North America Videos - The Documentary Network

Can Universal Basic Income End Our Cultural Obsession With Work?

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 11:46:03 +0000

In 1948, German philosopher Josef Pieper predicted that society was headed for a dystopia he called 'Total Work'. With most of us in 2017 working too long, missing social events, working on weekends, and egging on our older years just for the retirement, practical philosopher Andrew Taggart believes we have reached the verge of that dystopia. He describes the conditions that are tightening around us—our lives are scheduled around the needs of our jobs, our time with family and friends is subordinated to it (in a 5:2 ratio!), and our free time increasingly resembles work, in vocabulary and in action: we run errands, aim to have "productive" days, try to rest so that we are fresh for Monday—the start of another week. Taggart thinks Universal Basic Income is the ideological push we need to begin questioning how we can cut loose from our cultural obsession with work, and how we might live in a world without it. Are we human beings, or instruments of productivity? Has our intense focus on work become pathological? Transcript:'Total work' was a term coined by Josef Pieper, a lesser known German philosopher from the 20th century, and he was concerned that after World War II there would be a time of total work. By that I take him to mean that work comes to be the center around which the world turns. Human beings start to see themselves chiefly as workers, and the entirety of life becomes more and more work, or work like. To see this we can begin to examine a number of what I might call tightening conditions. So the first condition would be the centrality of work. We've come to think that work is actually the center and everything else begins to turn around it. To see this more clearly we can think about the fact that we woke up to go to work today or that we are going home from work today. That we are preparing for work. That we are preparing to leave work. And this is happening all the way around the world. Meanwhile we’re adjusting our schedules, the rest of our lives, so that they are turning about it. So that would be the first condition. The second condition is subordination. That everything else in life comes to seem as if it’s subordinate to, and to be put in the service of, work. We can think of sleeping: the idea is that we wish to sleep well today in order to be focused and prepared for work. And that when we’re at work we wish to be as productive as possible. So sleep becomes that which is an instrument in the service of productivity. And we can play that game with all sorts of different instances. The third condition is the resemblance claim. It seems as if everything else in life comes to resemble work, more and more. So you can think of, on a day off you are wanting to be as productive as possible, thinking about how much you got done. You can begin to think about all the ways in which you plan and schedule time with children. The terms that begin to mark out our lives even when we’re not actually working sound more and more work like. And the last condition I think is the most intense and that’s what I might call cultural forgetfulness. Well suppose there were to come to pass Universal Basic Income. And suppose, for the sake of argument, that that were sufficient to meet our material needs—that is, those concerned with having enough food, proper shelter, sufficient warmth, sufficient coldness, and the like, so that it was enough. As one philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, calls it we have doctrine of sufficiency. So suppose basic income allowed us all to have enough. Then once again I think we would need to think about what we would do with ourselves. Aristotle in 'Politics' says, really quite famously, that we non-leisure in order to have leisure. And that was the way that it would be translated: we non-leisure in order to have leisure. The question is how are we going to dwell on our leisure?And I think we’ve been educated to a point at which we really don’t know how to answer that question. People, I think, are struck by a very difficult condition, which is a medieval condition, called acedia.

A Taste of New York

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 21 May 2017 11:09:25 +0000

It took 10 days, a lot of burgers and one helicopter ride to produce this video. 10 days is very little time to discover this city of endless opportunities, so we hardly slept anything and shot day and night for this time lapse film. The city that never sleeps indeed! The Taxishot: Over the 10 days we took photos of yellow cabs whenever we had time to from as many different angles as possible. So we gathered 2000 (!) photos in total we had to sort afterwards and compile to a hyperlapse around a cab in post production. It took us 5 whole days in post production to get this one shot. Technical Details: In 10 days we shot 65.000 Photos taking up 2,6 TB of our hard drives. The final 3 minute video took 36h to render on the best equipped iMac available.

My Life After 44 Years In Prison

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 17:21:01 +0000

Otis Johnson went to jail at the age of 25. When he got out at 69, he rejoined a world that was starkly different from the one he remembered. This is his story.

Stepping out into Times Square in New York City, Otis Johnson is struck by the overwhelming number of people. Everyone seems to be walking quickly with blank faces and wires in their ears.

He’s confused. Being completely removed from society since 1975, Johnson thinks he’s entered a dystopia where everyone has become a secret agent wearing wires. The Steve Jobs era has completely passed him by. In August 2014, Johnson was released from prison after serving a 44-year sentence for the attempted murder of a police officer. He went to jail when he was 25 years old. By the time he came out, he was 69. Johnson’s release date was originally scheduled for earlier, but he ended up serving an additional eight months at the age of 69 for a juvenile shoplifting charge he received when he was 17. Johnson represents a very small set of people in the United States. In 2013, approximately 3,900 inmates were released from US prisons after serving at least 20 years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That is less than 0.7% of all state prisoners released that year.

Rebranded: how Survivors Ink is erasing the marks of the US sex trafficking industry

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 15:04:40 +0000

Pimp-led prostitution is one of the most violent and prolific forms of trafficking found in the US, with hundreds of thousands of women sold annually for commercial gain. Many are branded with tattoos by their traffickers as a sign of ownership and control. After experiencing such an ordeal in Columbus, Ohio, Jennifer Kempton founded Survivors Ink, a grassroots project that helps formerly trafficked women to cover up their branding with their own symbols of hope and recovery. Kempton explains how she left years of abuse and drug addiction behind and is helping others to do likewise.

What Happens When Cities Make Homelessness a Crime: Hiding The Homeless

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 16:21:13 +0000

A growing number of American cities are ticketing or arresting homeless people for essentially being homeless. The new laws ban behavior commonly associated with homelessness like reclining in public, sharing food or sitting on a sidewalk. Supporters argue these measures are necessary to push homeless people into the shelter system and maintain public safety. Critics say the laws violate the rights of homeless people and ignore the more complicated drivers of homelessness like mental illness. We found homeless people camping in the woods to escape police harassment, a homelessness consultant opposed to feeding homeless people and a city that uses solitary confinement to force homeless people into shelters. VICE News began its investigation in Boise, ID, where a group of homeless people have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of these laws. Their case could change the way homeless people are treated across the country.

Battle of the Baristas: Inside the 2015 U.S. Coffee Championships

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 08:12:13 +0000

Every year, the country's top baristas get to show off their skills at the annual U.S. Coffee Championships. We followed three of the competitors on their journey to snag the coffee industry's highest honor.

The New Studio for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 11:10:47 +0000

Design Republic was honored to work with CBS and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on this breathtaking restoration, which revealed and renewed the otherwise lost grandeur of this neo-gothic Broadway theater's design. "I was a little hesitant because I didn't know anything about the space as a performer," Colbert says in the video, which was produced by the firm behind the redesign (Design Republic). "I just knew that it had been a Broadway theater and I didn't know whether we could return it to something that looked different than what Mr. Letterman had ... but I also didn't want to ruin the intimacy that Dave had created."

Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify – all without internet in Cuba

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:21:52 +0000

In Cuba there is barely any internet. Anything but the state-run TV channels is prohibited. Publications are limited to the state-approved newspapers and magazines. This is the law. But, in typical Cuban fashion, the law doesn't stop a vast underground system of entertainment and news media distributors and consumers. "El Paquete Semanal" (The Weekly Package) is a weekly trove of digital content—everything from American movies to PDFs of Spanish newspapers—that is gathered, organized and transferred by a human web of runners and dealers to the entire country. It is a prodigious and profitable operation. The reporter went behind the scenes in Havana to film how the Paquete works. Check out the video above to see how Cubans bypass censorship to access the media we take for granted.

Sandorkraut: A Pickle Maker

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 14:40:46 +0000

This short documentary profiles the queer farmer and food writer Sandor Katz, whose work in culinary fermentation transformed his relationship with life and death. Since the beginning of time, humans have been fermenting our food. Sauerkraut, chocolate, beer, cheese: Because of fermentation these foods not only last longer — they are delicious. But although nearly every region of the world has cultivated its own unique fermentation traditions — and devoted eaters — the practice has all but disappeared from many modern households. This Op-Doc video profiles the man at the forefront of reviving the art of fermentation, a New Yorker turned homesteader named Sandor Katz (or “Sandorkraut,” as he is often known). After a health crisis in the 1990s, Mr. Katz gave up a career in politics to join an off-the-grid L.G.B.T. community in rural Tennessee. There, an overabundant cabbage harvest led him to make his first batch of sauerkraut, and sparked a fascination with fermentation. As his expertise has grown, Mr. Katz has become an apostolic hero to home cooks and celebrity chefs alike.

The Most Recognizable Voice in New York

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 17:30:13 +0000

Anyone who rides the New York City subway system is familiar with the friendly-yet-firm command to “stand clear of the closing doors, please.” This deep, sometimes vexing voice—which also apologizes for “unavoidable delays”—belongs to a man named Charlie Pellett. A radio anchor for Bloomberg News, Pellett was raised in London but cultivated an American accent by listening to the radio. His work for the M.T.A., which is done on a volunteer basis, is the only non-reporting voice-over work that he’s done. The filmmaker Andrew David Watson recently spent time with Pellett, to find out what it’s like to have the most recognizable voice in New York. “I’m sorry if you’re stuck in a train,” Pellett says. “I literally share your pain, because I’m probably stuck on that same train wondering, Am I gonna get to work on time?”

How Autistic Surfer Curt Harper Became a Southern California Legend

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 05:23:10 +0000

CURT is a short documentary about 50-year-old competitive surfer, Curt Harper. Diagnosed with autism as a child, Curt faced many challenges growing up, but one thing that came easy was his love for surfing. Over the past 21 years, Curt has become a beloved fixture in the Southern California surf scene, having played an unlikely, yet vital role in the growth and development of multiple generations of groms.

Pittsburgh: The Comeback

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 15:18:25 +0000

America’s steel city was left for dead after the industry collapsed in the 1980s. Unemployment soared, the population plummeted and corporations fled. But gradually, Pittsburgh weathered the rocky transition from an economy built on manufacturing to one driven by cutting edge research. This is the story of its rebirth.

Swimming with sharks

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 16:14:11 +0000

We head to the Bahamas to monitor tiger sharks, the largest predatory shark in the tropics. Spending five days and nights on a floating lab at Tiger Beach, a team of scientists - led by research assistant professor Neil Hammerschlag at the University of Miami - attempt to tag and track around 20 tiger sharks to learn more about their habitat. With around 100 million shark deaths every year, aggressive overfishing has threatened some species to extinction, despite the sharks playing a crucial role in the health of our oceans. The sharks are killed for their fins, flesh, and liver and conservationists have become increasingly alarmed by the low number of pregnant tiger sharks visiting the beach. "As an apex predator, meaning that nothing eats them, they live at the top of the food pyramid and play an important ecological role. When you remove that large predator there can be this domino effect on other members of the community," Hammerschlag says. We join the experts, who use innovative technology to trace the sharks' movements and habits, as they find new ways to protect the species. We also explore the relationship between the crew members on the floating lab and how they've come to view sharks despite their reputation as a menace of the seas.

Uncanny Lover: Building a Sex Robot

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 26 Jun 2015 13:24:39 +0000

Matt McMullen is developing a sex robot that uses technology to create the illusion of sentience. But is it enough to generate real emotions in its user?

Matt McMullen has proved that some people are willing to spend thousands on sex dolls.

Mr. McMullen, the creator of the RealDoll, says he has sold over 5,000 customizable, life-size dolls since 1996, with prices from $5,000 to $10,000. Not only can his customers decide on body type and skin, hair and eye color, but on a recent day in the company’s factory in San Marcos, Californi, a craftsman was even furnishing one doll with custom-ordered toes.

Mr. McMullen’s new project, which he is calling Realbotix, is an attempt to animate the doll. He has assembled a small team that includes engineers who have worked for Hanson Robotics, a robotics lab that produces shockingly lifelike humanoid robots.

Ricky & Doris: An Unconventional Friendship in New York City

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 08:10:17 +0000

Ricky Syers is an off-beat 50 year old street performer who found his calling as a puppeteer after a lifetime of manual labor. While performing in New York City’s Washington Square Park, he met Doris Diether, an 86 year old community activist. They became friends and he made a marionette that looks just like her. Now she’s joined his act and the two of them can often be seen performing together.