James Burke : Connections, Episode 8, "Eat, Drink and be Merry", 1 of 5 (CC)

Watch Entire Show: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3D0EBFF8602E157D&playnext=1

More Shows: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JamesBurkeWeb&view=playlists

Episode 8 of James Burke's most well-known series "Connections" which explores the surprising and unexpected ways that our modern technological world came into existence. Each episode investigates the background of usually one particular modern invention and how it came into being. These explorations are an attempt to locate the "connections" between various historical figures who seemingly had nothing to do with each other in their own times, however once connected, these same figures combined to produce some of the most profound impacts on our modern day world; in a "1+1=3" type of way.

It is this type of investigation that is the core idea behind the Knowledge Web project, whereby sophisticated software is being developed to attempt to discover these subtle interconnections automatically. See http://k-web.org.

Note: This clip contains one of Mr. Burke's most well-known scenes: the famous "rocket takeoff scene" (also mentioned in re-Connections : see playlists)

See channel page for purchase options.

Have you noticed what's happened to plastic
in the last 10 years? [►1968-1978◄]

It's become something in it's own right.

I mean early on, if you made something in plastic,

you had to make it look exactly like
what it was replacing.

I mean particularly leather, or people wouldn't buy it.

It's not so long since the word "plastic" was an insult!

Cheap and nasty, remember?

Not any more.

It's as if we suddenly changed our attitude

to what "real" meant,

and recognize plastic for what it is:

Something that permits us to own objects
that we couldn't possibly afford,

if they had to be made of the so-called "real thing".

So now it's everywhere.

I mean look at this office:

That's plastic

so is that

so are these

so is this

and especially, what's inside it☺

There's plastic paint on the wall

there's plastic wood on this desk

my shirt, is plastic.

And now there's a new generation of objects that
*can only* be made in plastic,

like that casette.

It's a plastic world.

And because of plastic,

it's a plastic world in a different sense:
In the original sense of the word.

It changes it's shape, easily.

So now we no longer buy

the thing we want,

we buy the shape of that thing that we prefer.

And when the shapes change regularly, which they do,

we begin to want them to change regularly.

And the plastics industry is ready-and-willing
to satisfy our demand.

Or do they create it?

So, our plastic world changes.

Quicker every year.

We live in a world of

fast turnover

built-in obsolescence

novely

thanks to plastics.

You can mould it

pre-form it

blow it - extrude it

or...

...most meaningfully of all:

You can cut it into little rectangles.

*This shape*, is the shape of our future.

Because the only way the money can move around
fast enough to keep up with trade

is electronically.

From bank to bank...

...through computers,

or in the case of you and me,

through this:

The credit card.

This is "you",

coded into that magnetic tape.

See?

In there is the world's newest virtue:

"Credit worthiness" - are you a good risk or not?

And what people need to know about you,
before you can become a coded signal on that stripe,

makes this *much more* than a substitute for money:

It's a judgement on you.

And that's why here, where they make credit cards,

the security is so tight.

[background: police siren sound]

Because you steal one truckload of credit cards,
and you've practically got the key to...

...oh, every bank in the country!

The question is:
Is any security tight enough?

As the data, on you and your credit, flows...

from bank - to shop - to employers -
to police - to tax inspector

what happens to privacy?

And if you don't want credit,
how do you live in a world where they don't take cash?

What will happen

when being in-debt *all the time*
is the normal way to live?

The first time that opportunity came up,
to live "on credit" on a major scale

happened when the banks opened

about 600 years ago.

And when it did,

the behaviour of the people involved

might remind you of yourself under similar circumstances.

Look what it did to them: (☻)

[♪ baroque, soothing ♪]

The "big spenders" in question were the 14th century
"dukes of Burgundy"

And what they did with the money they borrowed
raised every eyebrow in Euorope!

[♫ ♫ ...]

Oh, the over-indulgent excesses they got up to
look very elegant to us.

But behind all the courtly dancing,

Dutchess swapping?

There were only four dukes of Burgundy
and the whole dynasty only lasted 94 years from 1383.

But what a time they had!

It was a crafty Italian banker, who'd kicked it all off,

by lending the first duke
enough money to buy a dukedom.

Now he knew he'd get his money back☺

'cause the new dukedom included
half the manufacturing centers of Flanders!

Places like Bruges.

The second duke picked up his Father's debts

pawned his jewels

assasinated a few friends☺

and generally kept the party moving right along.

[♫ ♫ ...]

[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]

[♫ ♫ ...]

[women laughing...]
[♫ ♫ ...]

[sound of goat...]
[♫ ♫ ...]

[♫ ♫ ...]

The third duke kept four mistresses in every castle,
[♫ ♫ ...]

ruled the country stretching from Holland
to the Swiss border, [♫ ♫ ...]

and... drank.
[♫ ♫ ...]

[♫ ♫ ...]

[sound of duck quacking]
[♫ ♫ ...]

[♫ ♫ ...]

[♪ stops ♪]

The last of the dukes was a real wierdo,
they called him "Charles the Bold".

He ..uh..

was an egomaniac and he saw himself
as a sort of "2nd Julius Cesar".

Didn't go for women much.

Wore more jewels in more places than
anybody else in Europe.

And he was so convinced that he going to be made emperor

that he chased the real emperor around
with a crown in his saddle bags

so that the emperor could proclaim him Heir to the Throne.

'course the emperor kept dodging the crucial meeting.

He also went on long military campaigns, to...
increase his territory,

and lost them all!

'course, Charles was up to his neck in hawk

thanks to an ambitious bank manager called
"Thomas Portinari"

He worked for a bunch of Florentine bankers;
the Medici.

Ran their local office in Bruges.

And the deal he made with Charles was that
Portinari collected the rent on Charles' property,

places like this:

And Charles got to borrow money whenever he needed it.

At nice fat interest rates, of course:

The first modern nation run "on tick".

Well in 1470, Portinari got a letter,
from no-less than the president of his bank

who also happened to be running Florence at the time,
a man called "Lorenzo the Magnificant"☺

Saying:

"Watch it when you're uhh ... dealing with
Charles of Burgundy, won't you."

Of course Portinari ignored this... "advice".

And when Charles went off on new military disasters,

Portinari would write a letter to his friends
who had a bank near the battle...

and they would turn up on spot with "bags full of loot"...

all of which, naturally enough, tended to make Charles
an admirer of things "Italian".

Especially their soldiers. He was bringing them in
to train his own men in new tactics.

And it was the Italian connection
that finally blew it for Charles.

Because in 1476, he decided to strengthen
his lines of communication with Italy

by moving into an area south of him.

Now that was going to bump him up against the Swiss.

Still... who were a bunch of "mountain louts"
to stand up against Charles THE BOLD of Burgundy?

The greatest thing since "Sliced Venison"☺

So, off he set.

And in doing so, triggered off a series of events
that were to end,

500 years later,

with the landing on the Moon.

[♪ horn, semi-comical ♪]

Now... the Swiss economy:

Timber, a bit of dairy produce, couldn't pay
for a real army.

So Charles reckoned the whole thing would be a push-over.

uhh... wrong.

[♪ urgent, lurking ♪]

Waiting for him in the woods was a Swiss "secret weapon"!

But even if he'd known, Charles would have laughed.

Because at Grandson in Switzerland,
on March the 2nd 1476,

this was what he'd bought on credit:

Fully-armoured Mercenaries!

And what could a few Swiss pikes do against that?☺

Well... this:

[♪ comic ♪]

[♪ discordant, cymbals ♪]

Charles' army was routed!

A year later it happened again:

Charles was killed,

and that was the end of his family tree.

[♪ strong ♪]

It was how the Swiss used the pike that did it.

In a formation called "the Pike Square".

You get a... a feel for it's power
with these modern soldiers:

Any cavalry idiot-enough to charge this lot
got itself skewered on the 4-foot steel tips!

But the real magic...

...was the way the pike square moved: