Saudi Arabia may seem to many of us to be a country with a golden future. A country with enormous reserves of wealth, collected from almost a century of trading in oil and holding a monopoly on the world's hydrocarbon market. BUT... I would argue that the enormous economic power the Saudis built on the hydrocarbon market has doomed their country, as well as those of their neighbors in Qatar or the UAE. The holding of such a monopoly stagnated political development and therefore left these countries in a position of being ill-prepared for a world after oil. To showcase this, I will however take you to a different place first. The Congo
Why Nations Fail by Darren Acemoglu and James Robinson
A world History of Slavery by Milton Meltzer
Conquerors by Roger Crowly
Impromptu no. 4 in A flat major, D. 899
Preludes, Op. 28 - No. 15 'Raindrop'
Ballade no. 1 in G minor, Op. 23
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A recently reemerging idea in the English speaking political landscape is that history is the story of an almost natural progression of humanity into liberty culminating within English and American democracy. This is nonsense. And it also has a name: "whig history"
In this video I would like to show you why whig history is bunk, and also detail to you how economic liberties that are so often praised by advocates of whig history, can very often result in the creation of oligarchies that then proceed to undermine and destroy the very economic liberties that created the oligarchy in the first place.
I explore our consumer society, looking at the history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology of what consumerism really means. Is it a useful concept? Where did it appear from? Are there alternatives? How is the desire that drives consumption manufactured? Are we shallow? Is there any possibility of ethical consumption? To help answer some of these questions I draw from thinkers including Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, and David Harvey.
Chapters:
0:00 – Our Consumer Society
4:43 – A History of Stuff
14:46 – Shopping for Definitions of Consumerism
17:33 – Let Me Be Your Fantasy (The Production of Desire)
25:52 – Copy Cats (Social Mimicry)
31:50 – Shopping for the Problem
43:49 – Real or Hyperreal? (Jean Baudrillard)
54:56 – Fredric Jameson’s Depthlessness
58:23 – David Harvey’s Postmodern Production
1:03:34 – Are We Shallow?
1:11:10 – Ethical Consumption & it’s Problems
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Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History – The Destroyer of Worlds
What happens if human beings can’t handle the power of their own weaponry? This show examines the dangerous early years of the Nuclear Age and humankind’s efforts to avoid self-destruction at the hands of its own creation.