Why Some Countries Are Poor and Others Rich • 2014 • The School of Life

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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.

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The School of Life • 2014 - 2016 • 12 episodes •

How to Make a Country Rich

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

Why Some Countries Are Poor and Others Rich

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

How to Get Divorced

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

Suicide

Suicide is a very rare phenomenon at the far end of human anguish. And yet its existence tells us something crucial about how fragile we all are: it's a further reminder of the need for compassion.

2015 • Brain

Why Religious Beliefs Aren't Just Silly

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

Philosophy - Plato

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

Political Theory - Karl Marx

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

The Perfect Country

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

How to Find Fulfilling Work

The key to finding fulfilling work is to think a lot, analyse one's fears, understand the market, reflect on capitalism.

2015 • Lifehack

Why We Love to Blame Our Partners

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

How to Use Drugs

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 We Love Disaster News

Why are we so captivated and fascinated by news stories about disasters? Is it ghoulish and voyeuristic? Not at all...

2015 • Lifehack

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A Place Like Hell

Indonesia is one of the most volcanically active countries in the world--the island of Java alone has 45 active volcanoes, which could erupt at any time. Descend into some of the world's most volatile craters with scientist Tom Pfeiffer, who is hell-bent on photographing rare volcanic phenomenon.

S2E3 • Volcanic Odysseys • 2016 • Economics

The Light Bulb Conspiracy

Planned Obsolescence is the deliberate shortening of product life spans to guarantee consumer demand. As a magazine for advertisers succinctly puts it: “The article that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business “ - and a tragedy for the modern growth society which relies on an ever-accelerating cycle of production, consumption and throwing away. THE LIGHT BULB CONSPIRACY combines investigative research and rare archive footage to trace the untold story of Planned Obsolescence, from its beginnings in the 1920s with a secret cartel, set up expressly to limit the life span of light bulbs, to present-day stories involving cutting edge electronics (such as the iPod) and the growing spirit of resistance amongst ordinary consumers. This film travels to France, Germany, Spain and the US to find witnesses of a business practice which has become the basis of the modern economy, and brings back disquieting pictures from Africa where discarded electronics are piling up in huge cemeteries for electronic waste. Economists and environmentalists believe that the growth society as we know it is unsustainable in the long run and that Planned Obsolescence needs to become a thing of the past, as it is impossible to combine the limitless consumption of resources with a finite planet. But what are the alternatives? The film offers thought-provoking analysis by thinkers working on ways of saving both the economy and the environment, and presents hands-on stories showing entrepreneurs putting new business models into practice.

2010 • Economics

Fulton Fish Market

Anita Rani, Ade Adepitan, Ant Anstead and Dan Snow look at food consumption in the Big Apple. From dusk until dawn at the New Fulton fish market in The Bronx, they uncover the hidden night time operations, hard-nosed negotiations and price fluctuations of this enormous wholesale operation. Ade also looks into local apple production, Anita visits a cattle farm that supplies the region's steakhouses, Ant visits the New NY Bridge, and Dan heads to Freshkills on Staten Island. Once the world's biggest landfill, it's been transformed into 2,200 acres of parkland.

Part 2 • New York: America's Busiest City • 2016 • Economics