Description

City Lights as photographed from Earth's Orbit. ISS - Liege, Belgium (https://preview.redd.it/lgvamz5sew881.jpg?width=2128&format=pjpg&auto…)

If you are having a hard time thinking outside the box. And perhaps attempting to understanding how humanity may be perceived by an advanced Non-Human Intelligence (NHI). Perhaps it's time that you re-visit (Or watch for the first time) an art-house documentary called "Koyaanisqatsi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jM2WA2WbDc)." That's the trailer for the film.

As the title screen explains the meaning of the word:

https://preview.redd.it/q1y61ln8fw881.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto…

Koyaanisqatsi (From the Hopi Language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_language)), noun.

1. Crazy life.
2. Life in turmoil.
3. Life out of balance.
4. Life disintegrating.
5. A state of life that calls for another way of living.

It is important to note that this film lacks any kind of narrative. There are also zero special effects or CGI imaginary. It is simply a snap-shot of humanity at the time which the film was taped. A snapshot taken in the United States, representing a sample of one of most advanced civilizations on the planet. Modern day humanity. Through these lens humanity becomes a conglomerate or collective. It becomes one living thing. No longer a series of individuals but something else all together.

I would suggest watching the film if you haven't, and perhaps coming back and reading the following:

https://preview.redd.it/a126srndfw881.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto…

This film is a forced perspective by the artist who created it. And although there is no CGI. The film utilizes an array of tricks under its sleeve to convey its message. Via exaggerated time-lapses, odd angles, and forced perspectives. To make the viewer self aware of the impact humanity has had over the planet over millennia. And how humanity is simply an extension of the natural world. By all means this is a documentary about the human race. But it's hard to see it. Because we are part of it. So in order to see ourselves better, the film utilizes a music video format. In an attempt to make the viewer self-aware of what humanity would be perceived by an outsider. By gaining this perspective we can see ourselves. As we are.

https://preview.redd.it/76kqlsihfw881.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto…

When observing certain sequences (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNzH59-juFM). It becomes obvious over time. That we, as a collective, look to an outsider, almost like an organized colony of ants, or bees, or a sophisticated school of fish. The colorful flow of cars on a highway at night, is no different than that of blood cells within a blood vessel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH4i5NOw4U0). Our cities, towns and roads combined, look almost like small sections which compose a massive intricate network of circuit boards, or a very complex microchip.

The film opens up in the middle of nowhere. The Canyonlands National Park (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Green_River…) in Utah (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Canyonlands+National+Park/@38.26835…). Where there lies a mural with aboriginal pictographs (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/GreatGalleryMiddl…). This small manmade impact in the environment is dwarfed by the enormity and grandiosity of the landscapes which engulf this area. Still, this mural has remained over the centuries. And it is a small sample of mankind's impression over the natural world. It is also in contrast to the expanse of the lands where this mural sits. A territory slowly, but surely, re-shaped solely by natural forces. We look around the canyon and witness the beauty of the landscape. Which was forged and shaped through millennia by the forces of the natural world. Erosion and such.

https://preview.redd.it/7v99jznifw881.jpg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto…

Well, I think that these very same forces which have for millennia re-shaped the planet. These forces also manifest through mankind. We are nature unleashed. We are life to an extreme and out of balance. Constantly reshaping our environment at an exponential level, compared to the relative progression of the natural processes responsible for reshaping the Earth. We are a force of nature. A tsunami of people who build and destroy and re-make things over and over. We are in constant transmutation of the world which surrounds us. And although we think ourselves as "something other" or "separate from the natural world." We are not.

When you look at humanity as a whole. You do not perceive the individual. For the individual is irrelevant at this scale of observation. Humanity then, becomes no different than a growing mold on the surface of the forest floor. A conglomerate. A living thing. A greater whole made out of individuals. Anyway, I think this film is useful for anyone trying to understand the phenomenon.

TL;DR: We do look like small ants from up there.