The Zeitgeist Movement - AKA Communism/NWO made hip - Are they serious?

[WakeUpAmerica]

I stumbled across Alex's interview with the guy who made Zeitgeist and I must say I'm dumbfounded. Does this idiot really believe that there isn't a real thing as evil and that society and religion make people rape, torture and kill for pleasure? He started talking about how there would be no incentive because you wouldn't gain anything from stealing and whatnot. What monetary gain does one get from raping someone? Why do rapists often get out of prison and commit another rape within days? To make money? Because society tells them? I don't think so.

Additionally he acts upon the assumption that there would be somehow unlimited resources and that people would only take exactly what they need and willingly do manual labor with no benefit to them. It is literally pure communism. Underneath this guy's rhetoric there is an underlying fact that for his little theory to work they would literally commit mass murder to have no competition for resources and they would have to kill or brainwash anyone who didn't agree with their ridiculous system. He even says "re-educate" to Alex and at that point I was convinced that this guy is just really cleverly getting tons of young people to willingly accept slavery and total control.

[decepticon]

The Law of Fives - the cycle of man, according to Weishaupt.

1. Chaos - Paganism
2. Discord - Monotheism
3. Confusion - Paganism vs. Monotheism
4. Bureaucracy - Monotheist dominance
5. Fallout - Revolt

all of the pop culture revolutionist who tptb let reach worldwide audiences are attempting to bring the fallout, ushering in chaos.

[WakeUpAmerica]

The Law of Fives - the cycle of man, according to Weishaupt.

1. Chaos - Paganism
2. Discord - Monotheism
3. Confusion - Paganism vs. Monotheism
4. Bureaucracy - Monotheist dominance
5. Fallout - Revolt

all of the pop culture revolutionist who tptb let reach worldwide audiences are attempting to bring the fallout, ushering in chaos.

That seems fairly accurate. I like Weishaupt a lot but I'm not sure I agree wit his pagan vs. monotheistic ideas. I think that a pagan religion could easily co-exist with a monotheistic one. They're both theistic so any rational person can see that paganism or pantheism is just a different version of the same thing. I associate it with more primitive cultures because they usually assign a different god to each different thing like rain, war, wealth, etc. while monotheism just places it all in the hands of one all powerful being. Christianity could be seen as an extremely distant cousin to these religions in that we have the Holy Spirit within us and we all are made in God's image, we all have God within us, etc. That is not to say that it is at all in concordance with occult beliefs that we ARE gods. I think it could better be described (and by "it" I mean modern times) as such:
1. Chaos - Paganism + Luciferianistic-type religions that worship chaos, destruction, pain, violence, etc. Thelema might fall in here too.
2. Discord - Monotheism vs. Occult groups (which include a smattering of pagans)
3. Confusion - Paganism (+thelema and other occult groups aforementioned) vs. Monotheistic establishment
4. Bureaucracy - Monotheist dominance (with an undercurrent of the aforementioned groups as well)
5. Fallout - Revolt
I see that being much more cyclical as it isn't really as cut and dry as pagan vs. monotheist. Revolt (or at least violent revolt) definitely breeds interest in groups that worship the dark elements of life.

I definitely agree with you that he is attempting to bring fallout but in order to make the sheeple line up to get on the trains thinking they're going to magical cities where everything is free and wonderful before they get thrown in the gas chambers. However, I didn't know that the powers that be were enabling him actively. It wouldn't surprise me at all because he is literally pushing the exact same thing they are, just in a more clever way so youth buy into it (just like youths bought into Hitler and communism).

[MonkeyPuppet]

Great assessment, WAU.  The first time I watched it, I found it very agreeable... up until they started pitching the crap at the end.  Prior to that nonsense I was happy to find something throwing out a barrage of thought-provoking ideas and topics (regardless of personal opinion, that wasn't the point).  I did find it a little preachy at times, but I'm immune to that sort of crap.  However, the end (of the first one) was full on indoctrination rhetoric that tried to paint the NWO crap as hip and cool.

Now, I do get the idea that perhaps it may one day be possible for people to shed the idea that everything needs to cost money.  The only problem with such an idea now is that it is a contrast to reality, and the whole Star Trek utopian idealist reality is just that... idealistic, and nothing more.  There's a reason why Gene Roddenberry never went into detail about how such a society actually works... derr, it was a minor detail that explained how they could do other major crap for the sake of presenting shit that was/is pure science fiction.  Since time immemorial, people have wanted what others have, and a certain percentage of those people will forcibly take from others through whatever means their breakdown of morality and ethics will allow.  Assuming that will ever change is wishful thinking.

[WakeUpAmerica]

Great assessment, WAU.  The first time I watched it, I found it very agreeable... up until they started pitching the crap at the end.  Prior to that nonsense I was happy to find something throwing out a barrage of thought-provoking ideas and topics (regardless of personal opinion, that wasn't the point).  I did find it a little preachy at times, but I'm immune to that sort of crap.  However, the end (of the first one) was full on indoctrination rhetoric that tried to paint the NWO crap as hip and cool.

Now, I do get the idea that perhaps it may one day be possible for people to shed the idea that everything needs to cost money.  The only problem with such an idea now is that it is a contrast to reality, and the whole Star Trek utopian idealist reality is just that... idealistic, and nothing more.  There's a reason why Gene Roddenberry never went into detail about how such a society actually works... derr, it was a minor detail that explained how they could do other major crap for the sake of presenting shit that was/is pure science fiction.  Since time immemorial, people have wanted what others have, and a certain percentage of those people will forcibly take from others through whatever means their breakdown of morality and ethics will allow.  Assuming that will ever change is wishful thinking.

Great post. Very true. I found myself eating it up until the end. That's the whole idea though, they get you agreeing with them and then slam you with something absolutely crazy while you're too busy agreeing to realize it. I think that is how a lot of people fall for it.

I do agree that perhaps one day it could be possible to move away from a monetary system but it really wouldn't be convenient. That was one of Alex's points and one that I agree with wholeheartedly. What if I raise goats and I want to buy a bunch of wheat from someone two towns over but my goats aren't full grown yet, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just give him a token of some sort that is worth the same thing as the goats instead of promising him goats in two years and carrying them over to his farm? Or what if I grew wheat and I wanted someone to cook me a nice meal. I could promise them the wheat, but what if harvest season was bad? What if the person I had promised it to had expected the wheat and because they didn't get it they would go hungry? Wouldn't it make more sense to trade something with an agreed upon value? Like Native Americans used to use shells or beads for this same purpose and those were some of the most successful collectivist communities ever. Money is just convenient and until there are unlimited resources and no one has to work for anything, there will be money.

[jerryweaver]

" Since time immemorial, people have wanted what others have, and a certain percentage of those people will forcibly take from others through whatever means their breakdown of morality and ethics will allow.  Assuming that will ever change is wishful thinking."

We are at the point in human productivity where the ELITE have to create poverty and lack of things.
When the controls are thrown off of current technology things will change meaning for us. Stewardship instead of greed.

[WakeUpAmerica]

" Since time immemorial, people have wanted what others have, and a certain percentage of those people will forcibly take from others through whatever means their breakdown of morality and ethics will allow.  Assuming that will ever change is wishful thinking."

We are at the point in human productivity where the ELITE have to create poverty and lack of things.
When the controls are thrown off of current technology things will change meaning for us. Stewardship instead of greed.

Umm.. where is this technology that provides unlimited resources like water, land, fertile soil, food, and energy? I know a lot of people think the elite are suppressing all this magical technology, and I'm sure they are, but I seriously doubt they have a magic food creation device (impossible according to the laws of physics) or a free energy device (also impossible according to the laws of physics, but there are ways around it that have actually been demonstrated to work, but they're pretty far off from having it in an elite's home giving them tons of free power) or something that produces wood without cutting down trees and builds houses for people without using materials and adds more land to the earth when people get too crowded? People are greedy, even when they're not the elite. This is a fact people need to deal with and move on. There will ALWAYS be criminals, thieves and conspiratorial types who seek to rob the wealth and power from everyone else. A society like the one proposed in TZM is literally designed to make this rise to power and control so much easier.

[attietewd]

Well when someone discusses the earth being too crowded (which is a myth) I say they need to off themselves and make room.
Is the world too over populated?

No way everyone could fit in Texas …
 

According to the U.N. Population Database, the world's population in 2010 will be 6,908,688,000. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 sq mi (7,494,271,488,000 sq ft).

So, divide 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft by 6,908,688,000 people, and you get 1084.76 sq ft/person. That's approximately a 33' x 33' plot of land for every person on the planet, enough space for a town house.



Given an average four person family, every family would have a 66' x 66' plot of land, which would comfortably provide a single family home and yard -- and all of them fit on a landmass the size of Texas. Admittedly, it'd basically be one massive subdivision, but Texas is a tiny portion of the inhabitable Earth.



Such an arrangement would leave the entire rest of the world vacant. There's plenty of space for humanity.
Back to top
Where are you getting these numbers?

U.N. Population Database. While they provide Low, Medium, and High Variants, the Low Variant is the one that keeps coming true, so the Low variant numbers are the ones used in this video. Check their online database.
 
Back to top
The world's population will peak in 30 years? Prove it.

According to the U.N. Population Database, using the historically accurate low variant projection, the Earth's population will only add another billion people or so over the next thirty years, peaking around 8.02 billion people in the year 2040, and then it will begin to decline. Check their online database.

http://overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth#header-5

[WakeUpAmerica]

Well when someone discusses the earth being too crowded (which is a myth) I say they need to off themselves and make room.
Is the world too over populated?http://overpopulationisamyth.com/overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth#header-5

Who said the world was too crowded? You didn't address any of the things I said.

[Novus Ordo]

Great assessment, WAU.  The first time I watched it, I found it very agreeable... up until they started pitching the crap at the end.  Prior to that nonsense I was happy to find something throwing out a barrage of thought-provoking ideas and topics (regardless of personal opinion, that wasn't the point).  I did find it a little preachy at times, but I'm immune to that sort of crap.  However, the end (of the first one) was full on indoctrination rhetoric that tried to paint the NWO crap as hip and cool.

Now, I do get the idea that perhaps it may one day be possible for people to shed the idea that everything needs to cost money.  The only problem with such an idea now is that it is a contrast to reality, and the whole Star Trek utopian idealist reality is just that... idealistic, and nothing more.  There's a reason why Gene Roddenberry never went into detail about how such a society actually works... derr, it was a minor detail that explained how they could do other major crap for the sake of presenting shit that was/is pure science fiction.  Since time immemorial, people have wanted what others have, and a certain percentage of those people will forcibly take from others through whatever means their breakdown of morality and ethics will allow.  Assuming that will ever change is wishful thinking.

Although a tad pessimistic monkey that was a good post. ‘The grass is always greener’, is a symptom of the monetary system, we need to put science and technology at the top of the pyramid and try that for a change especially when you consider it’s never been tried.
Every other ‘ism’ and monarchical dogmatic ideal has tried and failed or failing.
To be honest I tend to agree with your pessimism though, I can’t see the human race evolving to a point where our minds can compartmentalize ideas such as property and competition.
All that’s required is ‘the pyramid’ needs to be force fed a dam good enema, all I can see are the type zero civilisations accelerating towards mass extinction.   

[Cato]

My biggest problem with the Zeitgeist movement is the Venus Project Solution - I'll agree with what has been said here already on this thread and add my own thoughts:

With huge mechanical robots and self-automated systems that provide you with sustainable environments needed to live in comfort - what exactly are humans going to do in this society? What will a typical day consist of? I'm imagining the spaceship from the movie WALL-E, where the remaining human population has become docile due to the nanny-technological dictatorship.

Given they want to eradicate the notion of competition, aggression, and other emotions/thoughts through enforced education (along with enforced drugging I'm sure), won't team and competitive sports be illegal / non-existent. Would it be a taboo in the Venus Project for one person to excel beyond the abilities of his peers? Everyone would need to be the same, the same clothes, the same houses, the same accessories, the same haircut, the same routine, the same diet, the same productivity. Surely, the moment you allow humans these creative freedoms and choices, the ability to do better than others, unwanted emotions would arise? The Venus Project sounds like an extremist's communism.

So will art be censored? (Refer to Plato's ideal society) will there be rock music? will there be works of art that evoke emotions. The notion of beauty and perfection surely in the eyes of the human race is not this sterile looking community of little to no progression?

What are we really looking at here? Is this the post-industrial scientific society sought by transhumanism and the elite? If so, will we have an immortal overlord? Surely with all these restrictions on how a human will think/act/feel there would be to be a secret group of individuals who monitor and enforce re-education?

With regards to the Venus Project - I see a lot of gaping holes that need answers, because its philosophy that of anti-religion, anti-emotion, anti-family, anti-competition removes much of what makes us human.

[MonkeyPuppet]

" Since time immemorial, people have wanted what others have, and a certain percentage of those people will forcibly take from others through whatever means their breakdown of morality and ethics will allow.  Assuming that will ever change is wishful thinking."

We are at the point in human productivity where the ELITE have to create poverty and lack of things.
When the controls are thrown off of current technology things will change meaning for us. Stewardship instead of greed.

I tossed around this ideal in my head for a while, trying desperately to give it the benefit of the doubt.  However, the "elite" have not always been in control.  People are fickle, wanting of different things at different points in their life and there have always been those that capitalize on that nature of man.  The "elite" are simply those that made these efforts their life's work.  Although our puny minds find it difficult to grasp large spans of time (making for yet another angle of the human condition to be exploited by religious dogma... read: belief about), these asshats have had a strangehold on humanity's fickle tendencies for a relatively short time.  Prior to that it was individuals and "elders" of tribes that did the same shit.  Hence the use of the term time immemorial.

That is why I find it hard to believe that such concepts will be overcome any time soon (both sides of the coin).  Sure, maybe someday, but not anytime soon and forcing it upon the general masses would require the folly of whatever flavor of "-ism" necessary to curb the human tendency to want, desire, and obtain that which for now seems always just out of reach.

Personally, I feel that tendency and drive is essential to survival.  Sure, psychopaths either take it too far or exploit it in others, but we can see right now what happens when you suppress it by providing every life's desire without labor or skill.  There are people on the public dole that don't work, won't work and find the idea revolting.  Not necessarily because they are "just lazy", but because the mechanism to be that way was provided at some point... that whole "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach him to fish and he'll never go hungry again" gone completely awry.

Trust me, I'd LOVE for machines to build the things we need, harvest crops and do all the labor intensive shit that makes the world go 'round... who wouldn't!?  This would allow everybody to spend more time with family, enrich their minds and express their creativity through the arts without the trappings of the "just getting by" nature of [corrupt] capitalism.  However, this is utopian idealism far beyond the comprehension and appreciation of the average human.  Not because they're stupid, but because 1. we are competitive creatures and 2. there would certainly be something very important to our very being that would be lost by not laboring for that which we use and consume.  This is evident today in the way we shop for food and other consumables.

Your statement about the elite having to create poverty and scarcity is dead on.  They've had enough time to figure out that so long as the slaves are "free" to choose their line of work and are provided enough bobbles to keep them distracted, there is little work to do with regard to actual control.  It's quite sad, really.

[Novus Ordo]

My biggest problem with the Zeitgeist movement is the Venus Project Solution - I'll agree with what has been said here already on this thread and add my own thoughts:

With huge mechanical robots and self-automated systems that provide you with sustainable environments needed to live in comfort - what exactly are humans going to do in this society? What will a typical day consist of? I'm imagining the spaceship from the movie WALL-E, where the remaining human population has become docile due to the nanny-technological dictatorship.

Given they want to eradicate the notion of competition, aggression, and other emotions/thoughts through enforced education (along with enforced drugging I'm sure), won't team and competitive sports be illegal / non-existent. Would it be a taboo in the Venus Project for one person to excel beyond the abilities of his peers? Everyone would need to be the same, the same clothes, the same houses, the same accessories, the same haircut, the same routine, the same diet, the same productivity. Surely, the moment you allow humans these creative freedoms and choices, the ability to do better than others, unwanted emotions would arise? The Venus Project sounds like an extremist's communism.

So will art be censored? (Refer to Plato's ideal society) will there be rock music? will there be works of art that evoke emotions. The notion of beauty and perfection surely in the eyes of the human race is not this sterile looking community of little to no progression?

What are we really looking at here? Is this the post-industrial scientific society sought by transhumanism and the elite? If so, will we have an immortal overlord? Surely with all these restrictions on how a human will think/act/feel there would be to be a secret group of individuals who monitor and enforce re-education?

With regards to the Venus Project - I see a lot of gaping holes that need answers, because its philosophy that of anti-religion, anti-emotion, anti-family, anti-competition removes much of what makes us human.

Excellent post you’ve encapsulated all the fears people have about such a situation really well here.
But with respect there’s also a hundred movies out there that warn us of the possible dangers of moving towards such a society.
So why would we invite such a thing surly it would be better to just blow ourselves up & be done with it?
 “there is no such thing as a perfect system” Fresco says this all the time.

If you made heroin legal and abundant would the human race all become drug addicts, or would heroin addiction die out within a few years?
Competition is born out of scarcity, while necessary in the past it’s becoming more & more obvious that it’s illogical.
Would you  sit on your arse & sunbath in the Maldives all day if that’s what you wanted to do, or you eventually get bored? (it would be a long time before I got bored tbh)
We have enforced education now haven’t we ?

Don’t get me wrong I totally get where your coming from but I cant help thinking you like so many other people are bringing the baggage of the crap we all have to put up with today to an idea for tomorrow.
While we need people like you to constantly point out the possible pitfalls I find it hard to accept your intellect can’t come up with a positive way to avoid those pitfalls.

I also accept I am bias, I am an atheist who would have died at the age of 11 if it wasn’t for the intervention of science & technology and again at the age of 45, so twice science has saved my life.
When the faithful day comes when a doctor is peering over me and says “you’ve got about a week to live”  I’ll probably have a good moan about why they cant take my brain out and put it in a transformer!  

[Novus Ordo]

I tossed around this ideal in my head for a while, trying desperately to give it the benefit of the doubt.  However, the "elite" have not always been in control.  People are fickle, wanting of different things at different points in their life and there have always been those that capitalize on that nature of man.  The "elite" are simply those that made these efforts their life's work.  Although our puny minds find it difficult to grasp large spans of time (making for yet another angle of the human condition to be exploited by religious dogma... read: belief about), these asshats have had a strangehold on humanity's fickle tendencies for a relatively short time.  Prior to that it was individuals and "elders" of tribes that did the same shit.  Hence the use of the term time immemorial.

That is why I find it hard to believe that such concepts will be overcome any time soon (both sides of the coin).  Sure, maybe someday, but not anytime soon and forcing it upon the general masses would require the folly of whatever flavor of "-ism" necessary to curb the human tendency to want, desire, and obtain that which for now seems always just out of reach.

Personally, I feel that tendency and drive is essential to survival.  Sure, psychopaths either take it too far or exploit it in others, but we can see right now what happens when you suppress it by providing every life's desire without labor or skill.  There are people on the public dole that don't work, won't work and find the idea revolting.  Not necessarily because they are "just lazy", but because the mechanism to be that way was provided at some point... that whole "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach him to fish and he'll never go hungry again" gone completely awry.

Trust me, I'd LOVE for machines to build the things we need, harvest crops and do all the labor intensive shit that makes the world go 'round... who wouldn't!?  This would allow everybody to spend more time with family, enrich their minds and express their creativity through the arts without the trappings of the "just getting by" nature of [corrupt] capitalism.  However, this is utopian idealism far beyond the comprehension and appreciation of the average human.  Not because they're stupid, but because 1. we are competitive creatures and 2. there would certainly be something very important to our very being that would be lost by not laboring for that which we use and consume.  This is evident today in the way we shop for food and other consumables.

Your statement about the elite having to create poverty and scarcity is dead on.  They've had enough time to figure out that so long as the slaves are "free" to choose their line of work and are provided enough bobbles to keep them distracted, there is little work to do with regard to actual control.  It's quite sad, really.

+1

[Cato]

Excellent post you’ve encapsulated all the fears people have about such a situation really well here.
But with respect there’s also a hundred movies out there that warn us of the possible dangers of moving towards such a society.
So why would we invite such a thing surly it would be better to just blow ourselves up & be done with it?
 “there is no such thing as a perfect system” Fresco says this all the time.

If you made heroin legal and abundant would the human race all become drug addicts, or would heroin addiction die out within a few years?
Competition is born out of scarcity, while necessary in the past it’s becoming more & more obvious that it’s illogical.
Would you  sit on your arse & sunbath in the Maldives all day if that’s what you wanted to do, or you eventually get bored? (it would be a long time before I got bored tbh)
We have enforced education now haven’t we ?

Don’t get me wrong I totally get where your coming from but I cant help thinking you like so many other people are bringing the baggage of the crap we all have to put up with today to an idea for tomorrow.
While we need people like you to constantly point out the possible pitfalls I find it hard to accept your intellect can’t come up with a positive way to avoid those pitfalls.

I also accept I am bias, I am an atheist who would have died at the age of 11 if it wasn’t for the intervention of science & technology and again at the age of 45, so twice science has saved my life.
When the faithful day comes when a doctor is peering over me and says “you’ve got about a week to live”  I’ll probably have a good moan about why they cant take my brain out and put it in a transformer!  

It is not the idea of allowing technology to have a greater impact on our society and our sustainability that I disagree with. I would personally advocate a step towards a Venus Project, if it didn't reject individualism/diversity so entirely.  I would also gladly retire from my job to pursue my own self-enhancement if that was an option today and right now, but as with most people, I am reliant in this system too - I must work for the benefit of someone else to live.

Part of why I am here is because I disagree with the current systems of governance (or the abuses within, such as education), and the Zeitgeist movies are very good at pointing out some of these flaws. What the Zeitgeist movement needs to do is expand on their solution, as I think they have failed to convincingly do so. As I see it, the Venus Project may cause a stagnation of human development when its culture becomes too comfortable in its imagined, perpetual existence. This arrival to what could be imagined as 'the perfect state' of human existence could lead to complications due to a lack of adaptability to further external occurrences outside of human affairs.

[Novus Ordo]

It is not the idea of allowing technology to have a greater impact on our society and our sustainability that I disagree with. I would personally advocate a step towards a Venus Project, if it didn't reject individualism/diversity so entirely.  I would also gladly retire from my job to pursue my own self-enhancement if that was an option today and right now, but as with most people, I am reliant in this system too - I must work for the benefit of someone else to live.

Part of why I am here is because I disagree with the current systems of governance (or the abuses within, such as education), and the Zeitgeist movies are very good at pointing out some of these flaws. What the Zeitgeist movement needs to do is expand on their solution, as I think they have failed to convincingly do so. As I see it, the Venus Project may cause a stagnation of human development when its culture becomes too comfortable in its imagined, perpetual existence. This arrival to what could be imagined as 'the perfect state' of human existence could lead to complications due to a lack of adaptability to further external occurrences outside of human affairs.

It’s a difficult conundrum to be sure, but I’d rather advocate a globalizing recourse based economy dedicated towards human ambition/ space exploration and a deeper understanding of life the universe and everything no matter where such a thirst leads us, even if that means we accelerate our own evolution to unrecognisable ends! Because shit like the subject matter in the 1994 Pulitzer prize photo has got to go!

[Michal Ptacnik]

VP is not against human diversity or against human individuality, not more than a washing machine is against the wonderfully diverse habits of people dealing with the need to care for their clothes at their local streams or lakes. Yes it destroys some cultural factors, but only those that have become obsolete and impractical.

[EyesOpenWider]

VP is not against human diversity or against human individuality, not more than a washing machine is against the wonderfully diverse habits of people dealing with the need to care for their clothes at their local streams or lakes. Yes it destroys some cultural factors, but only those that have become obsolete and impractical.

Who gets to decide what has become obsolete or impractical?

By cultural factors, may I assume you are referring to people and their communities?

[lamourlady]

[Michal Ptacnik]

Who gets to decide what has become obsolete or impractical?

By cultural factors, may I assume you are referring to people and their communities?

I refer to the ways things are done in the communities. We no longer need the horsemonger, the night watch, the watercarriers and the slave and no one is crying out for their return. Yet they were, for a rather long time, a part of the european culture. Indeed the very concepts of a "free city," a "city law," etc. were a distinct cultural invention that at one time provided great freedom and opportunity - but it is no longer necessary, at least not in any recognisable form.

The same with our current customs and mores. Yes, in ZTM world, few people would live in huts made of reeds, but I won't cry for that because I'll know that those people instead can live in modern, healthly houses and are provided for by the community the way they never would be if they lived like their forefathers had. And, if someone really wanted to be Amish, they could, it would not be a problem. In fact it would probably be (as just about everything) easier than it is now.

lamourlady

Huh? What is that? Sorry, I don't get the cultural reference. But from what I'm seeing this is a picture of an overtly controlled, overcommercialised world, aka. something we will be entering unless someone does something with the current train wreck of a system. ZTM looks VERY different indeed.

[agentbluescreen]

It is not the idea of allowing technology to have a greater impact on our society and our sustainability that I disagree with. I would personally advocate a step towards a Venus Project, if it didn't reject individualism/diversity so entirely.  I would also gladly retire from my job to pursue my own self-enhancement if that was an option today and right now, but as with most people, I am reliant in this system too - I must work for the benefit of someone else to live.

Part of why I am here is because I disagree with the current systems of governance (or the abuses within, such as education), and the Zeitgeist movies are very good at pointing out some of these flaws. What the Zeitgeist movement needs to do is expand on their solution, as I think they have failed to convincingly do so. As I see it, the Venus Project may cause a stagnation of human development when its culture becomes too comfortable in its imagined, perpetual existence. This arrival to what could be imagined as 'the perfect state' of human existence could lead to complications due to a lack of adaptability to further external occurrences outside of human affairs.

All governance is "socialism" there is no way around it. Mankind are social beings and of a single human family. Loving, charitable faith in and to Our Parentage, and in and of one another as brothers and sisters all is inescapable truth that shall never, ever change.

"Communism" is the hateful tribal mafia (imperial) established religion of worshipping the monopoly-corporatist theocracy of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

The Venus Project (as postulated) is techno-theocracy;  the established religion of soulless corporate engineering technology and little more than yet another form of a tyranny of tribal mafia established religionism with some new noble "gods" and high priesthood.

Only well-regulated Liberty (freedom from established religionisms) makes all things and truly creative freedoms possible, in an environment dedicated against hateful ond/or inconsiderate established tyrannies of favoritisms of opinion.

We must all learn to live and share together because we shall not choose to die and cannot be apart

[WakeUpAmerica]

I refer to the ways things are done in the communities. We no longer need the horsemonger, the night watch, the watercarriers and the slave and no one is crying out for their return. Yet they were, for a rather long time, a part of the european culture. Indeed the very concepts of a "free city," a "city law," etc. were a distinct cultural invention that at one time provided great freedom and opportunity - but it is no longer necessary, at least not in any recognisable form.

The same with our current customs and mores. Yes, in ZTM world, few people would live in huts made of reeds, but I won't cry for that because I'll know that those people instead can live in modern, healthly houses and are provided for by the community the way they never would be if they lived like their forefathers had. And, if someone really wanted to be Amish, they could, it would not be a problem. In fact it would probably be (as just about everything) easier than it is now.

Huh? What is that? Sorry, I don't get the cultural reference. But from what I'm seeing this is a picture of an overtly controlled, overcommercialised world, aka. something we will be entering unless someone does something with the current train wreck of a system. ZTM looks VERY different indeed.

Who is building everything? Where does your food come from? How is there running water, how is there power, how is there roads or parks or anything seriously the "'ZTM world" is such an absurd farce. Anyone who stops for a second and isn't a complete burnout or ignorant of history would realize that it is clearly just a repacking of the same thing sold to the Russians and the Chinese.

[EyesOpenWider]

I refer to the ways things are done in the communities. We no longer need the horsemonger, the night watch, the watercarriers and the slave and no one is crying out for their return. Yet they were, for a rather long time, a part of the european culture. Indeed the very concepts of a "free city," a "city law," etc. were a distinct cultural invention that at one time provided great freedom and opportunity - but it is no longer necessary, at least not in any recognisable form.

The same with our current customs and mores. Yes, in ZTM world, few people would live in huts made of reeds, but I won't cry for that because I'll know that those people instead can live in modern, healthly houses and are provided for by the community the way they never would be if they lived like their forefathers had. And, if someone really wanted to be Amish, they could, it would not be a problem. In fact it would probably be (as just about everything) easier than it is now.

Huh? What is that? Sorry, I don't get the cultural reference. But from what I'm seeing this is a picture of an overtly controlled, overcommercialised world, aka. something we will be entering unless someone does something with the current train wreck of a system. ZTM looks VERY different indeed.

Michal, rather than go into great debate on the finer point of things, may I suggest that we come from entirely different foundations; a fundamental believe that man is an animal versus man is not...and never the twain shall meet...

[lamourlady]

Huh? What is that? Sorry, I don't get the cultural reference. But from what I'm seeing this is a picture of an overtly controlled, overcommercialised world, aka. something we will be entering unless someone does something with the current train wreck of a system. ZTM looks VERY different indeed.

It's from the movie Wall-E.  And yes, it is about a future 'train wreck' system based on the possible 'over population', 'we're killing our world' syndrome, but the solutions can be as harmful as the purported problems.  Robots and ease of life are not sound solutions, imo.  As I've stated before, you can change the system all you want, but you will never change the basic human (sin) nature.

[WakeUpAmerica]

Michal, rather than go into great debate on the finer point of things, may I suggest that we come from entirely different foundations; a fundamental believe that man is an animal versus man is not...and never the twain shall meet...

How is man not an animal?

[Michal Ptacnik]

Who is building everything? Where does your food come from? How is there running water, how is there power, how is there roads or parks or anything seriously the "'ZTM world" is such an absurd farce. Anyone who stops for a second and isn't a complete burnout or ignorant of history would realize that it is clearly just a repacking of the same thing sold to the Russians and the Chinese.

Machines do the work while people who have, on the basis of education and voluntarism, chosen to operate the machines do the work on machines. This saves the need for 90% or so of labor and the freed labor can go on to do more sensible things like, say, to live their lives. Voluntarism, once 90% of "must" is removed from the society and the people can once again, at the long last, breathe freely will be much easier and much more commonplace, as it was in history in every healthly society.
The greatest lie in economic history is that "work made ape into man," as we were fed here during the communist dictatorship. Work made man into a slave. Time to break the chains.

Michal, rather than go into great debate on the finer point of things, may I suggest that we come from entirely different foundations; a fundamental believe that man is an animal versus man is not...and never the twain shall meet...

Capitalism believes that man is a dangerous animal and that he needs money and discipline to chain himself or he'd be lying under a tree "like those primitives in the third world" - which of course gives us the right to abuse them as we will. ZTM-sim would believe that man is free enough to be able to handle a voluntaristic, non coercive system; a system that minimises chains. Tell me, which one of the two is less of a zoo? Which one of the two lets man be more a man and less an animal?

It's from the movie Wall-E.  And yes, it is about a future 'train wreck' system based on the possible 'over population', 'we're killing our world' syndrome, but the solutions can be as harmful as the purported problems.  Robots and ease of life are not sound solutions, imo.  As I've stated before, you can change the system all you want, but you will never change the basic human (sin) nature.

So you believe that we should intentionally keep a disfunctional system, and make life intentionally more difficult, rather than to seek the most rational solution to problems, just because you believe we can not handle an easy life? Trust me, people will find new problems and obstacles to solve or if there are absolutely none MAKE some. This is, paradoxically, the "positive" side of sin nature, if you want to be cynical. It never allows us a moment's peace... but it also makes concepts like "the Eloi" from H. G. Welles's Time Machine impossible to occur. Thus those who fear progress "because in a world that would be operated by machines man would turn into a lazy blob" can rest easy, it never will happen. I am not saying that it is impossible to build a system that would make man into a degenerate, we are on a fast track towards one as we speak, but that would be done because of "have tos" and not because of too many freedoms.

I mean, do you even believe that man is not an animal? You are a fundamental Christian, where is the drive for man to have as much freedom as possible? You want him slaves towards the capitalistic chains of money and organized blackmail (which money and contract-based society is, just think about it!) rather than enable him to build a more christian form of society based on voluntarism. What is in the core of Christianity? A free choice. And capitalism denies that free choice by building massive obstacles. It is even, I should say, sort of a type for the sin nature and the reality and operation of sin in the world reflected in a social structure. It is an abomination and it must go.

[EyesOpenWider]

How is man not an animal?

My view, since you asked... ;-)

I was brought up Church of England and then Roman Catholic...neither really took with me...I went school and was taught evolution...for most of my life I considered evolution a very sound and logical explanation...then 9/11 happened, and I actually didn't give it a lot of thought...several years later I did and as you know once you peel the onion, there are many layers to it...

Suffice it to say when I learned that Darwin (he who equated man to animal, not really an original thought at the time...but I digress...) was related to the man that coined the term eugenics...well to me that's just a little too hand in glove...the man the equated humanity to animals is related to the man that came up with the breeding program for humans...

Or...I think there for I am :-)

[WakeUpAmerica]

My view, since you asked... ;-)

I was brought up Church of England and then Roman Catholic...neither really took with me...I went school and was taught evolution...for most of my life I considered evolution a very sound and logical explanation...then 9/11 happened, and I actually didn't give it a lot of thought...several years later I did and as you know once you peel the onion, there are many layers to it...

Suffice it to say when I learned that Darwin (he who equated man to animal, not really an original thought at the time...but I digress...) was related to the man that coined the term eugenics...well to me that's just a little too hand in glove...the man the equated humanity to animals is related to the man that came up with the breeding program for humans...

Or...I think there for I am :-)

God created all animal and God created man so what's the difference? Also I like to believe that God did create life, but the most primordial, knowing that after billions of years, we would come along, look back and try to figure it all out. In an infinite universe with an all powerful God don't you think he would want to see how it worked out each time? That would explain all of the major extinctions that came along before us... he(she/it/it really doesn't matter) was just wiping out stuff to make sure we came along haha

[Michal Ptacnik]

My view, since you asked... ;-)

I was brought up Church of England and then Roman Catholic...neither really took with me...I went school and was taught evolution...for most of my life I considered evolution a very sound and logical explanation...then 9/11 happened, and I actually didn't give it a lot of thought...several years later I did and as you know once you peel the onion, there are many layers to it...

Suffice it to say when I learned that Darwin (he who equated man to animal, not really an original thought at the time...but I digress...) was related to the man that coined the term eugenics...well to me that's just a little too hand in glove...the man the equated humanity to animals is related to the man that came up with the breeding program for humans...

Or...I think there for I am :-)

Guilt by association, anyone? So that he was related to him, what about examining the facts? I believe in the Intelligent Design, I will tell you that I see gaps in the theory as presented, and I am not alone, but I'd say, based on the content, not on Harpers' Bazar of who is related to whom, that we have nothing better. I do believe that the existence of a soul, or God, or a higher destiny for the individual or even the veracity of the Bible are not in any way undermined by the notion that life evolves and that our bodies evolved in some way, or are related in some way to animals. We have animal impulses, no question about it. What is important is to look for what is not animal, what is to us beyond these impulses.

[freedom_commonsense]

Automation is a fact of life, even store assistants are being replaced by self-service checkouts. Not to mention global wage arbritrage. Those jobs aren't likely to come back. At least that isn't the case under the current monetary system (where debt is the only means of expanding the money supply to permit investment in fresh enterprise without severely cutting prices and wages).

[MonkeyPuppet]

Automation is a fact of life, even store assistants are being replaced by self-service checkouts. Not to mention global wage arbritrage. Those jobs aren't likely to come back. At least that isn't the case under the current monetary system (where debt is the only means of expanding the money supply to permit investment in fresh enterprise without severely cutting prices and wages).

Apt commentary on the subject of automation... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ymW-STJiJw&feature=player_detailpage#t=132s

[Michal Ptacnik]

That is the question of procedure, of how well the machines will be made. Arguments like this are like the arguments of the original luddites, or of the archetypal old timer that distrusts anything and everything created after his fortieth birthday.

[freedom_commonsense]

That is the question of procedure, of how well the machines will be made. Arguments like this are like the arguments of the original luddites, or of the archetypal old timer that distrusts anything and everything created after his fortieth birthday.

Just to be clear, I'm not against automation: I'm against the knee-jerk "right-wing" responses to those put out of work by factors beyond their control (the monetary system being one of them). As well as the misguided idea that adding money to the economy automatically equals inflation - it doesn't if it's advanced against future production.

[Michal Ptacnik]

I reacted to MonkeyPuppet. I see your (freedom_commonsense) opinions quite jive in with mine, in fact.

Well, adding money does not have to... but the problem is that money kills voluntarism, kills natural community. That is a part of why communisms never worked - they were not radical ENOUGH in some areas, while they were TOO radical in others - violence, for example.

[freedom_commonsense]

I reacted to MonkeyPuppet. I see your (freedom_commonsense) opinions quite jive in with mine, in fact.

Well, adding money does not have to... but the problem is that money kills voluntarism, kills natural community. That is a part of why communisms never worked - they were not radical ENOUGH in some areas, while they were TOO radical in others - violence, for example.

Well, I view money as a means of exchange and a facilitator of trade, so making it artificially scarce would not be a policy I support. I'm also in favour of a single tax + citizens dividend model, so nobody has to be a wage slave if they don't want to be. We live in a relatively abundant world, it is monopolies that make it seem otherwise.

[Michal Ptacnik]

Well, that is true. What you are advocating is a step in the right direction, but I realize that ZTM ideas are in the same direction, just a few more steps. Speculating how many steps are we ready for, that's all.

[freedom_commonsense]

Well, that is true. What you are advocating is a step in the right direction, but I realize that ZTM ideas are in the same direction, just a few more steps. Speculating how many steps are we ready for, that's all.

Speaking of utopia, it's amusing how some believe we are already in one, and that poverty doesn't exist. I guess thousands of rough sleepers, crumbling ghettos, structural unemployment approaching one-third in some places, and people rummaging through trashcans are invisible to reactionary "right-wing" types...