As the new Terminator film is having its premier in November, something odd has happened at the same time - two new sequels have already been pre-announced.

Why is that? Does pre-announcement increase the perceived value of the current movies? And do we really have to watch them all? The economy professor Micael Dahlen travels to San Fransisco to meet the psychologist, Barry Schwartz.

Why does a room feel colder when thinking about money and why do assholes driving fancy cars have to overtake smaller cars and scream at them? Is it the car that evokes the behaviour, or is it just that the people who can afford a fancy car aren't nice to begin with? The economy professor Micael Dahlen travels to Minneapolis to meet the professor Kathleen Vohs.

Why is it that speed-reading is considered a common thing, something that we do every day without even reflecting over it - but "speed-watching" (watching things at double the speed) divides into two camps - upset or obsessed? And how does what we watch affect us in the real world away from the screen? Why do people drive even faster having watched a Fast and the Furious Premiere?

Micael meets with the journalist Jeff Guo and goes to Boston to talk to the associate professor Jena Anupam at Harvard Medical School.

Icons have appeared during all moments of history. But what really defines an icon? And what happens when they fall from grace?

In episode four of Curious with Micael Dahlen we tell the story of the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. At only 16, she has taken the political stage by storm and has now become a modern icon. Today, only one year after her solo strike outside of the Swedish Parliament, thousands of people around the world have joined her Fridays for Future movement for climate action. But how could this unknown girl become one of the most talked about people in the world? Micael sits down with historian Dr. Piers Brandon, an expert on historical icons, to understand Greta’s rise to fame.

What happens to our relationship to money when we use less and less cash? And why is it harder to spend actual money that we have in our wallet than money on our account? In this episode Micael Dahlen talks to assistant professor Avni Shah at university of Toronto about the pain of payment.

Is it really true that social media makes us dumber and that we lose contact with our inner life experiences?

To understand the question, we need to get back to basics - what is intelligence and how does it affect our social engagements? Economics professor Micael Dahlen meets the world-renowned neurologist, Antonio Damasio, to try to understand what is going on with our relationship to social media and how it affects our brain. We also talk to Björn Liljeqvist, the head of Mensa International.

Many of us have been taught that it’s good to save our money in the bank, because then we will earn interest. But is that still the case, now that the interest rate in many countries is zero?

Micael visits The European Central Bank in Germany to speak with the Head of Monetary Policy, Dr. Katrin Assenmacher about why the interest rates are so low and what it means to our economy, but also about why it's not wise to save cash in the mattress.

Almost ten years ago Micael Dahlen met with Charles Manson in prison. A meeting that still haunts him and fascinates other people. But why? Studies show that 90 percent of us have thought about murdering and hurting other people, but extremely few of people in society even commit crimes. So why are drawn to stories about people who have committed unthinkable crimes? Are the stories we consume a sort of catharsis?

In this episode, Micael Dahlen tells of his meeting with Charles Manson and travels to Los Angeles to meet the television writer Ken Kristensen.