Surviving Progress

Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up.

Nov 04, 2011 1h 26m

7.4

36 votes

Documentary

Synopsis

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.

Title	Surviving Progress
Companies	Big Picture Media Corporation, ONF \| NFB
Countries	Canada
Keywords	china, based on novel or book, technology, overpopulation, economy, business, economics, ecology, south america, environmental, environment, environmentalism, chimpanzee, deforestation, rainforest, economic crisis, environmental issue, population explosion