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.
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
Filmmaker Alex Gibney investigates the fact that the 400 richest Americans control more wealth than the 150 million people in the bottom 50 percent of the population.
2012 • 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?
The legendary investor started out as an ambitious, numbers-obsessed boy from Nebraska and ended up becoming one of the richest and most respected men in the world.
2017 • Economics
The legendary statistical showman Professor Hans Rosling returns with a feast of facts and figures as he examines the extraordinary target the world commits to this week - to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide.
2015 • Economics
Documentary examining Germany's economic power and the automobile industry at the heart of it. Across the world, the badges of Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes inspire immediate awe. Even in Britain, where memories of Second World War run deep, we can't resist the appeal of a German car. By contrast, our own industry is a shadow of its former self. Historian Dominic Sandbrook asks what it is we got wrong, and what the Germans got so right.
2013 • Economics