What do you think when you hear the words ‘Netflix binge’?
Four straight seasons of House of Cards? Catching up on the latest tribulations of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen? Well, that’s what most people are watching. But I’m a nerd, so when I took up a one month trial subscription to kick off 2018 my curious mind went straight to the educational section, and my 30 days was spent voraciously consuming 22 full length documentaries, 10 educational programs, a fictional movie about a future dystopia, and two based-on-true-events films. Oh, and the entire series of Grace and Frankie which has the best (female) character writing I’ve seen in a long time!
It was all so much to take in (as you’ll see in the list below). Turns out it takes a concerted effort to view documentaries with a critical lens, and avoid swallowing it whole. By and large I’m fairly trusting of this medium, but I have a rational-thinker friend who cautions me about inherent biases in the arguments presented by the film-makers; they typically show what proves the point they’re trying to make and ignore the other side of the coin.
As the saying goes, there are three sides to every story: Yours, Theirs, and the Truth.
Some documentary film-makers definitely do a better job of presenting a balanced perspective. On the other hand, when you’re raising red flags about hidden practices, unearthed scandals and potentially illegal conduct, it’s notoriously difficult to get the accused to open up and share their side. In at least two of these documentaries, the filmmaker is speaking out against an industry with so much political power, he could go to jail just for talking about it and asking questions. So, I reserve my judgement of whether they did or didn’t try to tell the full story.
So what did I watch? I’m glad you asked!
Below is the list and a link for more info. (Note: some of these are Netflix exclusives). The *starred ones are my top picks.
The Food Industry & Big Pharma
* Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
Dirty Money: Drug Short (Valeant price gouging)
Environment
Dirty Money: Hard Nox (VW emissions scandal)
Health & Alternative lifestyles
Minimalism: A documentary about the important things
Criminality & the Justice System
* 13th
Interview with a Serial Killer
The Internet, Social Media, and the Fourth Estate
The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms
* Snowden
* Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press
Mark Zuckerberg: Inside Facebook
How the Brain and Human Perception Works
* Brain Games (10 episodes)
A Dystopian Future
And my favourite topic….MONEY! (Dirty money, capitalism, global inequality, money in politics, the financial system & the economy)
Dirty Money: Payday (Payday lender racket)
Dirty Money: Cartel Bank (HSBC and drug cartels)
Honestly, they were all very illuminating, many were infuriating (Inside Job; Drug Short; What the Health), a few were incredibly sad (Living on One Dollar; 13th; A Plastic Ocean) and some of them downright frightening (Snowden; Nobody Speak; Interview with a Serial Killer). Many are less relevant outside the U.S. That place is messed up!
If I had continued my subscription I could have easily spent another month down the rabbit hole. There is just so much content out there, BUT…and here’s the but….unless people really want to know what’s going on behind closed doors and out of sight, it’s very easy to live in blissful ignorance of the world around us.
I understand the temptation; it did become a little overwhelming. Compassion fatigue they call it — when you reach a point of being unable to care anymore because of the sheer volume of shit in the world, and our seeming powerlessness to do anything meaningful about it. What’s more, when we aren’t directly affected it is really so cosy in our privilege bubbles living a life untouched by the troubles of others.
Till it’s not.
One of the biggest eye-openers for me was how many people are affected by the actions, decisions and motivations of the few.
Whether you are being surveilled by the NSA because you’re in the contacts list of someone who is loosely connected to someone who went to a protest about something the government doesn’t like, or your niece develops a condition for which the medication is more expensive than every other Commonwealth nation because drug companies help set the prices, or you’re unknowingly consuming a huge amount of toxins because you’re eating seafood contaminated by plastics, or you bought a car that you were told has lower emissions and later discover it was one of the biggest lies ever told but the company refuse to compensate you.
In a digital age where we’re fed up to 10,000 marketing messages per day — PER DAY!! — it is hard to filter out the noise (advertising messages, fake news and vested interests) from the facts (investigative journalism and scientific studies). It takes effort to seek out truth, inform yourself and make educated decisions for you and your family (and which often affect the rest of society). Conversely, it’s pretty convenient for us to believe what’s screaming at us from every roadside billboard, on the entertainment programs that pass for current affairs on commercial TV, in popular culture, the banners on our browsers, the side of a truck in traffic, the grocery isle, from social media influencers, the chatter at mums and bubs, app pop-ups, the mouths of politicians, a pamphlet from the bank, and even the agencies supposedly set up in the public interest. So often we’re told exactly what we want to hear, what’s easy to digest and which doesn’t require anything different from us. But my month of Netflix bingeing (along with follow up research and reading) tells me not only do I have the power and responsibility to demand some needed changes, but that if I don’t it might kill me!
Sound dramatic?
Here are some of the most shocking take-aways and key learnings from my 30 day immersion.
Take-aways
1. Financial stability is an illusion and infinite rises are literally impossible, as history repeatedly shows us. We are in for another crash, possibly more catastrophic than the GFC. (Boom Bust Boom)
2. There is beauty in the rules and patterns of algorithms. They’re not as smart as humans yet, but they’re getting there. It’s a race of us against the machines. (The Secret Rules of Modern Living)
3. The government does not always work in your best interests, and the public can be easily convinced to choose security over privacy and personal freedom. (Snowden)
4. Your brain is not always reliable; in fact most of the time it’s not! It is easily fooled and we are biologically conditioned to fall into patterns of thinking which can deceive us. (Brain Games)
5. The relentless pursuit of profit at all costs is making us fat and sick. When profit is all that matters, the health and welfare of the general public is at the very bottom of the list of priorities. (What the Health; Sustainable; Drug Short and several others listed )
6. The systematic attacks on the free press are seeing us slide into authoritarianism. (Nobody Speak)
7. Beware the benevolent dictator and the people with access to your data! (Inside Facebook; Snowden)
8. Things are so very messed up in our global economy, and capitalism only genuinely works for the very few. Our systems are so unfair and unjust, and it doesn’t make any sense why some people are forced to survive on almost nothing, while by fortune of birth others have more than enough. (Living on One Dollar; Saving Capitalism)
Learnings:
1. Humans need trust and it is our default state. Having trust in fellow humans is essential to living together harmoniously, and the breakdown of trust in society will lead to chaos on a mass scale. (Brain Games: Trust Me)
2. Following the Global Financial Crisis in the late 2000’s, more than 7 million Americans lost their homes. Of all the people responsible for the excessive greed and unethical behaviour that caused the GFC, only one mid-level banker has ever faced criminal convictions and most of the bailed-out execs kept their bonuses! Many of them, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who has fessed up to flawed economic thinking that contributed to it, continue to be major players on Wall Street and offer their voices on U.S. government policy. (Inside Job)
3. There is a lot of pseudo nutrition science and it’s having a destructive effect on human health. Many public health organisations are relying on biased data, and nutritional studies are frequently funded by corporations and industry with vested interests in a certain message being touted. This conflict of interest is kept under wraps. (In Defense of Food)
4. US prisons have been filling up with African-American men since the 1970’s. Subsequent government policies, which leaks have demonstrated are a deliberate attempt to subdue their population, have a profoundly disproportionate effect on blacks over whites. The ‘Prison Industrial Complex’ is an enormous money-making machine that profits from incarceration for minor offenses (and in fact is designed to ensure a never-ending supply of prisoners), and some of the largest, private, global companies have contracts with prisons to provide free labour. Slavery is alive and well in the United States under a modern-day guise. (13th)
5. Seabirds are dying from stomachs filled with plastic — one bird was found with 234 individual pieces of plastic in its gut, approximately 13% of its body weight. That equates to roughly 7kg in a human. We have an enormous plastic addiction and it’s slowly going to choke the planet, including we humans who ceaselessly use it for its superior convenience. (A Plastic Ocean)
6. Our houses are huge but we typically only use 40% of the available space. It’s weird to have an empty room, so we continue to buy things for space we don’t even use. (Minimalism)
7. Government are enforcing different rules for innovative new ideas and products which are seeking to level the playing field, compared to the rules applied to the incumbent structures and businesses running the show. People are going to jail because of how other people are using their product. (Banking on Bitcoin)
8. Animal agriculture is destroying the planet, and clearly it’s unsustainable. The industry has incredible power and influence over decision makers and environmental organisations, yet in future we will not be able to feed ourselves, especially as our population breaches 10 billion around 2050. Vegetarian and vegan diets are evidentiarily by far utilising less natural resources and are the only sustainable options for the human population. (Cowspiracy, and several other docos listed above)
Whether you agree or disagree doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you’re doing your own homework. My month of documentaries and research reminded me that sometimes we need to put faith in others to tell us what’s right or wrong, black or white, good and bad. But that can never be an excuse to stop using our brains, to take advantage of a first world education, to have agency over our own decisions, and to care about the effects our choices have on other people and the planet. Never have you or I as an individual citizen had so much free and ready access to information. We must not squander the responsibility that comes along with it!
Information is not knowledge, nor is it wisdom.
That only comes from us gathering the facts, examining the evidence before us, considering it from all sides, and determining a conclusion.
Go forth and binge.
