Interesting–I’d never heard of it and when I searched it . . . I found nothing but clips. Don’t get me wrong, the clips looked great, but I wanted to know more about the people that made the film. I’ll look more later.

Just from glancing at it, this seems like one of those films that is a lot of fun to watch and then compare how people reacted to it, what they saw etc. And maybe it’s best to dig up info about the creators of the film later. So as not to be influenced by what they intended.

Plus, it’s language neutral! I can watch it with my in-laws.

Another valid comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Na9-jV_OJI

this film is part of a trilogy – see http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/aboutus/aboutus.php

for those interested in ideas about technology and the ways it dominates our lives consider the book, “better off” by eric brende or check out his podcast here: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2004-08-26/eric-brende-better-harpercollins

Does “genius” = “amazingly awesome” in Jacob-speak?

When I first saw the movie, I was not prepared for the wisdom it revealed in its unfolding images. But at a later and more reflective age I was able to benefit from its take on consumerist society. The lessons I absorbed from Koyaanisqatsi are probably why I cannot visit Manhattan comfortably. But there are places in the volcanic wastelands of northeastern California that are oases of peace.

Ahh…There’s that romance again, Jacob.

Oh and as you increase PPE by destroying the world the pace only gets faster. People get richer and richer and richer…and busier and busier.

Brilliant film! I’ve seen it heaps of times, including twice with Phillip Glass + orchestra live. The music in the sequels is pretty good too, though the films are not as good – the 3rd is shit in fact.

Many of the patterns can be described by simple automaton effects and physical necessities; for instance, if you are driving a car, then you will keep a certain distance to the car ahead, and this distance will be somewhat in correlation with your relative speed. The end result of this means that a traffic flow at a red-light intersection will behave somewhat like a spring. It’s funny to think about the billions of brain cells involved in this action, with all sorts of complexity going on, and the end result being something that you can nearly sum up by a simple formula (Hooke’s law).

Many social interactions are similarly non-random, in the sense that for things to work well, there are often only a few configurations that are useful. Like stuffing blocks into a box; for them all to fit, they cannot all lie at random. Same sort of arguments apply in many cases, where something seemingly complex turns into something orderly and simple. Examples are often found in geology, atomic physics (probably), chemistry , and biology, the latter being controversial in the US (Creationism vs. common sense and taking a broad perspective of stuff).

I’d love someone to make a similar (half scientific, necessarily half speculative) movie about the whole of Earth’s history. There was a great (German?) short film about two boulders that view the history of man (in their viscinity) while chatting. I forget the title, unfortunately; I’d love to find it again.

@csdx: I agree that technology and humans are seen as the same tarnish on Earth, and this is painted quite black. However, this was part of the 70s’ zeitgeist and is beautifully presented in this film, whether or not you can still relate to this way of seeing things now. I’d also say that the Life-Out-Of-Balance message is still fairly valid today, though our present zeitgeists tend more to ignore or sugarcoat big problems.

@Jakob, about the nand-gate idea: our cells can be seen as individual creatures (as they once were), or as communities, or even as semi-autonomous ecosystems of their own. In the same way, we can be described like this, and so can the various entities and levels of society. Whether there is an uber-creature or not is probably a matter of interpretation, like asking whether a coral reef colony is an individual – or, indeed, whether you or I are really individuals more than collections of cells and processes, more than just the feeling of being a single thing. Cells, animals, societies, and culture, etc., all react to data by processing it and spitting new data out (you could think of logic gates; these days, people might mention neural network nodes instead; and both analogies might well be upgraded soon). Our brain cells do this quite obviously, but so do we, and our societies, and our cultures, and many other things besides (including atomic particles, in simple form; action gives a reaction): for instance, your particular processing is quite useful, namely to distill, analyze, and abstractify many impressions of the world and society into understanding, meaning, and advice, which you then kindly transmit on this blog. The “mindless masses” also serve a useful function, namely to relay what they get told, which serves to amplify stuff (though mostly crap), so that you can get your messages broadcast, for instance. The sum of these processes is thinking, whether at a cellular level, at our level, or at societal levels. However, the experience of thinking – the qualia of consciousness, for instance – probably differs a whole lot between levels and forms.

That was good. Made me sad though.

Great movie!