P A N

i happen to be of the ideological persuasion who believe history repeating itself is a self-inflicted mindset created by laziness, apathy, a lack of imagination, and fear of change.

hip hop bunny hop

Speaking of laziness and apathy; I would like to thank you for taking the time ensure not only that your meaning is easy to discern, but for your general promotion of proper grammar.

Anyways, I said nothing of history repeating itself; only that all societys with a division of labor have been stratified. However, clearly, that could all change - now that we have a few individuals who are imaginative and anything but lazy.

I mean, the same trend would only play out all over the globe, on every inhabitated continent, in every single case known - even in the societies which sprung into being without contact from or knowledge of a single other stratified society - because people are lazy! That's why we've kept at it for millenia after millenia after millenia - laziness!

P A N

i apologize for... well, myself, but when i read this post, i notice that the whole thing could very well be taken as sarcasm, and as this is a thread about a topic a lot of people feel is ridiculous, i feel i should mention before i reply to the stratification part that i don't even know if you're being serious.

moving on.

i don't think people as a species became stratified as a result of laziness. we've never had nor been able to conceive of the proper tools and technology to even begin building a unified paradigm. the laziness comes into play when we start thinking about how much money, time and energy are being spent on the creation of better television sets and advancements in the archaic gas-powered engine fields of technology. i call it lazy because we spend a ridiculous percentage of our lives distracting ourselves perfectly from the bigger picture.

as far as an inherent stratification, perhaps your are right. perhaps it's just natural that we divide ourselves from each other into smaller groups. but in the future, i can't say. much of our identity-shaping experiences come from the methods and philosophies we employ in the generation of income; from how we go about surviving. in a world where currency plays zero role in the acquisition of necessities, i just feel our brains would operate differently than they do now on so many levels (due to different types of conditioning) that trying to create a hypothesis on how it would pan out sociologically is simply beyond my scope.

Dotoar

Fair enough, and I'd like to see changes as well. It's just that the needed changes I identify as crucial are exclusively political, as in a drastically reduced political influence over the civil society. You, being a Zeitgeist supporter, are probably seeking to achieve something in that vein as well since a lot of the problems stated in reality have their roots in the use and abuse of political control.

However, to get back to the descriptive side of things, I spot some serious misinterpretations in the worldview as stated by you in your previous counterposts to me alone. I could gather them all in a neat little list, but I don't really see for what use since I for one am not looking to refute anything, at least not through a few forum entries, and furthermore, you wouldn't (and shouldn't) change your mind either. But by all means, such a thing as the alleged 'planned obsolescence' is one of them, another the (highly diversified and fragmented) theory/ies of a worldwide conspiracy that at best are the vague estimations by deluded but good-natured foilhats, and at worst bordering on anti-semitism. (Not that I accuse you or anyone else in particular of that, mind you! You seem like a nice guy, but I've encountered some truly scornful cases, not least on my own swedish ground on which they indulge themselves in listing allegedly jew-influenced TV shows that are to be avoided at all costs, but I digress). What I was after (and still am to some degree) is some objective facts that directly or indirectly support such statements, not a thorough synopsis of the whole Zeitgeist idea. I've had my share of it long since.

And if we skip over to the normative side in which we are to find the suggested solutions to the issues as identified and problematized before, it's still all but dependant on the adequacy of the descriptive theories. But let's assume that they're all right, and that there are called for changes that is to be made, my essential question would be: On what level? See, I'm not against the ideas for a resource based economy (which I assume, more or less simplified, is the core idea in the Zeitgeist movement) per se. Not at all, not as long as it's based on the voluntary decisions of the people involved. (Just as I'm not opposed to, say, christianity even if I myself am an atheist, as long as any decision made in the name of christianity isn't violating any other human being's right to make their decision). That said, it may still result in some really foolish decisions by the neglects of the laws of nature and/or the actual state of human activity and relationship, and if it goes as far as causing harm to people, that's where I put down my foot on the descriptive level. But, to return to where I was going with this, on a normative level I'd have no problem with it as long as it's executed by the voluntary action of the ones involved. Hell, I'd even like to see it realised on a small scale if only to either have my own preconceptions either stirred up or confirmed.

So the crucial question for me is simply if Zeitgeist proposes a political call to action (in which case I resent it, lock stock and barrel) or if it reflects a 'revolution of the mind' in which case I at least support the framework of the idea, because I sincerely believe that any change that doesn't stem from a free mind is neither justified, beneficiary nor enduring. And for all I know, all the general improvement that we've experienced during mainly the 19th and 20th century has been made on that exact foundation. It's easy to disregard all that is well today, and merely focus on all the harm that has been made by mankind on mankind and its surroundings, but if you stop for a moment and look around you; how lucky are you to be born into an age in which you don't have to worry about the basic needs, when throughout the absolute bulk of history man has struggled hard against nature and other human beings to even stay alive, and instead can spend your time on discussing Zeitgeist with someone half around the world that you never even have met? What I personally propose is to look at the conditions under which the changes from nothing to something, from bad to good, from poverty to wealth, has been made and since I spot several core statements in Zeitgeist that not only misinterpret past and present conditions and chains of events but even reject them, I simply don't see how the proposed solution(s) are neither plausible nor justified. But I may be wrong, of course, it's just that extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence. That's why I'm being so anal about that.

That was long, and as usual, I still feel there are lots of things unsaid, but I'm not seeking to write a novel on here so I'll leave it at that for this time being.

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