Surviving Progress
Surviving Progress
| 04 November 2011 (USA)
Surviving Progress Trailers

Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.

Reviews
MamaGravity

good back-story, and good acting

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Numerootno

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

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Roy Hart

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

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Leoni Haney

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

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Moriaty Moriaty

I read some not all that good reviews of this title, cause its simple, not enough informing, but this one is on the top of my list.Maybe some need to hear through documentary that only few percent are the one who are controlling if they still didn't conclude that them selves.Some of topics will be new to people who wonder why there is no other color for iphone5 or why my neighbor has better car than me...I hope that for the moment some questions will pop up in their heads.Im now in Europe country living for over 3 decades, and even here I can feel every bit of that few percent of chosen which are controlling the foot on our heads. And what about Africa and third world countries? We are good now, have internet, watching movies, eating food from stores, driving around in cars...but what about our children? Or their? There is just too few which are brave and consistent enough to get in that fight, and thats sad. We are just lost in fog of materialism, and thats whats this documentary is about, getting out of that fog, and seeing what obstacles we have to conquer.I really enjoyed the documentary, its eye opening, and for those who already know the story, movies, and books, still should be a piece to applaud. Its important we have more and more this kind of documentaries to get to even larger number of people.If you don't like documentaries by default, and still live in fantasy only, try this one, maybe it will be revealing to you. And there are many more not to make you smarter, to throw that knowledge as show of, but to question you're sense of perceiving this world, civilization in whole.its not about the phones, its about our enlightenment as species.

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mkivtt

What a terribly poor documentary. The makers apparently couldn't decide whether to complain about capitalism, the environment, or Wall Street, and they jump back and forth without much of any cohesion. One good example is that after ~15 minutes of talking about progress, they jump to some guy in China, only to spend the next 15 minutes covering his tour guide business; something that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on anything covered before or after. These guys sure have a thing or two to learn about editing and storyboarding.Oh, did I mention the entire film has nothing to do with progress? It's merely an anti-capitalist rant that says we should "forgive all debts" (as if private property rights didn't make this the greatest nation on earth), cut earth's population by two thirds (let me guess.. the socialist elite would of course be chosen to survive, right?) and that consumption is bad, bad, bad (the socialist elite will tell you what you're allowed to eat, do and own... and of course they themselves will be exempt).What a pathetic piece of garbage.

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bm-hadapsarkar

All the issues are very nicely addressed with the detailed pros and cons. very thought provoking and I hope we all learn from it and start respecting the mother nature and the surroundings... once again congrats to the team for making such an effort to show us where do we stand today!!!! I hope the movie is showed to all the school and college going students to make a general awareness and are being made aware of how can they can make there commitment in the coming years. The detailed research of the contributors and there experience will surely guide us all in our way of looking towards our daily life and help make a change.

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mformoviesandmore

The basic content has it right on the money. Or at least, I share similar views as were portrayed in this documentary.Unfortunately the documentary was made in a formulaic way. Cut and paste archival video, talking heads, animal behaviour – and the most irritating soundtrack imaginable.There was an irony that the amount of distracting video footage used and the glossy sheen to the presentation method (well groomed and moisturised faces, perfectly framed and preaching) was more like the very superficiality the documentary claimed to be railing against.In summary it did a little job of stating the problem though the impact of the documentary will be negligible. Those who couldn't care less will continue not to. Those who do care learnt little new.And let's face it - heading in to space will not be a solution for the masses. Perhaps a change in climate (either man-induced or one of the natural ones) will cause a substantial reduction in life – and allow the planet a breather before we start it all over again. There was nothing in the doco to suggest otherwise.

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