Unreported World

An UK channel 4's remarkable series capturing several injust and violent situations happening today in multiple places around the world, often triggered because economical reasons, related to human greed or to the thirst for power.

Over the course of these deliveries, each one having 25 minutes running time, reporters have travelled to dangerous locations all over the world in an attempt to uncover stories usually ignored by the world mass and local media.

Slum warfare in Rio

Egypt´s rubbish people
Civil war in Sri Lanka
Mugabe in Zimbawe
Israel´s West Bank
Voodoo in Benin
Holy war in Somalia
Missing children in India
Situation in Kosovo
Railway of bones in Rusia
The Kashmir in Pakistan
Paraguay painful harvest
Kurdish Turkey
Battle for oil in Iraq
China´s olympic lie
Red flag in Nepal
Murders in South Africa
Slaves in Malaysia

Wisdom & Process

A Barry Schwartz´s 20 min. speech on wisdom as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy.

He ties in together ethics and wisdom, quoting Aristoteles who once upon a time defined practical wisdom as the combination between moral will and moral skill.

Schwartz brilliantly relates how today´s extended practice of just over ruling and giving incentives, when trying to solve several issues, keeps people away from thinking, away from the real development of their potential.

As the professor says, it might be very confortable, even often brings a kind of short term safety, but at the end of the day... also assures our long term mediocracy.

Seeds of Change

We as a civilization and a race of human beings are teetering on the edge of the cliff. We must examine our lack of tolerance for others, and as well no longer willing to endure more convenient masks or deliberate blindness.

It starts just opening our eyes, from there, we´ll need the sincere wish of a truly awaken world where we all can live in harmony and peace.

Its abundantly clear if one is paying attention at all, that human beings have missed the mark. In our hubris we have forgotten the earth is our home, and even our mother, as most tribal cultures consider earth to be, and as such, we must repay with gratitude, respect, and honor the gift of life.


Bruce Weaver

The Contract

9½min.

Here's the contract we all sign by tacit agreement every morning, just by doing nothing. It is not inevitable, but requires not to close our eyes to the consequences of our decisions. Cultivate your opinion, spread your vision. At the end of the day, all is about your Choice.

Unlearning Creativity

An entertaining yet profound case for creating an education system that nurtures, rather than undermines, creativity.

Sir Ken Robinson recalling some of Picasso's words tells here that if we are not prepared to be wrong, we will never come up with anything original. Today, by the time to be adults, most of the kids have lost this capacity... All the kids are born artists, the problem is to make an artist as we grow up.

Green Communities

This video explores the viability and necessity of a green economy and methods to kick-start one through "green community-centers" in every major city.

Kevin Danaher is an anti-globalization activist, and the co-founder of Global Exchange, and the executive producer of Green Festivals, that happen annually to promote several environmentally friendly ideas and products.

Wars

In the answer to 'why we fight?' lays the reason why our actual political, social and economic systems are not yet updated to the current state of knowledge.

Network

Network (1976)

Creativity

Our fundamental challenge is to give birth to a new society, a new way of being a human and a new planet. That's something never done in our entire history. Earth for sure has manifested this level of creativity, but humans have never been called upon to produce such alternative ideas.

The critical first step is to understand our primary community. That's something beyond our nation state, beyond any culture, any corporation. World does not end up in the industrial society or in our actual economic system.

We fail to appreciate that we are one economy more amongst many, birds have an economy, plants, rivers, oceans have an economy. There are a lot of different ways of making a living.

To step into this new era, we have to re-invent economic activity in a way that is an enhancement to all other economies too. This requires considering humankind as a whole, to consider us a self-aware part of the cosmos, together with the entire earth.

Brian Swimme

Political Systems

This outstanding video reviews the bipolar division of political systems, concerning not just the states, but the whole globe. Wondering about the origins of capitalism, interventionism, free markets. It brings very interesting thoughts about the different conveniences between oligarchy, democracy and republic.

Overview of America

30min.

Scarcity

Is it possible to have, within our actual monetary system, a world free of wars and famine? A globe inhabited with citizens behaving in ethical and decent ways, focussed on global evolution and the full development of our personal capabilities?

We should realize that efficiency, sustainability and abundance are the real enemies of the profit system. Money is the actual barrier to our society growth. Within the monetary system scarcity is what really keeps the products valuable, profits high and people enslaved.

Do we have, at this moment in time, both the resources and technical understanding necessary to build up a new self-sustainable society? What are the real barriers keeping us into the miserable global reality?

Zeitgeist Addendum fragment

Terrorized Consumers

Before December begins and the shinny lights start flooding our streets, take a look to The Surplus, a powerful waking-up work directed and produced by Erik Gandini.

In November 2003 'The Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers' was awarded with the prestigious documentary prize, The Silver Wolf at Amsterdam's IDFA, and has spread widely around the globe.

This version is mainly in English, with Spanish Subtitles.


Surplus - 52min.

Off the Grid

In 2006, Les Stroud produced this special documenting his family's journey to building an off-the-grid home.

The show chronicles the process of buying property and refitting an old farm house with solar and wind power, a raincatcher and the adjustments the Stroud family had to make to adapt to this style of living.


90min.

In this poignant and personal documentary Les and Sue, along with their two young children, share their experience leaving the civilized world and moving to Northern Ontario.

The Greed Game

As the credit crunch bites and a global economic crisis threatens, the following documentary reveals how the super-rich have made their fortunes, and the small investors and tax payers are picking up the bill.

See here how the private-equity partners, and the hedge-fund managers were all using other people’s money for their deals, into a system that is allowing them, for example, to transform poor quality loans into 'high quality investments'. And, while enjoying the enormous returns, they couldn't help leveraging more and bigger deals, due their greed and the money available at low interest rates.


Super Rich: The Greed Game - 1h.

The proposal into the docummentary about taking the diamond skull as the symbol of our age is really scary, but unfortunatelly quite right.

Bellow you may see a funny and informative interview about financial crisis and global markets, performed by John Bird and John Fortune at the 'Last Laugh' show, subtitled in Spanish.

Our Dumb World

Never before in the history of humankind we’ve had such amount of information, opportunities and resources to develop our knowledge; and never before we’ve seen such an epidemic of stupidity around.

The following excellent documentary explores this phenomenon, with a comic but scientific approach; digging in the interesting origins of the etymology of several words related to this concept.


1h. (skip first 30sec.)

Also the intro of the funny movie idiocracy, brings a very interesting point of view about human evolution. Referring to a not-so-unlikely future that someday might come to reality, if in our global society we keep spoiling and compensating ourselves and the young generations, for being each time more proud of our ignorance.

Story of Stuff

... the stuff and us.


Introduction, chapter 1 - 2min.

Check out the complete presentation at storyofstuff.com, to change the way you look at all the stuff in your life!

Or view part by part here:
The Story of Stuff - Ch.2: Extraction
The Story of Stuff - Ch.3: Production
The Story of Stuff - Ch.4: Distribution
The Story of Stuff - Ch.5: Consumption
The Story of Stuff - Ch.6: Disposal
The Story of Stuff - Ch.7: Another Way

Did you ever wonder why seems so hard to live without all this stuff? In fact, it had not been always out there, right?

History

Barbarism is not unique to the twentieth century, the whole of human history includes plenty of wars, massacres and atrocities. But the last century has been by far the larger in number of violent deaths, much more than in any other period during human history. A promenade through the different civilizations, is a good observatory from where to sight the crescent madness and bloodiness of mankind.

The Way to Iraq
Yugoslavia
Afghanistan
The Cold War
Six Days War
After Mein Kampf
The Battle of Russia
The Third Reicht
World at War
Weimar's Republic End
First World War
Industrial Revolution
French Revolution
Land of the Tsars
The Great Plague
Conquest of Paradise
El Dorado
Catholic Inquisition
The Moors in Europe
The Mongols
The Vikings
The Huns
Khmer Empire
The Fall of an Empire
The Battle for Rome
The 'Primitive' Celts
The 'Savage' Goths
The Brainy Barbarians
The End of the World
Greece
Macedonia
Persian Empire
Aztec Empire
Egypt Fall
Egypt Discoveries
Ancient Egypt
From Babylon to Bagdad