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Overlooked & Underrated Docs & Features
(click on broll or dschwartz for all his posts)
Surviving Progress: Our Self Destruction
"Surviving Progress" is another look at humanity's geometrically accelerating destruction of itself and its environment. The film's key point is the irony of our massive intelligence, as manifested by our massive accomplishments, in light of this self destruction. What distinguishes "Surviving Progress" is money – and I'm not being glib or crass – and one name, Martin Scorsese, credited as an executive producer.
The film's funding and the legendary name make for a finely honed, razor sharp, relentless attack on our delusions about progress and growth. Also distinguishing this film are more names – the many interviewees whose names and work may be unfamiliar to many people. Indeed, the only names I recognized of the 22 speakers were Stephen Hawking and Jane Goodall.
"Surviving Progress" attempts to support the implied optimism of its title with a few pieces of hope at the end of a deluge of horrific information. One of these proposed benevolent factors is the emergence of the internet as a possible mitigating influence to our destructive behaviors – the World Wide Web as a planetary analog to the human brain. This idea is central to Tiffany Shlain's instant-classic, "Connected". I'm not sure. If the analog is too accurate, we're still in big trouble. As "Surviving Progress" points out: We're operating twenty-first century software, our brain, on 50,000 year old hardware.
The hope, of course, is that in addition to playful cats we will be finding "Surviving Progress" and many other cautionary documentaries – in one form or another – on the net. Of course, you found it here. Pass it on!