Sprawling from Grace: Driven to Madness
Sprawling from Grace: Driven to Madness is a documentary that puts forwards a strong argument: that the car culture along with the suburban sprawl has reached the dead end. In the documentary, the city planners warn the public that the insufficient growth and the development of the suburban areas threaten both the economy of the country as well as its community. The issue of the fuel scarcity is also explored. Moreover, there is a deep review of why the alternative fuel will fail to arrive before the fossil-fuel crisis starts.
There is a clear and concise critique of the sprawl in the movie, although the narrative is quite sympathetic to the story of how the nation has found itself in this critical situation. According to Sprawling from Grace, living outside the city was a dream everyone wanted to accomplish, it was appealing and affordable for some, so the population’s gravitation towards it was completely understandable. However, a question arises: what should be done now?
It is speculated in the documentary that “our love affair with the car is fading” (Edwards, 2008). Although, this is not a grounded observation but a positive or wishful thinking. At least in the United States of America, an average individual that drives still loves his or her vehicle because of its convenience and the degree of liberation it offers. What car drivers really detests are the tedious traffic jams, rude drivers on the road, repair or maintenance bills, and, last but not least, the high prices on gas. To sum up, an average American cannot imagine the life without a car because the current arrangement of living makes it very hard to imagine.
The Biotech Revolution: Visions of the Future
The Biotech Revolution: Visions of the Future is a second episode of the three-part series that depicts Dr. Michio Kaku’s predictions of the DNA screening being able to prevent diseases. With the help of the lab-grown organs, a human body will be able to repair as quickly and easily as a car. As an ultimate goal, Michio Kaku predicts that the process of aging itself will be slowed down. However, the main question is: how the technologies related to the biotech revolution will affect who people are and how they live.
There is a prevalent theme that with the rise of the new technologies that will help to overcome trauma and disease, humans will be considered ‘less interesting’ and will lose their ‘humanity’. This concept is a bit confusing because a rational person will always choose the absence of pain and suffering connected with the disease over being ‘human’ or ‘more interesting’. The documentary also tries to warn the viewers about the various downsides of living longer; however, these downfalls are not specified. Moreover, the narrative spends a lot of time on listing the negative sides of the innovative technologies that will prolong the human life.
On the bright side, The Biotech Revolution: Visions of the Future is a science documentary that shows care, understanding, and compassion towards the human race instead of strictly focusing on the scientific advantages of the revolution: being able to grow human organs in the laboratories, changing the genetic heritage, enhance the abilities, or even shape the evolution of the mankind.
The Technological Unemployment
The Reality of Technological Unemployment shows the reality pf the technological progress replacing human labor, thus, causing unemployment within the population. The documentary depicts thousands of people queueing for job fairs to find a job because of being sacked because of the technological progress. Automated kitchens, cars that are able to drive by themselves, concrete printer and other technological advances took the job from many employees not only in the States, but across the world.
However, there is more to it that the mere job loss, the workers that managed to stay employed have also been affected by the technological advances. The technologies do not create a sufficient autonomy for the employees as well as undermine their safety.
On the other hand, mechanization is much more productive, efficient, and sustainable than human labor in almost every sector of the modern economy, thus, the mechanization is pretty self-explanatory. The unemployment rates are fundamentally the results of the advances the mechanization offers. The issue is that the government does very little to provide the unemployed with the new jobs. Today, only the service sector that is also challenged by mechanization is only real hub left for employing massive bulks of the unemployed population.
In my opinion, The Reality of Technological Unemployment has an overexaggerated narrative that tries to push a political agenda. Despite the high unemployment rates, technological advances are not the main reason for people being unemployed as the economy, in general, plays a major role. To sum up, there is a lot the government should do to provide the population with jobs; however, the technological advances should not be overlooked despite the unemployment.
References
Bigsteelguy. (2012). The Reality of Technological Unemployment. Web.
Edwards, D. M. (Producer), & Edwards, D. M. (Director). (2008). Sprawling from Grace: Driven to Madness. United States: Emotion Picture Productions.
MacMillan, I. (Writer), & MacMillan, I. (Director). (2007). Visions of the Future: The Biotech Revolution. In A. Laking (Producer). United Kingdom: BBC Four.