MovieChat Forums > Human (2015) Discussion > Google's involvement?

Google's involvement?

posted 8 years ago by eljefemartin
2 replies | jump to latest

I watched the first part and had to postpone watching the others (because it is late at night). Needless to say, I won't have an easy rest tonight and this documentary will keep being on my mind, hopefully for years to come. What I'm wondering about is why they extend a huge thanks to Google at the end? Was this financed by Google? (it would explain why it is free on youtube and available in High Definition)

What's Google's ambition with making this documentary and how far are they involved? I don't want to scorn them for being a succesful company and I believe the founders have humanistic believes at the core of them, but ultimately, these are the kind of profit/growth driven enterprises that put a lot of people into a situation they cannot escape from. If Google wants to change this, they need to finance a revolution and not a documentary.

I appreciate the making of this thought-provoking documentary. It shows that money can be used to create something of importance, instead of stacking it in bank accounts and giving out loans. It feels like the world wants to change, but as long as we trust enterprises to be at the foundation of that change, we still don't understand what it means to be "human".

[–] Sandoz 8 years ago

I'm glad you also realize that no matter how altruistic their intentions, these grants that corporations throw at endeavors (however noble they may be) like this just mask the fact that they still continue to reap enormous profits and give little back to the humanity they profess to aid.

They remind me of the wealthy industrialists at the turn of the 19th century like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Frick, etc, who used to build museums and art galleries in the cities where they exploited their workers and broke up their unions and still had the gall to claim they were philanthrophists.

"What in wide, wide world of sports is goin' on here?!"

[–] eljefemartin 8 years ago

I think the early industrialists felt very much entitled to their riches by the will of god. Puritan thinking involves the belief that wealth on earth is a sign for wealth in the afterlife. In other words: if you're wealthy, gods wants you to be. A lot of this lingers in the US-economy today, even though the puritan and calvinistic origins reach as far back as the Mayflower. However, out of all the religious influences I think it is the puritan faith that made economic growth a huge factor in the USA.

Later, industrialists were much influenced by literature it seems. "Atlas Shrugged" and other books gave a huge ideological foundation to becoming rich. Strange moral twists made it possible for the individuum to bend the will of the many to his own. I feel like mmodern corporations take this even further. We are to adopt their world-view to become responsive to their projects and products as well. Google supports soandso and soandso is great. Buy more Google!

However, there are far worse companies than Google. But what worries me is that their executives seem to have a plan for "the world", which is maybe well-mean, but as they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We have to stay weary of corporate involvement in documentaries and such, but as long as they are not interfering with production, I think the investment is welcome. What is worrying is when companies not only fund those, who create works of art in their favor, but supress the ones doing the opposite. Huge companies are all about image, not content. What you see is not what you get. So yeah, I'd rather not see Google and Amazon in the movie-business, but I guess they are everywhere now.