Thoughts on the Zeitgeist Movement
 

the zeitgeist movement, if you don't already know, is basically a revolution happening based on the ideals and ideas of a guy named jacques fresco, a revolution aimed at changing the face of collective consciousness with a sustainable future in mind via EXTREMELY RADICAL CHANGES IN OUR ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE.

mr. fresco believes that we now have the technology to create a world of abundance for all people. and he's launched this campaign not because he/we can, but because he believes we have to.

he bases his argument primarily on the mechanics behind the creation of money, and the fact that we can't just keep filling the system with more dollars because at some point it will bottom out, and money all around the world will be useless.

his answer to the problem is (from what i understand) to create a worldwide RESOURCE-BASED ECONOMY, wherein all people benefit from the gifts of the earth rather than just a select few. wherein the advancement of technology is no longer stifled by one scientist battling another scientist for the nobel... because they would work together in order to solve a problem, rather than pay the rent and ensure their work can continue. the automating of services currently performed by humans would no longer be feared, because the more work we can get machines to do means the more real thinking EVERYONE can do.

it's obviously a huge idea, and i don't want to wreck any good threadversation by investigating all the possibilities/impossibilities within the initial post, so i'm going to stop ranting and post this.

so have att'er. no holds barred, too. if you think it's stupid, you're free to say so! telling us why would be appreciated, and more respectable than one-word comments+absence.

if you haven't seen the doc.s, you should, because you can't disregard something without seeing it from as many angles as possible. there are two of them. zeitgeist the movie, and zeitgeist addendum. they're easy as pie to find online, i just don't have a link handy.

so please, DO DISCUSS. i'm sure this will be an interesting thread.

and again, i know this a touchy topic, so play nice.

EDIT: FEEL FREE TO GO OFF TOPIC! ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF! REALLY!

You're asking for trouble with this one!

Nah, but seriously. If you think that getting rid of the Nobel Prize is going to make scientists work harder, you're probably wrong.
Competition is normal, natural, and can cause people to work harder than their charitable urges sometimes. Not always, but enough to **** the rest of us. Sad, but true.
And, in a resource based economy, scientists wouldn't have any incentive to stay scientists because useful research doesn't always instantly create an exchangeable product.
It's not a perfect system. But it's one where you can survive in and still do something you love. And I, as a musician and not someone who produces tangible goods which can be traded, I think that I would get the short end of the stick if this came to pass.

interesting. you think a world free of slavery wouldn't need entertainment?! i had a guy that owns a studio come up to me while i was busking around the time when the US was first deciding to inject 800 billion into the system... he told me that it doesn't matter how bad the economy gets, cuz there will always be people wanting to drink beer and have a good time listening to live music, so us musicians are always the safest... just gotta keep our chops up!

the nobel part: it's not getting rid of the nobel that would do anything at all. it's getting rid of the competition. of course it would take a paradigm shift in 100% of people's way of looking at things, but we wouldn't be working for our own safety, as that would be provided. we begin working for the system, for it is the system that would be our provider.

please keep in mind that ALL SERVICES WHICH COULD BE PERFORMED BY MACHINES, WOULD BE. so worrying about whether or not your product is good enough to trade or anything to that effect is an obsolete thought, because the whole idea behind the movement is to enlighten humanity to a point where being slaves to products and dollars is just NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE. critical thinkers and problem solvers all over the world would shift their focuses to making that a reality.

keep'em comin'!

and another thing: you say that competition is natural. now, is that because you've seen the research, or because it feels that way to you? either way, the research says it's natural because as far as anyone knows, it is. we've not really had any species that within themselves decide to share everything, because up until now, there has been a shortage of everything, so in the back of our minds somewhere is lurking this thought that sometime we might run out. what is the answer to this in an ape's head? get stronger. learn how to move faster. be able to outwit anything that challenges my ownership of these here bananas.

but in a human's head, a human with access to the flowering of a technological age unforeseen by any ape, it happens that we have a touch more reason and a touch more logic and a touch more love in us, and all this makes me not want to bash anyone's head in with a rock in exchange for bananas, but rather figure out how to acquire enough for me AND my friends, who were previously thought of as my competition.

know what i'm saying? i think this "competition" thing is like a complex is the consciousness of the modern world, something we share collectively, and it's the power of the dollar and that alone that puts a road block between us and thinking it's just a silly habit that can be overcome... and man, how good would THAT feel to wake up to everyday?!

if you haven't managed to find a source of peace within yourself nothing you find out of yourself will provide it for you. this 'movement' is no different. if you feel like a slave it's because your ego has convinced you that you are.

we already exist in a resource based economy, only we use paper money to reflect the value of said resources. the associated paragraph reads like an idealistic hippie technicolour dream where every 'positive' aspect of a person gets celebrated and everyone is a winner, because that certainly hasn't created a generation of man-children incapable of dealing with legitimate conflict and challenges.

the world is not and will never be a fair place. fairness (and good / bad, right / wrong) is a strictly human concept, the world is not. the sooner you find a way to handle that the easier the rest of your life gets.

you say that as though it's not an ideal as well. your argument is that things will remain as they have forever because anything outside of that realm is different than what you are used to, and therefore, let's say unpractical.

mind you, your argument, in my head, is just nay-saying. and not because that's what i want to think, but because the standpoint you just displayed as your own is one of no standpoint at all, other than to shut the topic down. it poses no alternatives to the current system, as though there just are none.

and furthermore, talking about my ego and finding inner peace sounds more like hippie-talk than anything i've said thus far. in fact, my searching for answers to what i believe are the world's problems has very little to do with my ego and much more to do with a genuine yearning to make the world a fair place... because i believe if people thought hard enough, they could be able to think themselves into a state of awareness that would put oue differences by the wayside, and allow us to tackle non-personal problems, like how we're all gonna eat in 50 years.

and ps. who said life was supposed to be easy?

Such flagrant bullshit.

Competitiveness, more specifically capitalism, is what drove some of the most innovative contributions to the fields of math and science. We'd probably still be firing arrows at one another if there wasn't some competitive advantage to producing anything else. Alternating current, fission & the internal combustion engine are just a few of the ideas brought to light under the guise of competition.

No, competition is essential to developing technologies.

i'm feeling it. paradise is coming, we just need to embrace it.

there's no inner peace without outer peace...

also, i think because of speculation (that is, because people can "go meta" and "play" at capitalism, by using features of the system itself to generate profits for themselves) we do not live in a resource based economy, our money doesn't just reflect the resources that exist, it also reflects the value we believe they have (that is, our (changing) ideas about the resources) and this generates a tension that can't be resolved inside capitalism.

now, your last sentence is a little confusing. fairness is a human concept, but the world isn't? the world also seems like a human concept to me. i don't see why one shouldn't be applicable to the other. if we crack open our bibles, we find verses in which the promise of paradise involves lions lying down with lambs, and eating hay. now, the transition there from justice in the human world to justice in the animal kingdom seems rather seamless, and simple. and why our notions of order, harmony and resonance couldn't be extended to even things we consider "dead" is beyond me...

i like that first bit, although i don't think you can find inner peace if you project conflict and strife. technically speaking if everyone spent a minute looking inward for peace then the entire planet would be at peace for a minute.

in terms of money just because we chose to alter our perceived value of the resource shouldn't change the fact that the money is initially based on said resource. it's not my fault lots of people let themselves be lead by the nose by their ego into thinking they NEED that new gadget or whatever some fancy pants famous person is whoring out.

as for my last sentence i stand by it. the idea of 'fairness' and what is 'right' comes from the individual human being. the world / the planet / biosphere / whatever you want to call it exists independently of the human animal. i do believe all those dinosaur bones out there kind of proves this. basically to me the human tries to established organized order to the world while the world laughs and continues existing via chaotic order.


as for the other questions that got thrown my way... in 50 years i'll be 83. i don't really care to live that long, i've made peace with the fact that i WILL die someday a while ago, but that doesn't mean i've forgotten how to grow a garden big enough to feed my family.

in the same breath that says life isn't supposed to be easy, where is it supposed to be fair?

to mr dave: i don't agree that fairness is a concept or a framework created by humans within which we can chose to or chose not to participate in. i think rather that it is there all the time, and we can chose to ignore it or not.

this can be exemplified by a physical law (not sure what it's called) stating that for every action there is a reaction, and vice versa. we, for the sake of ease of conversation, could call that "physical fairness." now, in my mind, in a world where instead of agenda-minded politicians making decisions ON OUR BEHALF we have pure information setting the rules, physical fairness would be simply maintaining this crazy ideal where instead of feeding fat americans everything they can get their hands on, we even it out so the people in haiti and the people in ethiopia and all these third world countries get to eat.

if the earth itself were in charge, these people that are surrounded by deserts would probably figure out how to survive... either via migration or the integration of new technologies... things that are currently HINDERED BY US, by the people that get to pick and choose what we want out of life... as though it were f**cking entitled to us.

i suppose you could say that fairness is man-made. you COULD. but what you can DEFINITELY say is that our lack of attention to the creation of a possible fairness is far more worthy of praise as a major player in the way WE LET THE WORLD WORK, as it is THIS that sets in motion the gears which create suffering.

in essence all this is to me very much like basic math. it just doesn't add up that i should be able to have a whole crapload of stuff and someone else is denied the opportunity to acquire even a tenth of it over the course of their entire life. not to say that life is about stuff, of course.

and you're right. nowhere does it say that life should be fair. but regardless of what the media and our curriculums teach us, it doesn't say anywhere that we can't use our brains for anything we want. of course, they advise against it... but they can't stop it.

it is from this type of thought that we can generate moral code. and from moral code (which i am well aware you can argue is a choice, is subjective) comes fairness... if they're not one and the same thing.

my question is, why the hell not?

and to lucifer sam: you're right. but there were less people back then and the idea of money thusly made a little more sense as far as accurately distributing goods and services. the only way to acquire money was/is to work for it. the problem now is that we don't even need as many services as we have, they've mostly just been invented so as people can get their hands on some cash. namely in food and beverage ventures... which i do believe has it's first fully automated installation somewhere in germany. that's right. a fully-automated restaurant.

so back then you're right. there was huge incentive for scientists and engineers and all those specialists to create new things. but what a selfish driver. einstein didn't do what he did for money. he did what he did cuz he couldn't stop thinking about it.

and we now have enormous advantages in our creative tool set: computers. you can program these babies to do anything... even get them working on the next generation of computers (and PLEASE don't start about computers becoming self-aware with motives and aspirations. that's for the movies.).

it's likely that we're all so attached to the idea of competition because of two things. one being that if we can manage to make it in this world that otherwise makes us feel anonymous, then we can achieve some sort of identity. the second being that it is ingrained in us. not just by the media and schools, but also and largely by the fact that WE HAVE NEVER UP UNTIL NOW HAD THE MEANS TO OVERCOME IT.

it's like the world being flat versus the world being round. people speculated that it might be round, and were ridiculed and ostracized, because no one could wrap their head around the idea... no one could imagine it. only to be proved quite wrong of course. was it the tool going by the name of the 'telescope' that allowed the people on the shore to first see the mast and sails of a ship coming over the horizon and minutes later see the hull? that's a tool.

now we have better tools, and we can start imagining better things.

I'd like to think that this movement would work, but sadly I feel like it is another one of these things that sound great on paper. In action, things would be just as bad as they are now. True, I feel like our current monetary system is ridiculous, especially with how paper money is becoming more and more obsolete. All most people have (save for the rare occasion we pull out some money from the ATM) is a card and a digital readout of their earnings. The powers that be are the ones telling us what worth that number has and what it represents. It could represent nothing. One day they could tell us it represents air, as that could be a scarce resource at some point (you never know). I think we do need something a bit more concrete than that, but I have absolutely no clue what that is. Even with some sort of "shared" resource economy there would still be some regions of the world that produce more of something everyone needs, there will still be disasters that tighten rations of a resource causing fighting amongst those regions, and war would still be as prevalent as ever. And with no competition and thus no timetable for technological and scientific advancement, war would still be the vehicle for our progress.

All in all, sure we need to change something. But humans have been living with a system of this type in one form or another for thousands of years, and it will be VERY hard to change.

The fact that you state this in your opening as some sort of reference.... Totally makes this thread worthless to me. That movie was my first introduction into Zeitgeist... A Friend of mine , suggested this movie to me saying it would open my eyes.

I laughed my ass off through the whole first part about religion... Half the **** is made up, if you look up some it, its just skewed information or just total misinformation. I haven't seen it in over a year, so I cant go back in my mind and just bring up what was wrong with it. But here is a link of information someone put together on it... Conspiracy Science

The other parts of the movie just reminded me of nothing more but a crackhead on the corner hollering out Conspiracy Theories.

first and foremost, change is always hard. i should direct everyone's attention to a youtube channel going by the name of QualiaSoup, wherein some very comprehensive videos have been created to more or less clarify some things in topics like critical thinking and flawed views of science and substance dualism and things like that. it's interesting stuff. i'm particularly interested in the critical thinking video.

what i don't understand about critical thinking, is that everyone doesn't do it. we allow ourselves to be wholly trumped by external and unnecessary forces and we do it because we've been taught not to "question authority," so to speak. we also allow for this external takeover by clinging to our beliefs and our perspectives and our morals and our religions and all these devices that essentially - being that they are not used to assess and direct much-needed attention to the world stage - serve to relay some inner description of who and what and why this individual is what it is... and back to the individual itself, at that. when we cling to these things, when we BELIEVE in these things, we look at them as truth. but truth is a funny thing. sometimes it changes, and when we really cling to these truths we know, sometimes we can't stare anything that challenges it in the face. we just refuse. and that is when we have demonstrably ceased to think critically.



if the dollar fails - and it will - people will begin to think critically. but if that dollar fails and everyone believes that the dollar is real and has meaning... we're f*cked.

the zeitgeist movement is trying to change that. let me rephrase that.

THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT IS TRYING TO PREPARE FOR THAT INEVITABILITY.

(please note that i am not affiliated with the zeitgeist movement and am merely trying to hash out in my own mind whether this is a good idea.)

another road-block to achieving something so pleasant as this is people's need to see things happen really fast. it seems like we/they all need a saviour or something... like a figurehead for a perfectly functioning piece of the world, which of course could only exist if there were a perfectly functioning piece of the world. but really, do we really just trust that these issues will be dealt with if we just VOTE the right way? to me, i just think we all need to get to work. and not to line our pockets. to provide for the earth and its people. great things take time.

quickly on disasters and resources and rationing: farming goes vertical. imagine a silo. the inner part of the circle is an acre's-worth of space. say ten floors. that's potentially 10 acres of field, that could potentially function and service themselves requiring no human intervention. genius.

really that's just one great idea and quite frankly i'm tired of typing and need to go for a walk. i'll just say that all those things you said (DUGA) are valid, but honestly i believe could all be taken care with some good old fashion elbow grease and some wicked imaginations.

That is incredibly naive.

Let me point this out. We started off as hunter-gatherer societies. We focused on our most essential needs and let the environment dictate how we acted. We let the environment control us because we realized controlling it is futile.

Then we discovered farming and the industrial revolution happened. We switched mindsets from allowing the environment to set the standard of living to us attempting to control everything. Surely, it has produced a lot of conveniences in our lives. We have air conditioning, heat, showers, hospitals, medicines, readily available food (in the first world), and entertainment. However, anyone who thinks that we can reach a point in our advancement where we can control the environment to our liking relieving us totally of its worry is kidding themselves.

Disasters WILL happen. Sure, the ideas you are reading sound great. But how can you possibly tell me these ideas will not produce some unseen problem in the future? Problems will ALWAYS exist. It is just the way the world works. And the point of me bringing up hunter gatherer societies? That was the last point in human history where any of us had any real idea of what to expect out of life. And what was that? That life and the universe is going to throw whatever the **** it feels like at us.

to cadrian:

i went to that site you posted. i have a feeling you didn't read it. the first page is pretty much dedicated to essentially disregarding the zeitgeist movie (which is the first one) because of its conspiratorial nature. this is not an invalid standpoint to take based on that first film. if you go to the section entitled 'addendum,' you'll notice a change in spirit from the author of the page. in addendum, which is the second zeitgeist movie, the primary focus is on the modern-day mechanics of money.

the zeitgeist movement, AS a movement, i do have to admit, made a huge mistake with their first film, again, because of its conspiratorial nature. but this page you linked says in the addendum section:

"Whether you choose to support the Venus Project or Technocracy Inc. doesn't matter, so long as you keep the conspiracy bull**** out of the current technocratic (or "resource based economy") movement. It is hard enough to discuss technocracy and The Venus Project with people, we do not need to also talk about conspiracies. Whether you like it or not, conspiracy theories scare people away, period, and they won't listen to anything you have to say.

"If you are a member of the Zeitgeist Movement and want to spread the ideas of The Venus Project, please keep the conspiracy jargon to the minimum - in fact I've seen that Peter Joseph has already moved away from that, but many fans of the films are still obsessed with conspiracies."

what you might not know about the zeitgeist movement, is that it is sort of the figurehead or hub for the information gathered to help the efforts of the venus project. they're trying to create a resource-based economy rather than a monetary system to the effect that the whole world gets to eat.

does that sound like a conspiracy theory?

i don't think so.

i hope this proves a little less worthless to you, Cadrian.

to duga:

we can't be hunter/gatherers because there are too many of us. but we still have to adapt, right?

i don't think any of this is going to be perfect. i didn't even allude to the idea. i said basically that we can achieve abundance for all people if we work hard.

you're mistaking this idea for something utopian. it's not. albeit something that would just plain FEEL better to contribute to than this bloody rat-race.

the idea is to tackle problems, not destroy the possibility of their happening. anybody that thinks a problem-free world is possible is in serious need of reeducation.

so why not lead by example instead of trying to recruit followers?

i'm not trying to recruit anyone. i'm just having an open-ended conversation with a bunch of people i don't know.

that's just it though. nothing like this is possible without a paradigm shift in the collective consciousness of the world. and a paradigm shift like that can only come from an influx of new information or a cataclysmic event.

the only thing i can do to support the movement is try and get other people to think outside the confines of our current out-dated system.

so i suppose, i AM leading by example.

Naaa My mind is still the same

Makes me think of

http://dearjesus.files.wordpress.com...iocracy_24.jpg


BTW how far did you go in the education system?

I think that, because I would not have an easily exchangeable product, I would not be able to exchange it for the things I like.
At best, I would be a CD-seller.
At worst, I would be a street musician.
I think that I would no longer be able to gain investors or a record company to finance a tour once finance no longer exists. (Of course, this is mostly hypothetical, because I am not at the point where I need to worry about financing a tour, much less go on a tour in the first place... school.)
I'm not saying that it's impossible, but it would be harder than it is.

>_>
IDK about this. If people aren't offered an incentive, they won't do it. It's not to say that, in some industries, the competition incentives have become so ridiculously bloated for doing so little, that they need to be revised, but giving people additional incentive for doing something which may result in people saving lives is a no-brainer.

This takes all the romance out of everything. People sometimes think of their trades as honorable, interesting, and a quest. Call me a Luddite, but in some professions there is still a place for romance, and that is the only thing which keeps some of us going.
Why? You could profit more from thinking about other things than from working to overthrow the system. And I highly doubt that more people are going to work off their good intentions than to work to

You asked for it!

pretty much agree with mr dave on this one. I thought a lot of that movie was based on coincidence and conjecture, especially when it came to describing the religion part. too obsessive.

to t3hplatyz0rz: ok. i don't know if i'm gonna get to all that in one sitting, because just replying to the first section is gonna take some time.

so. firstly, CDs are becoming obsolete.

secondly, i am a musician, so i've thought lots about this, and i think that music is just necessary, so somehow it would have to survive. people love making it. people love listening and dancing to it.

i think you're still in the mindset of 'exchange' when you're considering how this works, and that's where you're stuck. there is no exchange.

of course, people will still have to work, just not in the same way we view it today. again, automation would excel in this framework, because we would constantly be thinking of new ways to relieve people of mundane tasks and skills easily accomplished by machines. the more people don't have to go to work, the more time they can spend with their families, or do some of those things they'd always wanted to do like travelling or going on tour...

now, let's look at the 'tour.' basically a musician or group of musicians or bands hits the road and tries to find or already has places lined up to play their tunes at. this costs money because people need to eat. cars need fuel. airplane tickets. gear problems. hotels. car troubles. in some countries you have to pay for healthcare.

but really, the main thing about being a musician and trying to play out, is not sucking. so in a world where food is provided gratis because people need to eat, mag-lev trains fulfill the vast majority of transportation needs free of charge at speeds approaching 550mph, all products as we know them today are free for two reasons: 1. people in this kind of world would probably not want as much stuff because stuff will be built better, stuff will not hold as much meaning, stuff weighs too much, and stuff will be available at our request to be used and returned or recycled whenever possible. 2. products needed to repair the parts of equipment used in vocational services or crafts (ie carpentry or music) will be provided free based on the facts that a)humans don't wanna do nothing, b) machines are responsible for the majority of their production, and c)happiness is key.

...so yeah, in a world where all these things are working ON YOUR SIDE, you just have to not suck, and you'll be invited to events and festivals. that's where the internet comes in handy: it allows for the virtual widespread distribution of anything that can be turned into digital information, ie. a video of you playing your latest hit.

in short, there is no financing a tour.

and i'd like to add that i play on the street, and it's fun as hell!

now onto your incentive bit: getting people to do things would be as simple as getting them to look out their windows. i mean, once a sturdy game plan was created of course. out their window they would see the rest of the world doing their part to keep the system afloat. and why WOULDN'T you want to? especially being that if EVERYONE got a job, the majority of people would only have to work like 20 hours a week, at jobs that could be done in many different places all over the world to facilitate happy people that feel free to pick up their lives and move somewhere new and continue having work when they arrive. they would also see MANY people out their window enjoying their free time.

i guess i can't properly outline the idea of what incentives are behind it all other than to say that working would be done primarily by machines and the work that us humans would do would be engineered for less stress and for the benefit of the whole world. and i suppose i'm into this idea because that is exactly the kind of incentive that i personally would be happy with.

onto trades and the romance of work: if people want to work, they can, and they will. they just won't feel the need to worry about whether or not the time and energy they're using up is going to amount to enough dollars to feed their families and pay their 2nd mortgage. their services will be of great value, and there is pride to be found there.

onto the profiting from overthrowing the system: i am unable to make the connection between what you had quoted as being said by me and the statement that followed, but i can say that overthrowing the system is not what this is about. it's about creating a new system not guided by men in government, not guided by agendas or ideals, other than the ideal that states we can do a hell of a better job at trying to make the world an alright place to be, of course.

and the idea of profiting from creating a resource-based economy is an oxymoron. i'm not trying to be a **** at all, just give my ideas in return, but that statement just doesn't belong. there is no profiting to be done. what you just said is basically equivalent to stating that if we change the system, and then change it back, we'll have the same system.


now to oceanandsilence: conjecture indeed. aside from the fact that this thread is dedicated to the exploration of the ideas behind the zeitgeist MOVEMENT and not the zeitgeist MOVIE, i agree with your statement about the movie, but only in the sense that those so-called coincidences are extremely hard to prove. the fact that people are attacking the movie is no surprise. it attacks the fundamental beliefs of many many people. but coincidences? the numbers involved behind many religions being near-identical and suspiciously congruent with the movements of stars... those are some coincidences indeed. and in a world full of men with enormous pockets and even more enormous motives, i can see that at least making one film about the possibility of those men first creating then tweaking the collective consciousness of the world via psychological manipulations involving what is possibly the most emotionally charging presence IMAGINABLE (ie God, in one form or another) is probably a worthwhile pursuit. and also something perhaps every human on earth should think at least a little about, before believing everything they hear coming out of preachers mouths and working toward an eternity in a really great place.

but who knows. eternal damnation is pretty freaky, and apparently, that's where thinking at all lands us.

lol, there's a movement? oh dear.

How is this relevant whatsoever? Einstein was a twenty-something working in a patent office at the time, his incentive was recognition and fame; he got financial security along with those too. His pursuit of the theory of general relativity had fuck all to do with any altruistic purpose you might be under the delusion of.

And I don't know how better to make you comprehend this: today's engineers and scientists are driven by competition. The only way that anything gets designed or researched is when it offers the potential for fiscal incentive for an industrial application. Unless there is some competitive advantage to pursuing a project, it won't get done. End of story.

Perhaps you're accustomed to the trafficking in metaphor and allegory but your ideas don't offer any justification or reasoning whatsoever. Consider probing the depths of your well of research before you respond; I'm not really interested in more Utopian metaphor.

^

yep.

and kudos for actually reading his whole post.

you don't have to MAKE me comprehend anything, thanks. i comprehend without your all-knowing help just fine thanks. oops. slipped up on that einstein comment. now i'm f*cked.

and i'm very surprised at how well you are just able to assume the outcome of a completely non-existent reality,

i didn't start this thread to take over the world. you may have mistaken my penchant for typing lengthy possibilities as something like that, but i'm just a dude on a thread talkin' about weird sh*t... apparently to people who take everything way too seriously, so seriously in fact that they even include instructions on how to better have the conversation that they want no part in other than to strip it of anything that makes it fun to talk about.

and your argument doesn't offer much reasoning either pal. it basically just says that i'm wrong because competition rules the world. and i understand why think that, but i don't understand WHY. why does it HAVE to be like that?

so we can all keep being as*holes?

you're wrong. einstein was trying to figure out the universe. it has nothing to do with altruism, it has to do with will to truth, which has driven people for a very, very long time. people who search desperately for truth very quickly realize that it has nothing to do with other people, except insofar as they are on the same path.

Perhaps so. What I'm trying to say is he was compensated for his contribution to society, it wasn't as if his efforts went unrewarded.

And also, had there been no practical application to his research, it would have not received nearly as much recognition as it holds today.

I'm not going to weigh in on the whole discussion because I'm not sure what you really mean when you say resource based economy and I'm not going to watch the movie to find out. If you could give a better explanation of how things would function without cash then it would help.

But, if you haven't already - read Player's Piano by Kurt Vonnegut - it revolves around a world where almost all tasks have been automated, and it isn't a particularly pleasant one.

so you want me to explain the whole thing to you because you won't watch the film or find the manifesto? and then you tell me to go read something that you feel is applicable, written by someone with one of the most out-there imaginations ever? gimme a break guys. i'm not the mascot.

Fair enough - I went to website and had a read around. But really, more the I read the more wildly optimistic the whole thing becomes.

I mean, just the quote;

is ridiculous. Do you really think that conflict will disappear from the world entirely?

And about Player's Piano, Vonnegut has an out-there imagination, but a pretty good grasp on human nature. Infinite leisure time isn't necessarily a good thing, people like to feel useful and valued and a lot of that comes through occupation and competition.

i don't think conflict will disappear from the world entirely, and i agree with your comment about vonnegut.

i think there will be people who are felt sorry for, either for their inability or their unwillingness to participate in such a shift in perspective, the former being due to differences in physiology, the latter being from will itself, or lack thereof. there will always be dissent, no matter what system you implement, and the individual therein who decides to partake in activities either amoral or outright wrong, will not be able to fully indulge in what we'd created.

people would catch on, and we would see less and less of these current cancerous attributes of the human floating about, realizing (hopefully faster than not) that the VAST MAJORITY of conflict is resultant of a system unable to bear the weight of its charges.

i don't believe prisons will ever disappear, but i believe with pretty much all of myself that the need for them is beyond grossly exaggerated, as is the use of them. i can't call it impossible though. there are probably things about criminal minds that i just don't understand, and could very well be wiped out via mass psychological cleansing. i just haven't come across anything that outlines this in such a way which makes me believe it's possible.

as for militaries, i don't believe we need them now. they serve primarily to invade, conquer, and reap the benefits of stolen land under the guise of protection. the really f*cked up thing about militaries is that people now seem to unanimously agree that war is good for the economy. in my mind, mass psychological cleansing would help to rid the people of such disgusting mindsets. and by mass psychological cleansing i'm not talking about little speakers under your pillow, or weekly visits to the state-employed therapist. i mean instead of the television and radio being used to entertain our bored asses, it's used to inform everyone that most of what they think they know about how the world works is wrong.

"Don't get mad guys. We're really working on it this time."

I haven't read enough about this subject to have a forged opinion yet, and I apologize if this has been answered/asked before, as i haven't read all the comments:

How can "Jacques Fresco" blatantly say that there are enough resources for everyone to live abundantly?

That's it? The only "proof" i've seen him give is that the US churned out 90000 fighters per year during WWII. Of course, capitalism leads to waste. During the Great Depression lots of food was burned while people were starving, and that's obviously not f*cking all right. But how can he be sure there's enough food for everyone?

Also, let's not forget human nature...it's made other "perfect" systems fail. Or did he also say that everyone was essentially good? Just like that?

And how exactly is progress the cure for all our needs? I'm sure the Unabomber would disagree...I jest, but still.

For example, wouldn't the automating of the services currently performed by humans, who'd instead have more time to "think", make us even more unhealthy than we are now? In my experience (which is little, but hey, what else have i got?) boredom (i.e "having too much time to think") leads to being unhealthy, both physically and mentally. On the other hand, I'd gladly spend my whole life travelling around, reading, and listening to music. Dilettantism, in the finer sense of the word, i'd say.
This also comes into the competition issue, there will always be conflicting theories, how would all scientists work together? Science isn't philosophy, I'm aware of that, but still.
Plus, competition (although I find agressive competition has the contrary effect) stimulates progress. That's one of the few things that's all right with capitalism. If there was no competition, where would we be? The need for making better products wouldn't exist. Sure, the need for making cheaper and faster resorting to the exploitation of the workers also wouldn't exist, but i believe progress can exist without exploitation.

I'm not sure everyone is like this, though.

good questions. again, i'm no expert either and i can only really, just like anyone else, speculate.

so, jacques: i don't know how exactly he can say this. but i do know there is more than one way to skin a cat, and i can probably imagine a few. the way feeding people works right now, is basically to make chickens and cows and corn grown really fast in as little space as possible. and if you've ever ever seen an industrialized cow or chicken farm, you'll notice it looks incredibly uncomfortable, and it still spreads itself across massive pieces of land. i mentioned earlier the concept of taking farming into a vertical framework, where multiple acre-wide floors would be stacked, and on every floor is a farm devoted to... well, whatever you want.

that's one idea.

the recycling of more materials than are currently recycled will also help this all work. the materials created out of the recycled waste will be used in everything from roadways (replacing expensive, unmaintainable and earth-gutting asphalt and concrete) to the casing of your computer to the packaging of our food... if there is still any of that to be found.

"planned obsolescence" is, to the best of my knowledge, a term coined by corporate minds to ensure further sales in their companies by making sure products either eventually fail to work or are infantile in comparison to the latest product of its kind. what a great way to vent some of that competition! (ps, i understand and possibly even believe why everyone seems to think competition is natural, i just don't understand why the manifestation of it has to have some involvement in the acquisition of money and possessions.) planned obsolescence is NECESSARY FOR CAPITALISM TO SURVIVE. if it weren't we would all have great stuff that didn't break and rarely needed repairing. impossible when the companies that govern the government need to pump more products to more people in less time.

a large part of the overall idea is that we humans give ourselves the credit we deserve... i think, anyway. right now about 66% of people work in the service sector (in north america), 32-33% in industry, and 1-2% in agriculture. (we should also never cease to forget how much money is circulated and generated via illegal means, cuz it's a sh*t load of money.) 100 years ago(ish), 35-40% of people worked in agriculture. i can't remember the rest of the percentages, but essentially it outlines pretty clearly that people are being herded whatever way technology dictates. and that's perfectly natural. but now, that technological progress is being stymied by the monetary system's fundamental flaw of needing to always produce more money. i also said in an earlier post that the first fully-automated restaurant opened in germany in the last few years. no employees. the logical outcome of this is that every time the percentage of people in the service sector drops due to the influx of technology, the number of people in the workforce drops. keep in mind, this is natural. man will not stop creating things to make life more efficient.

picture the progression of technology's advancement on a timeline dating back to the finding out of how to create fire at will and the wheel and all that. those advancements were few and far between in comparison to the advancements we're making today. on this timeline - drawn from the point of the first tool to now - the "advancement-of-technology line" will go from being pretty much horizontal for a really long time to near vertical where it stands now. the important thing to note about this is that this type of thing doesn't just stop. there will be no plateau that indicates the attaining of perfect knowledge... and hey, if there does come that time, i really doubt we're we're going to have to worry about much.

this all relates to giving us the credit we deserve in the sense that jacques fresco thinks we're capable of an entirely more efficient system than the one we have now. and so do i. i think it's the next step in evolution, which oddly comes with the first-time ability to ignore the essentially biological change occurring within ourselves. this credit that we might give ourselves would (and i know this sounds like a fairy tale) essentially lend us new powers. the one coming to mind being that if we see that there is not abundant food, we use or minds and our tools to meet that challenge and defeat it. we don't just say "well it's not like that now, it hasn't ever been like that, so it won't be like that in the future. nope. not even if we tried." why don't we say that? in my opinion, cuz we're not a bunch of selfish and lazy pussies.

now onto progress as a cure: i don't believe i've mentioned anything about progress itself serving as a cure for any of humanity's ailments. it should be noted though that progress is not just a human thing. it just is. and it IS, everywhere. life is progress. death is progress. the world, as part of the bigger system to which it belongs, is just a never-ending stream of events. and anything found therein which is biological will naturally change and shift to adapt to new surroundings. so progress is really independent of the human experience and is thusly something we should be viewing from an external and as-subjective-as-possible standpoint so as not only to understand it but work with and within it.

...which leads to the point that progress exists without the exploitation of the worker already, we're just getting in the way.

If you're into the whole Zeitgeist thing, minus the obvious propaganda, then you should watch this:
Free Documentaries Online | Kymatica

It's pretty good. It centers more in the philosophical, humanistic realm. Like Zeitgeist, there's some laughable shit, but overall I think Kymatica holds a lot more personal meaning when it's all said and done. Definitely worth a watch for you backyard philosophers out there. (Hint hint, Cardboard Adolescent)

I've been keeping myself updated on this thread since it opened up. I used to follow Zeitgeist a good bit after seeing the movie. In fact, I even showed Zeitgeist Addendum at the university I was attending in hopes of opening more minds. The more I thought about it and the more I researched the facts that the movies presented, the more I was let down. The society Fresco presents to his audience is beyond what we are capable of now. This Utopian society is not possible if we don't come together. This, I think, is what we should be focused on. We are too separated as a race to realize or even acknowledge the possibility of a collective consciousness. Not to say all of our problems will magically appear before us once we "come together", but it's a start, no? Sure, there are certainly arguable facts in this movie, but I feel like there was a bigger, more general idea. An idea of unison in the people to create something larger than we can even imagine. Perhaps I've an drunken optimistic view of what humanity is capable of ... So fucking be it.

You must have just watched Kymatica.

No, actually, I didn't. Maybe I should.

definitely!

Thanks for the link, just watched this and found it very interesting. Still not sure entirely how I feel about most of it, probably need to watch it again to process everything they were saying.

i am super "with you" on this one, and rather thrilled that someone posted anything along these lines at all.

the reason zeitgeist interested me so much is that it was the only 'organized' movement of its kind that i was aware of. and i don't mean a movement headed toward technocracy, but rather a movement heading toward something along the lines of a binding of the human spirit and will. it's a given that those are vague terms as they are potentially totally subjective, but i would like to see the people of the world do better than we are currently doing, and i think those words and what they stand for are key, because we all share the world, and it's still going to be here when we die.

ever had a job and the person that did that or another job in the same space on the shift before you did nothing they were supposed to do leaving you to do all their work and then set up for your shift and then do all your own work? same idea (but not the defining driver of my philosophy on this), except the people after us get a f*cking planet to work with (again, not the defining driver of my philosophy on this).

i haven't got around to watching kymatica (just started a new job with lots of road time) but am excited to see it, as zeitgeist does come off as a little presumptuous.

basically, i want to be part of an everybody, an everybody that thinks critically and decides collectively when enough is enough.

^kind of a crappy post... i'm scatterbrained and tired.

zeitgeist three has come out.

here is a link:

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward | Watch Free Documentary Online

If it ain't about reducing the world's human population it's stupid and not worth considering.