We need something which we can show to the public, a working model.
It HAS to be impressive
It NEEDS to have some of the technology to show we are serious.
In regards to the OP.
I fully understand how frustrating it is, I have had similar thoughts & desires to TZM for many years.
One thing I particularly love about the term "Zeitgeist", a large number
of us have independently have these thoughts about possible social
change & have become dissatisfied with the current system of greed.
It's amazing to think that across the world many people had the same
thoughts, same ideas but lacked the direction of a specific movement.
Another small oddity is that a large number of people I know who have
been similar "thinkers" actually got the basics from Star Trek or other
science fiction, the idea of a moneyless society in which people work
for the good of humanity as oppose for personal gain.
In a strange sort of way Gene Roddenberry is the quirky uncle of the
movement for some, ironic that the "science" part of science fiction
holds value even in entertainment.
In regards to the frustration I'm sure we all feel, that I can fully associate with.
Obviously I don't, but sometimes I feel like saying
"ARE YOU ******* STUPID?", "DO YOU HONESTLY THINK CAPITALISM CARES ABOUT
YOU, YOUR HAPPINESS, THE WELL-BEING OF YOUR FAMILY, THE ENVIRONMENT,
POVERTY OR CHILDREN STARVING TO DEATH YOU ******** TOOL?".
Ahem..., but I dont... (but have to admit, I do think it)
He actually got his inspiration from Iisac Asimov and other non-american
Sci-Fi authors. Interesting, russian people (Marx) had the idea of a
non-monetary/non-property system..., Asimov took it to the next level by
including advanced technology and robots (the 3 laws of robotics,
remember?) to free humans from labor, then G.R. just put it on the
screen in the form of StarTrek.
p.s. - yes, RBE IS a the true of communism, one that hasn't ever been
tried... actually there was NO communism EVER before, as those "states"
called "communist" were never really communist (they still used
property, money, government, payed jobs, monetary slavery, oligarchy...
they were oligarchic-capitalist to the bone). Trust me, I know, I lived
in such a country... AND I've read Marx, and what happened in Russia and
my country had nothing to do with Marx's theory. Everyone was as
"equal" as their ammount of money... so stupid. We even had the central
bank, called the "C.E.C.", which had deposits, loans... all the fun
stuff in capitalism.
He actually got his inspiration from Iisac Asimov and other non-american
Sci-Fi authors. Interesting, russian people (Marx) had the idea of a
non-monetary/non-property system..., Asimov took it to the next level by
including advanced technology and robots (the 3 laws of robotics,
remember?) to free humans from labor, then G.R. just put it on the
screen in the form of StarTrek.
p.s. - yes, RBE IS a the true of communism, one that hasn't ever been
tried... actually there was NO communism EVER before, as those "states"
called "communist" were never really communist (they still used
property, money, government, oligarchy... they were
oligarchic-capitalist to the bone). Trust me, I know, I lived in such a
country... AND I've read Marx, and what happened in Russia and my
country had nothing to do with Marx's theory.
Simply put: Marx + Robotics (computers) = Fresco's RBE
Of course,
I simply meant as a "conduit" to people via popular culture.
As a keen Asimov reader myself (imo one of the best science fiction writers along with Jack Vance), I can see the links myself.
I fully understand, communism is one of the most often misquoted
methods, people had some kind of negative association with it - when as
you stated - it has never actually been tried outside of fantasy so far.
Personally I believe this is a way of the "pro-capitilist" troupe of
creating a fallacy of false dilemmas on potential ways of running
government, creating a lie that its either A = American style or B =
USSR, nothing else is possible (so they would have us believe).
But ironically, using something which in no way resembles true communism.
The sad thing is, even tho I also support some of the principles of true
communism, I find it's difficult to mention to anybody when attempting
to educate them.
Most people have seen too many 80's American films with the dreaded Russian "bad guys".
- Extreme "ex-communist" (pseudo-communist) countries actually were the ultimate form of monopolistic capitalism:
There was ONE corporation - The state itself
A board of directors that ruled everything - The dictator + High-ranking party leaders ( Orwell 1984 style )
Everyone else employed by the corpor....state.
Ultimate beaurocracy - In capitalism it's called "management", where
there's a pyramid of managers that basically do nothing on top of the
workers that do everything.
Guess what ? They COLLAPSED ! Because that's what happens with monopolies, they fall under their own weight.
---
What happens today in the "American way" ? Well, some hyper-mega
corporations end up owning everything and having nearly 100% market
share ( Example: Microsoft in desktop operating systems, along with
their buddies at Apple, Google will soon own the Internet - they preety
much already do - and now they tend to monopolize mobile communications
with Android, funny isn't it ? )
But the "amazing" capitalism invented something else, so the people don't realise that it's actually a monopoly: The Cartel !
You thing Microsoft/BING is really in competition with Google or Yahoo ?
No fkin way, they are best friends. And that happens in ALL areas:
In politics: Democrats/Republicans - of course, a cartel
In communications: AT&T, Verizon... best buddies !
In energy: Exxon, Chevron, their british friends BP... are they really in "competition" ? Not.
+ Wal-Mart? How could I forget Wal-Mart ... haha.
Examples could continue forever...
But low IQ people see more Trademarks and assume ... weheeeey,
competition, hooray for capitalism and the "free" world ! Yppie-ka-yey!
So what will happen ? Well, if the collapse doesn't come sooner from
other reasons, like the planet being totally trashed for example, it
will simply come because of the monopoly/cartel thing, just like it did
with the DESIGNED monopoly called "communist state".
The only difference is that today's capitalistic monopolies are ...
well... GLOBAL. Nothing else to take their place. Just chaos,
destruction and anarchy. Unless we manage to convince people that there
is another way...
The trouble with the
communist idea is that people are so hopelessly convinced that human
nature is why it worked so badly. They don't understand why 'money' is
the real problem with 'any' system, not even with the excellent way
Peter and Jacques explain it, they just can't seem to get it. I don't
think they are capable of seeing how the answer could be so simple and
how an RBE just wouldn't need to have massive governments and millions
of economic 'experts' who have spent a lifetime of study to run the
world far better than it is now. All the education that would ever be
needed to completely understand a Resource based economy would probably
be over by the age of 10.
As much as it pains me to suggest, do we think there could be value in obtaining "celebrity" endorsements on TZM or TVP?.
Obviously I'm not talking about any old celebs, but well known &
respected scientists?, even left wing/social minded celebs who are
currently active for parties across the world could be considered.
A good example is the recent comments regarding atheism by Stephen
Hawkins, I know people who due to a respected scientist speaking out on
the subject has given them a push to question there own beliefs.
Has this possible method or raising awareness been considered?, while
the methods I do not fully feel comfortable with (feels cheap), It would
significantly raise the profile of the movement.
Obviously it would need to be done with a degree of integrity, but I was
just reading on the BBC news website about Patrick Stewarts support of
the socialist party (well.., used to be socialist) in the UK.
Re:Sorry, just needed to let off some steam 20 Hours, 4 Minutes ago
John1313 wrote: (This is what I call coincidence, I was just
about to post this rant and the first thing I saw was your rant Peter. I
hope you don’t mind me letting off a little steam.)
I have been trying to get the word out about zeitgeist movement at
several outlets and I posted the following on an anti-war advocate’s
site that has a lot of followers. The constant responses I keep getting
from so many are either negative or lack of interest.
Here’s what I posted:
The “Zeitgeist Movement” is the most important movement in human
history! It is designed to completely free humanity and save the earth
through a resource-based economy. Please don’t just ignore it, my kids
and your kids are depending on us to bring them towards a future worth
living in!
Zeitgeist: Addendum - 2008 by Peter Joseph
Here are just a couple of the basic short responses (the first one is from the main host of anti-war):
o Fart sound.
4 hours ago •
o *sigh* Just because it doesn't come from the mainstream, doesn't mean it's not propaganda.
3 hours ago
This is only some of the many responses that I keep getting everywhere.
There are many really negative and mean responses but I only posted a
couple lighthearted ones here. Even before I discovered the zeitgeist
movement I have been trying to wake people up for years and people are
just too thick (brainwashed).
I really hate to say it but I am almost completely convinced (and have
been for years now) that it’s going to take an entire collapse of
everything and complete caose and homelessness for people to even begin
waking up to reality. But the sad reality is, the greedy rich elitists
have already stockpiled up resources far away from society so that they
can sit back and watch everyone kill each other and die from starvation,
and if they see people rebuilding a new society all they'll have to do
is push a button to destroy the group of people that are trying to
catalyze the change. It is the same scenario as the matrix, the
technology is already so advanced that the elite that own and operate
that hidden technology have the power to control it from a distance
without having to worry about the population finding them.
Anyway, Here’s what I wrote in response to the anti-war advocates but I
didn’t post it because I realize I just needed to let out steam and
didn’t want to come across negatively to him and his followers.
I figured since you were anti-war that you would be anti-slave too, was I
wrong? Here's a good quote for unconscious brainwashed mind-controlled
society, "most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many
of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependant on the system, that they
will fight to protect it."
I’ve known since I was a kid that we are slaves in a corrupt system,
consciousness in an unconscious world is the most painful part of this
experience, witnessing the programmed human condition, obliviousness,
apathy and contentment, seeing others all around me wake up early just
to go to some slave job so that that job will give them pieces of paper
(money) that says they are allowed to live on this planet, as they look
down on people who aren’t willing to subscribe to their system. I want
nothing more than to help people yet the people I want to help are the
enemy just like this quote describes, “The Matrix is a system, Neo. That
system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around. What do
you see? Business people, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds
of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are
still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy.”
Have you ever tried to live without money to find out just how un-free
you really are? As long as land and resources are owned, we are not
free. You can’t even catch a fish to eat without breaking a law because
you have to “buy” a fishing license, much less squat on a piece of
unused land and grow a vegetable garden.
I have only recently discovered the zeitgeist movement but they didn’t
show me anything new, they are just trying to show people some of the
truths I have been trying to say all along. It’s nice to see that
someone is willing to stand up and try to do something.
Somebody trying to stop a war doesn’t effect us one bit, neither does
war itself unless of course your family or friends are brainwashed
enough to join the military. We are still slaves to money regardless. If
people want to stop a war then keep your family and friends from
joining the military. But that is hard to do when people are so broke
that they feel that they have no choice but to join the military because
they entice people in with money, and they even brainwash the people
enough to think they will be heroes and patriots in the eyes of their
whole country, like it’s honorable and something to be proud of that
their killing people.
Have you ever thought that the reason your anti-war show is being
allowed on the radio is to distract and redirect societies focus from
the real issue, that we are slaves?
Zeitgeist doesn't have all the solutions but they do have the problem
mostly pegged, we are slaves to a corrupt monetary system. But even they
are partially unaware and don't realize that it goes much higher than
just some greedy rich elitists. Higher consciousness is a continual
process and at least zeitgeisters were willing to begin that process
instead of just ignoring the root problems of the world.
I don't know about you but I don't want my kids to be slaves like us.
Apathy and ignorance is plaguing our society. People are living in a state of “ignorance is bliss” and don’t even realize it.
I am sorry if I have offended anyone, there was no offense intended, I'm
just very frustrated. My weakness is that I care too much and I always
will, that’s just who I am, I love people even if they hurt me. I
realize that most people are so brainwashed that they know not what they
do. Hopefully we can all come together as a collective and wake up more
people sooner than later or they will be awoken the hard and painful
way.
With Love,
John
You need to hit them in their values. And you do that by pointing out
that virtually every war when you peel away the layers is about
resources. And money.
Show all the various ways that war is profitable for the people who
start them. Make the connections for example to Dick Cheney and
Haliburton and how much money they make on Iraq and Afghanistan.
All war is linked to the monetary system in one way or another. And wars
are instigated behinds the scenes with this very motive in mind.
He actually got his inspiration from Iisac Asimov and other non-american
Sci-Fi authors. Interesting, russian people (Marx) had the idea of a
non-monetary/non-property system..., Asimov took it to the next level by
including advanced technology and robots (the 3 laws of robotics,
remember?) to free humans from labor, then G.R. just put it on the
screen in the form of StarTrek.
p.s. - yes, RBE IS a the true of communism, one that hasn't ever been
tried... actually there was NO communism EVER before, as those "states"
called "communist" were never really communist (they still used
property, money, government, payed jobs, monetary slavery, oligarchy...
they were oligarchic-capitalist to the bone). Trust me, I know, I lived
in such a country... AND I've read Marx, and what happened in Russia and
my country had nothing to do with Marx's theory. Everyone was as
"equal" as their ammount of money... so stupid. We even had the central
bank, called the "C.E.C.", which had deposits, loans... all the fun
stuff in capitalism.
Thank you for your opinion. I also have the same kind of feeling that
RBE is an idea somewhat similar or connected to "REAL" communism
(however relative it may seem). (Of course, however, I also fully
support the idea that we don't need to have a human-controlled
government or political insitutions in any form to manage our Earth.)
What I meant REAL communism here isn't that kind of collapsed communism
in Russia during WW2 or Mainland China now. Since I'm a native
Taiwanese, I can definitely say that many people here in Taiwan also
don't think China is a communist country; instead, it's right now the
best example of a capitalism country, and what's worse, it combines
dictatorship. I personally just worry there may be another World War III
triggered by China later in my life when the time of collpase comes
(such as running out of global oil).
Well, let's talk about what I feel about this movement from an Eastern
viewpoint. I once read a member's opinion on the forum, who said it will
be great to spread the idea of RBE to China. I also think it'll be
great if the idea of RBE can be spread wide in Asia. However, I have to
say the biggest barrier is language. Anyone can go to the Simplified
Chinese sub-board to take a look, and you can see how few the new posts
appear there once for a while.
Take me for example, I first came accross this movement just during this
year, but after I registered, I find all these translation projects
into Chinese are almost zero progress after I started to translate
Orientation movie subtitles. Actually, I believe perhaps I'm the only
one Taiwanese who does the translation work into Traditional Chinese
alone. However, there're still some other Chinese members who had
already finished the Orientation subtitles in Simplified Chinese before,
so what I do now is simply converting the Simplified ones into
Traditional ones and then proofread them again, combining with what I
had translated before by myself. One of the active Chinese member is
called Dingdong Pu, but I'm not sure if he's still interested or
actively pushing the movement in China because we only contacted each
other once. One good news may be that I expect to finish the subtitle
proofreading work recently. There're totally about 1330 sentences, and I
already finished 930 ones.
In Taiwan, I posted the information of the movement on the largest BBS
in Taiwan called "PTT".(Well, don't ask me why we still use BBS here, I
don't know the exact reason.) "PTT" is a place where most Taiwanese
teenagers, mostly college students or graduates, browse or gather the
source of various information or news in Taiwan society. I then briefly
introduced the movement and posted every important link related to the
movement on the sub-board of PTT, the sub-board is just called
"Economics", but it just attracted many criticism and attacks, and most
of them just think ZM nonsense and full of mistakes. Well, I didn't
argue with them too much because I don't know any economic theories, but
I just asked them to watch the links I gave and said no more. I think
this is what I can do best so far and at least I already left a message
there. I also already posted the information on "Marxism" and
"Sociology" sub-boards, but on these two boards, I got no response at
all. Maybe it's because the movement is somehow connected to left wing
thoughts so there's no attack or criticism at all.
Now I work with an active member called Roger Smith and another member
called Andrew.(I'm less familiar with Andrew, but he seemingly wants to
start to hand out DVDs of Addendum at universities in Taiwan. The only
member I know deeply so far is Roger.) However, I wonder if there're
only small groups of people in Taiwan to push the movement. I'm just an
unemployeed young man just graduating from an university in Taiwan
recently, and in addition I personally also suffer financial difficulty
for a long time so I can do little but translating documents or
subtitles into Chinese because I majored Western Literature during the
university years.
IMO, I think the biggest problem is that we don't have enough people who
have sufficient English ability and at the same time maintaim passion
toward the movement and related serious issues. Most ordinary people
won't feel interested in it unless it's translated into Chinese, but
it's the problem that we can't find enough people to translate the vast
materials(movies, essays, articles, or even newsletters) so that the
progress is slow. If we don't have sufficient materials translated into
Chinese and just hand out materials in original English, then I believe
it won't be effective to promote the movement in Taiwan. This is the
difficulty I think is a major problem.
Also, I didn't know how people in China go on because there's almost no
new post in Simplified Chinese sub-board. Dingdong Pu told me in the
mail that two Chinese young men had been inquired by the police due to
imitating TVP. (Well, I don't know what the word "imitating" mean. He
didn't explain in the mail.)
Besides, right now in Taiwan all common people just care about the ECFA
with China and the coming election.(Recently, a serious typhoon.) Though
the following may sound passive in your eyes, but I totally admit that
Taiwan always follows behind Western culture, especially America. (Some
people joke in Taiwan that it's the extra state of America.) Western
culture at least has the left wing thoughts such as socialism or
communism for some kind of balance, but in Taiwan, we only have
capitalism without even the least "fake" left wing thoughts or political
parties. I think the most propable place for the movement to thrive
first(if it's successful in the long run) in Asia would be Japan. Simply
put, finally, I think it's only possible for Asia to accept the notion
of RBE only after Western culture itself succeeds first.
there is no problem we can't overcome. Just know that you're not the
only one who's in this, we're all with you. I think it would be wise to
find the media more.
I'm a senior student at the University of Practical science in
Amsterdam, getting my bachelor in Advertisement, Marketing and
Communications. I'd love to help you in trying to find the media more.
I'm all about guerilla marketing, and I believe that creates a lot of
free publicity.
John Stewart announced the Rally for Sanity, I know i keep mentioning
this in a lot of my posts, but this could be a very crucial moment to
create awareness. If we can reach John Stewart, who has gathered this
great mass of people (100.000, and rumors are 500.000). Imagine if all
of them were introduced to the concept of RBE.
Perhaps it would also be wise to contact some Comedians. We all know
George Carlin's work, but he wasn't the only one who was ranting about
our sick society. In my opinion there is one comedian who could help us a
great deal, not only by spreading awareness, but he has the entire
African-American community behind him. Dave Chapelle is the Oprah of
Stand up Comedy. He's been talking about corruption a whole lot. And
also he's a very intelligent person when it comes to understanding
oneself and the society.
Please don't take just the scientific way, a lot of people are not ready
to actually LISTEN (with full attention and interest) to science (it
still seems boring to most). I think we can reach the "brainwashed"
society by Comedy. people are tired of the cruelty on the news and the
corruption.
I'm not saying the scientific theories are bad (with scientific I mean
seriousness:P), I'm very fond of the scientific method, but the majority
of people are not, they're all still stuck with shows like Jersey
Shore, desperate housewives, stupid shows that don't have any value to
human progress basically.
