Stare Into the Lights -Progression of our computerized world(Quest special)

In the film’s view, screen culture has also empowered corporate and government interests with the ideal narcotic with which to control us. Your Google searches offer these structures an unprecedented glimpse into your thoughts, desires, political leanings and other defining characteristics. Everyone from advertisers to politicians have used this data to modify our behaviors and make us subservient to their cause. Online surveillance constitutes a major threat to our basic right of privacy. Yet many users have accepted this intrusion as a necessary evil. Once we willingly relinquish our rights, and allow our lives to become fully immersed in the fantasy fulfillment of our machines, then we have lost our capacity for empathy and autonomy.

We live in a world of screens. More of us would know this, if we look up, and look around. The screens are everywhere, pervasive: Fingers that are glued to the screen which are glued to the eyes which are glued to the screen. We use them for work, play. But it’s much more than that. The screens use us, too. How did we get here? And where’s this journey leading us? What does that even look like? And is it what we want? Is this culture’s technology changing us and our societies for the better? Does it empower all of us—like it claims to—or does it only empower a select few at the expense of the many? What’s the price we pay to live in this pervasive electronic world? This era is unprecedented, and perhaps never before has technology been so prolific and shaped our lives so intimately. But there’s a dark side we don’t talk about. Why is that? Is it because we’re too busy being glued to the screen? Why do we shy away from questions about our collective addiction? What’s lurking under the surface? Could it be that with this era, the stakes have also never been so high that we’ve got it all wrong? Credits This film was made with no budget, not-for-profit, and is released to the world for free for the purposes of critical discourse, education, and cultivating social change. Content creators and/or participants may or may not agree with the views expressed in this film.

Segments

1. Introduction 2. “Progress” 3. No Accident 4. Mindset (Screen Culture) 5. It’s All About Me! 6. The Megamachine 7. Creeping Normalcy (Surveillance Camera Man) 8. Vegged Out 9. It’s Full of Sugar and It Tastes So Nice 10. The Real World 11. Credits