic drugs could treat brain injuries and psychological problems. But can we get past their controversial history?
2022 • Brain
Bottled water is a big business, selling itself as a tastier and healthier alternative to the tap variety. Is there truth behind the claims?
2022 • Economics
Thanks to dating apps, finding love is easier than ever. But are we now so focused on playing the game that we're missing out on real connection?
2022 • Technology
The home fitness revolution has exploded into a multibillion-dollar industry. Are home workouts a healthy habit - or just hype?
2022 • Health
Sweet deal or bitter pill? High fructose corn syrup rose up to dominate supermarket shelves, but what is it doing to our health?
2022 • Health
In the second of this three-part series, Jacques reveals how fear remains one of the most powerful drivers of our spending. Visiting a neuroscience lab, Jacques hears from a consumer psychologist about how our brains are much more responsive to negative than to positive stimuli. He also meets some experts who have turned this knowledge into an art form, helping manufacturers make billions from our anxieties and insecurities. At the remote chateau of French anthropologist Clotaire Rapaille, Jacques learns how our sense of fear drives us in ways many of us do not understand - and how Rapaille's insights have helped companies sell us everything from SUVs to cigarettes. At the Beverley Hills pad of multimillionaire marketer Rohan Oza, he hears how Oza's connections to celebrities helped propel VitaminWater into the soft drink stratosphere, despite the fact that the product's health claims have been called into question. Jacques also confronts the men who say they are combating our most deep-seated fear - of age and decline. In Las Vegas, he mingles with the doctors and businessmen attending a global conference aimed at selling us ways to stay young and healthy, challenging them to justify their claims for the anti-aging business that has made them rich.
S1E2 • The Men Who Made Us Spend • 2014 • Economics
Once upon a time there was a large Finnish company that manufactured the world's best and most innovative mobile phones. Nokia's annual budget was larger than that of the government of Finland and everyone who worked there shared in the windfall. But global domination cost the company its pioneering spirit and quantity gradually took over from quality, with new phone models being churned out by the dozen. Market share eroded, until in 2016, mobile phone production in Finland ceased. The Rise and Fall of Nokia is a wry morality tale for our times, told by those that lived and worked through the rollercoaster years in a company that dominated a nation.
2018 • Economics
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
The global economy is in crisis. The exponential exhaustion of natural resources, declining productivity, slow growth, rising unemployment, and steep inequality, forces us to rethink our economic models. Where do we go from here? In this feature-length documentary, social and economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin lays out a road map to usher in a new economic system. A Third Industrial Revolution is unfolding with the convergence of three pivotal technologies: an ultra-fast 5G communication internet, a renewable energy internet, and a driverless mobility internet, all connected to the Internet of Things embedded across society and the environment. This 21st century smart digital infrastructure is giving rise to a radical new sharing economy that is transforming the way we manage, power and move economic life.
2017 • Economics
'Inside Job' provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly resulted in a global financial collapse.
2010 • Economics
The robot revolution is here. It may seem like robots aren’t all that prevalent, but many people already have robot floor cleaners in their homes. Think Roomba. Most factories now leverage countless bots that never get tired or make mistakes. Soon, cars will be completely auto controlled. CGP Grey discusses the future of robots, and how jobs and the economy will change in this new video. What happens to the economy when most traditional jobs have been replaced by robots?