Surviving Progress (2011)

Name: Surviving Progress
Director: Harold Crooks
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2011-11-04
Duration: 1 h 26 min
Cast: Stephen Hawking, David Suzuki, Jane Goodall

Documentary

Director: Harold Crooks

Cast: Stephen Hawking, David Suzuki, Jane Goodall

Runtime86 min

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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.

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Fans of thought-provoking documentaries will appreciate the unique blend of intellectual depth and visually striking presentation in Surviving Progress, the 2011 film directed by Harold Crooks. By drawing insights from thinkers like Stephen Hawking and Jane Goodall, the film offers a sobering yet illuminating examination of how progress can inadvertently lead societies towards collapse, making it a must-see for anyone interested in the challenges facing our globally-connected civilization.

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Surviving Progress is a 2011 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, loosely based on A Short History of Progress, a book and a 2004 Massey Lecture series by Ronald Wright about societal collapse.