Backlight

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  E1The Silent Economic Crisis

  Oct 8, 2025· 23m

  According to former London banker and math genius Gary Stevenson, we are in the middle of a major economic crisis — but not one marked by a sudden shock like a stock market crash. He believes an economic crisis can look like house prices that just keep rising.

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  E2China’s major charm offensive

  Oct 16, 2025· 23m

  Together with political scientist Maria Repnikova, we dive into the world of soft power. In her book *Chinese Soft Power*, she explores how China no longer seeks to persuade the world through force, but through attraction — power that bubbles up from below rather than being imposed from the top down. Soft power is often associated with tender-hearted leaders gently stroking their subjects with a velvet glove. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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  E3Apartheid as a business model

  Oct 22, 2025· 19m

  According to author and investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein, Big Tech and governments will increasingly join forces to control — and ultimately oppress — populations. He argues that all of Palestine has effectively become a laboratory for the surveillance industry. The notion that every Palestinian poses a threat has become so mainstream that everyone must be monitored. To keep that system running, Israel has for years received assistance from Big Tech, including one of the world’s fastest-growing tech companies: Palantir — named after a seeing stone with prophetic powers from *The Lord of the Rings*.

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  E4When will the AI bubble burst?

  Nov 6, 2025· 21m

  The AI industry is a growing bubble. Investments in companies building AI applications are hot — very hot. The question is where we are on the wave right now. Is it nearing its peak, with the AI bubble about to burst, or are we still far from that point? From Shanghai, Chinese economist Andy Xie analyzes and comments on the relationship between the American and Chinese financial markets for outlets such as *Bloomberg* and the *South China Morning Post*. His analyses are often seen as contrarian and provocative. “America’s idea of winning is to create a God. That God will live in San Francisco. And the God works for America,” says Xie.

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  E5From wrestling hero to autocrat

  Nov 19, 2025· 22m

  From wrestling character to president of the White House: Trump owes his rise, according to journalist and writer Josephine Riesman, to his experience of show wrestling. She examines the close bond between Trump and the professional wrestling industry. From an early age, Trump has been a fan of professional wrestling: an entertainment sport where everything is about dragging the audience through spectacle and deceit. For Trump, this tactic has become the basis of his political approach.

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  E6Fascism is back

  Nov 24, 2025· 15m

  For the bystander perhaps a remarkable move: Elon Musk who is encouraging the radical right-wing German party AfD. For Timothy Snyder, as a professor of history specializing in Holocaust and Eastern Europe, anything but surprising. Snyder delves into the train of thought of oligarchs, who increasingly know how to find each other on the world stage.

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  E7The enshittification of the internet

  Nov 26, 2025· 21m

  American activist and writer Cory Doctorow on why the big American tech companies can criticize their products with impunity and we continue to use them anyway. The endless stream of ads nowadays on Google, Instagram and YouTube not only creates frustration, but also genuine concerns. Doctorow coined the term Enshitfification for what goes wrong with the internet and made a thorough analysis of how that could have happened. Because the classic idea, that if a product or service is no longer good, the free market automatically switches to better alternatives, no longer applies in the digital economy.

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  E8The murder of capitalism

  Dec 1, 2025· 19m

  Capitalism has not only been broken, but also replaced by something much worse, according to economist and former finance minister in Greece, Yanis Varoufakis. He has been studying the developments of the market for years and argues that capitalism is on its last legs and has been overtaken by something new. In his book Technofeudalism: What capitalism killed, he calls the new system technofeodalism. A traditional capitalist gave 85 percent of the profits to the employees. At a company like Meta, employees only get one percent.

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  E9Away with the super rich

  Dec 5, 2025· 18m

  Ingrid Robeyns (1972) is an economist and philosopher and professor of Ethics of Institutions at Utrecht University. She is the founder of limitarism. According to Robeyns, we need to move towards a system in which the strongest shoulders actually carry the heaviest burdens and inequalities are curtailed. The excess money of the super-rich can bring a lot of good to people and society. And in the end, everyone benefits from that, including the super-rich themselves.

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  E10Get rid of the diploma arrogance

  Dec 8, 2025· 19m

  Not class but merit will determine everyone's position in life. Away with the aristocracy, live the meritocracy, where everyone would have equal opportunities at the start, and those who deserve it all would end up as winners. But according to scientist and political philosopher Michael Sandel, meritocracy is a plausible cause of rising fascism. Because implicitly it means: if you have a hard time and do not obtain a diploma, then that must be your own fault. For many people, this led to resentment and anger.

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  E11Consultant in power

  Dec 10, 2025· 18m

  and talk to Mariana Mazzucato about her book The Big Con, about how consultants are weakening our companies, hollowing out our governments and harming our economies. Young talent prefers a consultant job massively over working for the government. As a result, there is little to no knowledge with governments. The consultancy industry is cleverly immersed in that gap, not only issuing advice, but also implementing policy. Large consultancies give the impression that they offer objective expertise, but their goal is mainly to make the government dependent for as long as possible.

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  E12Why reality does not exist

  Dec 15, 2025· 19m

  Carlo Rovelli is theoretically physicist and quantum mechanics is his great love. He argues that the reality does not exist, because the reality we experience arises mainly from the interaction we have with it. We create our reality ourselves, and when we come to see that individual, indivisible parts do not exist and everything around us only takes on meaning through the relationships with other things and events, we also see ourselves differently. That insight prompted Rovelli to become political activism, because our thinking and action is changing the world. He is called the poet of physics.

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  E13Does satire still have a future

  Dec 19, 2025· 24m

  Democracy is under pressure and in the post-truth era, truth has given way to spectacle. How can we, now that reality seems more absurd than ever, best question power? Does this increasingly absurd reality call for a different way of resisting? We follow an action by The Yes Men, American art collective that uses identity theft to question politics. And a meeting with the German art collective Das Zentrum für Politische Schönheit that draws attention to the rise of AfD, and how.

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  E14The dark site of the energy transition

  Dec 22, 2025· 26m

  French journalist Guillaume Pitron warns of the shadow side of the energy transition and digitization. Rare metals are essential for the production of electric vehicles, fighter jets, wind turbines and solar panels, as well as for our smartphones, computers, tablets and other everyday devices. But most people actually know very little about the way they are extracted, or about the ecological and geopolitical cost of this. Pitron wrote the book The Rare Metals War: The Dark Side of Clean Energy and Digital Technologies.

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  E15Are we alone in the universe?

  Dec 24, 2025· 28m

  Astronomer Casper Farret Jentink works deep in the forests above Geneva on one of the biggest questions humanity has ever asked itself: are we alone in the universe? We are born alone, we die alone, and in between we try to understand what it means to be there at all. In a workshop, half-observatory, half science fiction decor, astronomer Casper Farret Jentink builds instruments with Swiss precision that can accurately measure light from distant stars to five silicon atoms, in search of a second Earth.

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  E16The new perspective on our evolution

  Dec 26, 2025· 25m

  How did complex life on Earth come about? Thanks to scientists like bioinformist Berend Snel, we know that a unique event has occurred on our planet billions of years ago.

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  E17Drones that think

  Dec 31, 2025· 22m

  The moment when humanity is on the verge of creating something that can think, learn, feel, or even desire to survive—perhaps at our expense—sometimes seems closer than ever. Can we predict the future to protect ourselves? Or are we in the process of creating something that will surpass our own understanding? Cognitive scientist Marie Safar Postma tries to understand our consciousness by designing and building systems that not only perceive but also anticipate and learn.

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  E1Error 404: het internet in crisis

  Jan 5, 2025· 40m

  The World Wide Web, once a symbol of hope and freedom, has grown 35 years later into a web of commercial interests, dependency and disinformation. A number of large tech companies determine what we see and do, while democracy and autonomy are under pressure. How did it come to this and how can we make the internet available to everyone again? These pioneers are committed to a healthier internet that takes our human rights into account: Rudy van Belkom of the Future Image of Technology Foundation, MEP Kim van Sparrentak, Nabiha Syed of Mozilla Foundation, action group Ctrl + Alt + Reclaim and lawyer Ramya Krishnan.

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  E2De strijd om de diepzee

  Feb 2, 2025· 50m

  At the bottom of the deep sea, large quantities of cobalt, nickel and copper are apparently there for the taking. We are in the crucial phase of the energy transition and are at the beginning of a geopolitical race to mine these raw materials for our batteries. A devilish dilemma, because with it we inevitably cause damage to the bottom of the deep sea. A look at the companies in this emerging industry, a deep-sea biologist and actions by environmental organizations.

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  E3De kunst van het wegkijken

  Mar 2, 2025· 54m

  How has the world been able to watch the human rights violations in Gaza for so long? Why do we look away from this and what are the consequences for the meaning of international law in the future? A tour of those Dutch people who do feel responsible and speak their conscience, such as civil servants who have protested every week and who are prepared to accept the ultimate consequences. With Liesbeth Zegveld, Alma Mustafic, Berber van der Woude, Angélique Eijpe and Jan Pronk.

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  E4Game of Drones

  Apr 6, 2025· 55m

  In the pressure cooker of war in Ukraine, drone warfare is developing at breakneck speed. How close are we to the ultimate killer drone, an autonomous weapon that selects and destroys a target without human intervention? An investigation into how this technology is changing the battlefield forever. What does it mean when machines are given a decisive role in matters of life and death? Can we limit this technology to the battlefield, or will it seep into the wider society? And does it really matter whether you are killed by a human or a machine?

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  E5De consultant regeert

  May 11, 2025· 55m

  Can we still do without consultants? A study into the role of consultants within the Dutch government in collaboration with the theatre group De verleiders. While the government outsources tasks, the influence of external advisors is growing. What does this mean for the future of public administration? The proliferation of consultants within the Dutch government is the result of a deliberate management culture that has driven out professionals and replaced them with managers. But the more knowledge is outsourced, the weaker and more dependent the government itself becomes. Who is actually still in charge here? With Mariana Mazzucato, Simon van Teutem and Harry Starren, among others.

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  E1Dwarse scheepsbouwers

  Apr 7, 2024· 50m

  After decades of globalization, many industries have disappeared from Europe, but shipbuilder Royal Bodewes on the Winschoterdiep has been keeping its head above water for more than 200 years. It is even building a ship for an Asian customer. Made for Taiwan, instead of in Taiwan. Have the roles been reversed? Employees from all over the world work in shifts to build five ships at the same time. The company does everything slightly differently and is averse to fuss. A new generation is ready to take over the family business: sisters Nienke and Carlijn Bodewes are determined not to be the last generation to keep the company afloat.

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  E2Uit de kleren

  May 12, 2024· 58m

  There is now so much clothing in the world that the next six generations can be clothed with it. Four pioneers want to improve the unruly clothing industry. Annemieke Koster produces new textiles from local, recycled fibers and discarded textiles. Caterina Occhio tries to make luxury brands such as Chloe, Armani and Aspesi more sustainable and more social. Lara Wolters has been advocating in the European Parliament for more transparent production chains for almost five years. Ex-fast fashion influencer Sara Dubbeldam sued Primark for misleading advertising.

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  E3Naomi Klein and the pull to the right

  Jun 2, 2024· 58m

  What should progressive Europe do with the big move to the right? How is it possible that the words used by the international right-wing nationalist movement are so similar to those of progressives? Publicist and political activist Naomi Klein delved into the world of conspiracy theorists and the extreme right following a case of mistaken identity. She wrote the 'self-examination' book Doppelganger, a journey to the mirror world about it. She explores that mirror world and our political future.

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  E4Nederland bij de les

  Sep 8, 2024· 50m

  What is going on with our education? The need for tutoring and homework help is greater than ever. Does this create a new gap and greater inequality of opportunity in society? Parents, education experts and activists are looking for a better future for our education. Louisa Boulkhrif and dozens of volunteers run a large tutoring school in Rotterdam for children whose parents have little money. Education activist Sezgin Cihangir is director of the Netherlands Mathematical Institute, which offers its own method for, among other things, arithmetic and language. He advocates making almost all forms of tutoring redundant.

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  E5Bouwen met de boer

  Oct 6, 2024· 51m

  Pioneers work with natural, local materials as arable farmers or in construction. Luc and Wout de Wit grow hemp in Utrecht, among other things, with which they will build biobased tiny houses. The Drenthe farmer Koos Vos has become a grower of elephant and mammoth grass. Landscape architect Julia Watson shows the Fab Tree Hab, a building partly built by willows, in the woods north of New York. A new perspective for farmers and builders, which also provides nature restoration and a healthier living environment. Is it too good to be true? Not if it is up to these pioneers.

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  E6De moeder van alle mythen

  Nov 3, 2024· 50m

  In Dutch society, mothers bear a disproportionate share of the financial, emotional and practical costs of raising the next generation. How did that come about, and is that actually what makes mothers, children and society happy? A plea for the village from the statement: It takes a village to raise a child. With: writer Aminatta Forna, anthropologist and primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, science journalist Lucy Jones and historian Noëmi Willemen.

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  E7Greed is green

  Dec 1, 2024· 50m

  What happens when climate and nature become investment objects? Billions are made by depleting nature, but making money from protecting nature is still difficult. Yet that seems to be changing. In the world of Green Capital, the environment is no longer just a matter of ethics, but also of returns. With carbon farmer Sjoerd Miedema, emissions trader Wouter Alblas, former Wall Street whiz kid Zack Knight and European Central Bank board member Frank Elderson.

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