well actually, it’s not a movie, it’s a book. but, maybe someday it will be turned into a movie, and then i’ll be the one having the last laugh. so anyhoo, i’ve never written these ideas down before, and i might be wandering a little here and there, but i think in the end you’ll be a fan.
the forward or preface of the book will sound a little something like this:
the way that humans live now is not normal. if you are alive right now, and living in even somewhat of a priveledged society, then you are living on the verge of the most advanced technology that has ever existed on earth, and possibily the universe. you are living in a world with more people than has ever existed before. but that society and it’s technology and population are not very old at all. in fact, most of the technologies that we take for granted have only been in common use for the last 20 years or so, and the world population was about 1 billion only 100 years ago. let that soak in for a second.
i could really go on and on, but you get the idea. the actual book, however, will focus a little more in this direction:
overall, people are not as overly amazed by the state of the world and the way we live as they should be. the book will be divided into a few broad categories (communication, transportation, population, energy, etc), with specific examples within, and expose the complexity and awesomeness of our everday lives. it will do this however, with no political agenda, never saying what is right or what is wrong. it will simply present the information as facts in a way that i think has never been done before.
how many times, while driving through a major metropolitan area, do you take a second to realize what is happening? are you amazed by the thousands of cars that are zippy around you? does it amaze you that those cars are powered by sludge that we pump from the ground, sludge that is the remains of ancient life that onced lived? does it amaze you that those cars have to drive on roads that take months to create just a few miles? how many thousands of miles of roads have we created? how many times have we RE-paved them? how many man hours is that all together? does the immensity of scale involved here have any affect on you?
and so on and so on. it is sorta like a huge expose about the world. obviously i won’t be able to include everything, and i have to make sure that it is readable, but it seems like a best seller to me!
i think your face is the best seller.
I’d read it, yeah. I’ve thought the same sorts of things about the natural world, too. Like, in the same way that you exposed the awesome complexity of cars driving down a road, I often think about the awesome complexity of blood moving through miles of veins in a single human. Stuff like that.
The reason why it could be a popular seller reminds me of the reason why books like Bryson’s “A short history of nearly everything” or Hawking’s “The Universe in Nutshell” are successful–they’re sort of general exposes about stuff that’s really cool (even though Hawking’s are NOT, as they claim to be, readable to the average or even above-average person). It’s just an interesting, “kind-of-makes-you-think”, story where, after you read it, you’d talk about it when you met people like, “Yeah, totally! I read this book that said how we take the complexity of roads and cars for granted…” etc.”
anyway, I will, as with anything, support it.
I’m psyched to read it. go for it. It’d be nice to have written a book.