Cadrian

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.

P A N

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.

duga

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.

__________________
Confusion will be my epitaph...

P A N

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.

mr dave

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

__________________
i am the universe

P A N

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.

Cadrian

Naaa My mind is still the same

Makes me think of




BTW how far did you go in the education system?

t3hplatyz0rz

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!

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OceanAndSilence

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.

__________________
http://www.myspace.com/chrisneto - tune in to chill out

P A N

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.