ideas

David Spiegelhalter, Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, uses statistics to weigh everyday risks such as bacon sandwiches and cycling. The six-minute piece introduces micromorts as a way to compare the risk of dying.

A short video telling how Xerox PARC invented the graphical user interface and how Steve Jobs's 1979 visit influenced Apple's Lisa.

CGP Grey explains that postal codes are routing instructions for mail rather than geographic regions. He looks at the quirks and problems this causes.

CGP Grey explains the mess of Daylight Saving Time, including its dubious energy savings and the odd cases like Arizona that opt out. It is a short, simple explainer.

CGP Grey explains why European diseases devastated the Americas while few deadly diseases traveled the other way. He ties it to livestock domestication, dense cities, and the ideas of Guns, Germs and Steel.

CGP Grey explains how ideas spread like germs, and why content that triggers outrage spreads fastest, using a study on what makes online content viral. He argues that opposing outrage-driven memes feed each other.

An Isaac Arthur episode on civilizations in the dark, post-stellar universe, including black hole farming, accretion disks and the Penrose process as energy sources.

Ted Nelson explains the original Xanadu hypertext idea of visible connection, the notion that links between documents should be shown and preserved. He argues that the Web and current document standards lost this concept.

CGP Grey's animated adaptation of The Dictator's Handbook, explaining how rulers stay in power by keeping a small group of key supporters happy rather than ruling fairly. It lays out selectorate theory and how resources shape regimes.

CGP Grey narrates an animated adaptation of Nick Bostrom's Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant. The story uses a dragon that demands a daily toll of lives as a metaphor for aging and society's acceptance of death.

An animated 44-minute summary of Ray Dalio's book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. It lays out the Big Cycle of rising and declining nations, covering debt cycles, internal conflict, and shifts in global power over the past 500 years.

CGP Grey explains that the City of London is a tiny, separate entity with its own governance, history and privileges, distinct from the city called London. He covers its financial role and how it is run.

CGP Grey's quick, witty explainer on the differences between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England, and the countries that make up the UK.

CGP Grey's six-minute explainer of the relationships the UK could have with the EU, based on Barnier's slide, shown as orbits of different closeness. It explains why the UK's red lines ruled out the closer options.

CGP Grey explains the City of London's unusual governance, including the Lord Mayor, guilds, and how it differs from the rest of London.

Technology Connections explains how LED traffic lights, which do not melt snow, drew complaints and were blamed for accidents. He uses it to illustrate the 'but sometimes' fallacy against new technology.

Veritasium tells the story of Thomas Midgley Jr., who introduced leaded gasoline and CFCs, and covers the science behind lead exposure and ozone damage. It also touches on isotope geochemistry used to uncover the history.

The first episode of Crash Course World History, in which John Green covers the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and how it shaped civilization. It is delivered fast and with jokes.

Bill Hammack of engineerguy explains how medieval engineers designed stone cathedrals using rules of thumb, with no science, mathematics or literacy. He uses it to define the engineering method.

The first part of Extra History's animated miniseries on the South Sea Bubble. It explains how England's government debt led Robert Harley to turn to financier John Blunt, whose schemes began inflating artificial demand for shares.

CGP Grey tells the story of Alexander Pope's long takedown of a historian, Thomas Hearne, framed around the quirks of library books and archival research. It is a funny, digressive video essay about literary feuds and tracking down original sources.

Matt Parker analyzes the Minecraft speedrunning controversy in which Dream was accused of cheating via improbably lucky drops. He walks through the probability and the statistical arguments in the original accusation and the reply.

Kurzgesagt makes a selfish case for improving the world, arguing that helping people far away raises prosperity and innovation for everyone, including yourself. The animated video frames this as egoistic altruism and positive-sum cooperation.

An Isaac Arthur episode on civilizations in the far future, past the Black Hole Era. It covers iron stars, Boltzmann brains, reversible computing and the idea of reversing entropy.

The first episode of a Cities: Skylines series on urban politics and planning, focused on parking. It uses the game to show how parking minimums shape cities, drawing on Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking.

CGP Grey argues that aging and death are a problem worth defeating, using a short animated essay. It is part of a pair with a follow-up from Kurzgesagt.

Kurzgesagt explains stellar engines such as the Shkadov thruster and Caplan thruster, which could move the Sun and solar system across the galaxy over millions of years to avoid hazards and reach new regions.

A short clip from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which he explains how Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth using shadows in two Egyptian cities. It is a clear, visual account of an ancient scientific feat.

Tom Scott tells how John Reber's plan to dam San Francisco Bay was disproved by the Army Corps of Engineers' giant hydraulic Bay Model in Sausalito. The model showed the plan would have been dangerously wrong.

Kurzgesagt explains the Holocene or Human Era calendar, which adds 10,000 years to the current year to anchor dates to the start of human civilization. It argues this gives a more sensible frame for human history.

A Kurzgesagt video arguing that social media's problem is information flooding and tribal polarization. It suggests a return to smaller online communities and more in-person interaction.

Historia Civilis traces the history of work and time discipline, comparing modern working hours with those of medieval peasants and the changes brought by clocks and industrialization. It draws on works such as Schor's The Overworked American.

CGP Grey, adapting The Dictator's Handbook, explains how rulers keep power and why succession causes trouble when they die. It is the sequel to his video on the rules for rulers.

Veritasium tells how Kodak film was fogged by radioactive fallout from the first atomic tests, letting the company detect nuclear testing before anyone announced it. The video also covers the deal to keep it quiet and how fallout contaminated packaging.

Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia analyzes Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, the first AAA game built around ray tracing. It covers the new global illumination, emissive lighting, DLSS and performance on AMD and Nvidia hardware.

An Isaac Arthur episode on arcologies, self-sufficient habitats that could house whole cities, on Earth or on harsh worlds. It covers how such structures might work and what limits their size.

A short Kurzgesagt animation explaining the Great Filter, the idea that finding alien life might be bad news because it implies something usually destroys civilizations. It connects the concept to the Fermi paradox.

Kraut traces centuries of political development, from Mongol rule and the Orthodox church to Muscovite autocracy, that shaped Russia's authoritarian state. It uses countryball animation and compares Russia with Europe and China.

Historia Civilis tells the story of 46 BCE, the 445-day year in which Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar. It covers the political context, including the civil war, Cato and Cicero.

A video essay explaining hauntology, Mark Fisher's idea of lost futures, and 80s nostalgia. It uses the Fallout games and other media as examples of a retro-futurism that mourns futures that never arrived.