aegis wrote:
Well, I wouldn't waste too much time on it. Because your not going to be able to compile graphs with data about Resource Based Economies because they haven't been tried yet. So your data is going to be irrelevant.
I highly encourage you to revise this statement. The Venus Project is supposed to be based on the Scientific Method.



The most important part of the Scientific Method is experimentation. If you do not have any experimentation, and the data that it creates, you would not at all be able to arrive at a conclusion. If you have not already arrived at a conclusion, the Venus Project would not exist. If you were able to arrive at a conclusion with which you based the Venus Project without any experimentation and subsequent data, it would not be based off of the scientific method at all.

There is a great deal more to it then that. There are some statistics that back our theories. But most of what the Venus Project is at this time is a proposed approach. Jacque Fresco sites a lot of it in the material you should aquaint yourself with before you start making statements like "I have emphatic proof that your wrong".

If you do not - that is, if you think that the demand for food is more important than the demand for bio fuels, or if you think that the demand for reliable process control systems is more important than the demand for iPads, influencing the economic process, either through taxation & subsidies in a private economy or through regulations in a public economy, is completely possible.
Thats the thing; the current process allows for this to occur through subsidies. Corn, for example, is a staple food. It has been subsidized to the point where it is availible to literally everyone in the United States, and we give away even more to developing countries. By manipulating the role of government to correct any differences between the "market" price and the "actual" price of a good or service, you can arrive at a better equilibrium.

You stated that it's perfectly fine that so many people are still in a state of poverty. Because after all, their lives are (In your opinion) significantly better then they were before. (Even though they are still terrible. At least they are not quite as terrible)
Please show me the direct quote for that.

You tried to dismiss my point about how any system that leaves as many people to die as this one is not a functioning system. You tried to say it is functioning. I said sure, if you consider it that way a concentration camp is functioning. It's not an attack on you it's an attempt to help you see the point I am trying to make which is that it is obvious your view of what "functioning" when it comes to social systems is different then mine. Mine including a great deal more care for humanity as a whole. the system does not leave people to die. Every year, poverty related deaths and illnesses around the world fall. It takes time to move resources from one point of the world to another, but it is happening at a shocking rate. The total global output has changed in the past 10 years from "rich" countries producing over two thirds of everything, to now the developing world is producing only slightly below half. That is a mind-bogglingly fast shift of resources. China alone has slashed its poverty rate from 85% in 1981 to less than 30% today; more than a 50% decrease. And the trend continues, thanks to the system that is in place.
Interesting. The political system you claim is working fine made laws that require companies to practice inhumane working policies. Thank you for further proving the system is not working. which law requires inhumane working conditions?
You didn't show me anything. You drew some graphs. Profit maximization also includes reducing if not eliminating wages which in turns wrecks the economy. no it doesn't, it requires a balance between the marginal product of labor (meaning the realized added value of labor to a good or service) with the labor market. This, in turn, means that there is a supply and demand for labor in every job, and labor is then shifted around the economy to best fill the gaps. Right now, the American labor markets are not functioning properly as a combination of moral hazard and slack demand. The germans, on the other hand, who operate under the exact same system, have optimized and are flowing along beautifully.
Get back to me when you have. I am not going to type out all of that nor should I have to. Honestly I was hoping you were being rhetorical and it astounds me that you could actually not be aware of those things.
I have watched them. I do not trust the validity of your sources that were used during production. Get to typing.

Tell you what. I am going to start feeding you rat poison. I will agree to pay a fee for it. (By the way, I don't think this is going to solve the problems your going to have when I poison you. But hey, taxation is better...)
this is another straw man logical fallacy. Please stop doing that.

If this were true you should of provided those studies in the first place. I don't keep them on hand at all times, I have already put in a request for the source material (hopefully it will be in tomorrow).
Lets remember the chronology of events here. You stated you had emphatic proof that our system would not work and you would demonstrate it. The problem is if you are asking me for this information you are already demonstrating you don't even understand what we propose in the first place and are therefore not in a position to be telling us what is wrong with it. I cannot vouch for what people have told you outside of this forum. I am an "Official" spokesman for a reason. I have reviewed all of the information and proven to the right people that I am competent. The data your looking for is available in the various FAQs, films, articles and such that have been provided on this website. One of the reasons this forum is generally only for members is none of us have the time to sit here and educate every single person who comes in here with the latest ill-founded argument that we are wrong.
Let us more clearly look at the chronology of events. I was minding my own business at another forum in the middle of 2007, when suddenly a bunch of people came in talking about this zeitgeist movie. After watching it with some of my cohorts, we proceeded to rebuke many of its points, eventually most of the people who came to promote it got bored and left. Then in late 2008, we experienced the same problem involving a new Zeitgeist movie. My cohorts and I watched this second movie, and rebuked most of the points brought up in it. Roughly three weeks ago a new set of persons arrived on this very same forum, which I never left, to promote the same movie. Noticing a trend, I backed up my economic statements as best as I reasonably could, to the point where many of them admitted that they did not possess the economic rationale behind the Venus Project, and instead I was directed here to find someone else who did.

And so in order to prevent another wave of people coming to my forum under the impression that were were being bestowed new knowledge, I came here to argue the points directly. I have provided my rationale. You have not provided any rationale at all. You have pointed out that there are shortcomings in modern economic theory, which I have accepted and proposed methods with which they can be remedied. You have not only rejected those remedies (using the strawman attacks I have cited above), but have gone on to say that your method was better. When I used the same brand of rationale to explain that your method was in fact not better, and was in fact inferior, you have yet to provide me any evidence at all to the contrary. Please stop distracting from the topic at hand, and please find some of the evidence that you absolutely MUST have to support your theory.

VTV wrote:
aegis wrote:
Well, I wouldn't waste too much time on it. Because your not going to be able to compile graphs with data about Resource Based Economies because they haven't been tried yet. So your data is going to be irrelevant.
I highly encourage you to revise this statement. The Venus Project is supposed to be based on the Scientific Method.



The most important part of the Scientific Method is experimentation. If you do not have any experimentation, and the data that it creates, you would not at all be able to arrive at a conclusion. If you have not already arrived at a conclusion, the Venus Project would not exist. If you were able to arrive at a conclusion with which you based the Venus Project without any experimentation and subsequent data, it would not be based off of the scientific method at all.

There is a great deal more to it then that. There are some statistics that back our theories. But most of what the Venus Project is at this time is a proposed approach. Jacque Fresco sites a lot of it in the material you should aquaint yourself with before you start making statements like "I have emphatic proof that your wrong".Hold on a second.

And I mean everyone. What you are telling me is that the Venus Project, which has from the very start claimed to be a movement based entirely on the scientific method, has yet to verify any of its propositions using actual science?

I believe I am reading you correctly. This movement, which has been promoted on the single, solitary idea that it is grounded in nothing but the scientific method has yet to apply the scientific method to anything it has proposed? It is all still a hypothesis, verified by nothing?

CyborgJesus wrote:
VTV wrote:
No I didn't just rely on emotional responses. In fact I didn't make any. His graphs were pictures he put together himself citing no actual statistics.

You'll find similar graphs in any economics 101 course, and while I think that the concept of utility is misleading, he/she did a good job representing it - and comparing it to TVP.

I also pointed out that he cannot make graphs based on any data for a RBE because no such data exists yet.

Then you don't have anything to stand on. You can't say "flapping your arms is a good way to fly, because cars kill people". You'd have to test the former, and you'd have to test TVP, if you expect scientists to subscribe to it, not simply state that the status quo is bad and we gotta try something else.

That'd mean running simulations, publishing studies, engaging in academic discourse and finally trying a TVP economy in a secure environment. I don't mean to be rude, but - none of you is doing any of this.

Peter is gathering a lot of that information in the third movie.

The graphs that he created to make his point about TVP further proved that he was just making up his graphs out of thin air to illistrate his point. He even created fictional scenerios then claimed he had demonstrated something when he hadn't at all.

I also proved that there was a great deal of difference in what our goals for production are and what he believed them to be. Further discrediting his point. And further proving mine.

The biggest point here CJ, is that we propose a scientific approach to solving the problems that economists spend all their time trying to justify the exsistence of. The details of that have to be worked out when we know what the situation is in the first place when we get the chance to try it. An RBE today compared to an RBE ten years from now would likely be a very different plan.

aegis wrote:
Thats the thing; the current process allows for this to occur through subsidies. Corn, for example, is a staple food. It has been subsidized to the point where it is availible to literally everyone in the United States, and we give away even more to developing countries. By manipulating the role of government to correct any differences between the "market" price and the "actual" price of a good or service, you can arrive at a better equilibrium.

No we don't give it away. We sell it in third world countries and undercut all of their local production until it goes out of business. Then we set up sweatshop factories where the now desperate work force volunteers to work in inhumane conditions because it is better then starving.

Please show me the direct quote for that.

I guess I will dig up your words for you.

the system does not leave people to die. Every year, poverty related deaths and illnesses around the world fall. It takes time to move resources from one point of the world to another, but it is happening at a shocking rate.

Your going to have to cite sources for this because frankly I do no believe you.

The total global output has changed in the past 10 years from "rich" countries producing over two thirds of everything, to now the developing world is producing only slightly below half. That is a mind-bogglingly fast shift of resources. China alone has slashed its poverty rate from 85% in 1981 to less than 30% today; more than a 50% decrease. And the trend continues, thanks to the system that is in place.

Again, please cite sources.

which law requires inhumane working conditions?

You stated that laws were there to force companies to do whatever was most profitable to be sure they were not screwing over their investors. Currently those profitable practices include outsourcing which puts people locally out of work and in a state of poverty, and transfers that work to sweat shop factories to raise the bottom line.

no it doesn't, it requires a balance between the marginal product of labor (meaning the realized added value of labor to a good or service) with the labor market. This, in turn, means that there is a supply and demand for labor in every job, and labor is then shifted around the economy to best fill the gaps. Right now, the American labor markets are not functioning properly as a combination of moral hazard and slack demand.

I am sorry, but as a resident of Michigan I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that labor is not getting moved where there is demand. It is getting moved where people will accept living in a near slave like lifestyle for their wages, or being outright automated.

I have watched them. I do not trust the validity of your sources that were used during production. Get to typing.

Quite frankly. No. I gave you sources and now your just going to say you don't trust the sources. We could be doing this over and over again and it is a waste of my time. Again, you said you were going to prove we were wrong. Not the other way around.

this is another straw man logical fallacy. Please stop doing that.

No. It is not a fallacy. I was attempting to demonstrate you how absurd the idea of taxing poison is. People should just stop polluting. Not paying fines for it.

I don't keep them on hand at all times, I have already put in a request for the source material (hopefully it will be in tomorrow).

Ok... provided this even lasts that long.

Let us more clearly look at the chronology of events. I was minding my own business at another forum in the middle of 2007, when suddenly a bunch of people came in talking about this zeitgeist movie. After watching it with some of my cohorts, we proceeded to rebuke many of its points, eventually most of the people who came to promote it got bored and left. Then in late 2008, we experienced the same problem involving a new Zeitgeist movie. My cohorts and I watched this second movie, and rebuked most of the points brought up in it. Roughly three weeks ago a new set of persons arrived on this very same forum, which I never left, to promote the same movie. Noticing a trend, I backed up my economic statements as best as I reasonably could, to the point where many of them admitted that they did not possess the economic rationale behind the Venus Project, and instead I was directed here to find someone else who did.

I do not trust you as a source when it comes to your successful rebuking all of the points of ZM or ZMA. However, that aside I don't really care what happened before you got here. You asked to participate in a debate here wherein you were going to emphatically prove that our idea was not going to work. So far you have failed to do this. And have instead proven that you don't understand the idea in the first place.

And so in order to prevent another wave of people coming to my forum under the impression that were were being bestowed new knowledge, I came here to argue the points directly.

Unless your name is Colbert, it is not your forum.

I have provided my rationale. You have not provided any rationale at all. You have pointed out that there are shortcomings in modern economic theory, which I have accepted and proposed methods with which they can be remedied. You have not only rejected those remedies (using the strawman attacks I have cited above), but have gone on to say that your method was better. When I used the same brand of rationale to explain that your method was in fact not better, and was in fact inferior, you have yet to provide me any evidence at all to the contrary. Please stop distracting from the topic at hand, and please find some of the evidence that you absolutely MUST have to support your theory.

I have already given you evidence. I have provided links to a great deal of it and you are simply refusing to research it. Again, I am not going to spend hours re-typing every piece of information needed to present here for a single person to read who refuses to do the research himself before he makes grandiose claims that he can emphatically prove we are wrong about something he doesn't even understand.

aegis wrote:
Hold on a second.

And I mean everyone. What you are telling me is that the Venus Project, which has from the very start claimed to be a movement based entirely on the scientific method, has yet to verify any of its propositions using actual science?

I believe I am reading you correctly. This movement, which has been promoted on the single, solitary idea that it is grounded in nothing but the scientific method has yet to apply the scientific method to anything it has proposed? It is all still a hypothesis, verified by nothing?

Sigh....

Once again, there is science to back up a lot of our theories. There are also examples of communities that have done things very similar to what we propose on a smaller scale. I have suggested you review the material and your refusing to do so.

TVP is suggesting a scientific approach to dealing the problems of mankind as opposed to waiting around for it to be profitable to solve them. That's all we have ever said it was.

Again, the material is all here. And in Jacque's book. I suggest you read it. I am not going to re-type it for you. If you went through all the effort to make those graphs you can put some effort into studying what it is you claim to be able to emphatically prove will not work.

I presume you are familiar with "Off the grid" living?

A person gets some land, builds a green technology home that is intelligiently designed to be as efficient as possible. Builds a power system that uses free and clean energy (Solar, Tidal, Geo-Thermal) and uses Hydroponics and Green Houses to produce most of if not all of his own food. There are many examples of people who have done this. The economics of the situation is that they eventually minimize if not completely eliminate their need for money.

Now we propose taking that further. And we think the world should be working that way.

Aegis, this brief video series crunches some of the numbers and presents the data in a fashion you would appreciate. It uses pretty graphs. Only these are based on statistics.

CyborgJesus wrote:
I'm unable to find any major theoretical conflict between economic theory and the goal to create a sustainable society here.

Aegis has provided a correct introduction to economics, and explained in detail why ignorance or nonobservance of these models will not lead to a better result.

VTV - and most other members - have made many emotionally charged arguments, that do in fact not violate anything expressed in these graphs, but the way they are used at the moment.

Our current understanding of economics does treat all demands (which are wants or needs backed by capital) the same, and if you follow this model, you'll also be best served following the first Production Possibilities Curve in aegis post (PPCv.png, post #295616, page 2).

If you do not - that is, if you think that the demand for food is more important than the demand for bio fuels, or if you think that the demand for reliable process control systems is more important than the demand for iPads, influencing the economic process, either through taxation & subsidies in a private economy or through regulations in a public economy, is completely possible.

Still, increasing the production of food (product X, graphic PPCv3.png, same post) will decrease the capacity to produce bio fuels (product Y, graphic PPCv4.png).



None of this suffices as an argument for profit, privately owned means of production, and I don't see why this should be part of the discussion.


The problem that TVP has is - as a lot of people on the Colbert forums already assessed - it's utter lack of any coherent economic process.

It is believed on faith that (over)confidence in the scientific understanding of any given time will suffice to create abundance of every good needed for human survival, and that every other good can either also created in abundance, or simple "outgrown", which is also believed on faith.

There are two options:

a) TVP can go the scientific route and find "real" economic models that a society can use and test them in an experimental environment.
What will make product X more important than product Y?
How should environmental, social and technological benefits and harms be accounted for?
How will trade with other countries, systems or cities be handled?
How will the system react to possible causes of corruption or unforeseen challenges?

b) TVP can hope that somebody else will do it for them, once you gain millions of members. I'd bet my net worth that this isn't going to happen, but I've been wrong before.


That's all, sorry to interrupt.

Thank you.

aegis wrote:
VTV wrote:
aegis wrote:
Well, I wouldn't waste too much time on it. Because your not going to be able to compile graphs with data about Resource Based Economies because they haven't been tried yet. So your data is going to be irrelevant.
I highly encourage you to revise this statement. The Venus Project is supposed to be based on the Scientific Method.



The most important part of the Scientific Method is experimentation. If you do not have any experimentation, and the data that it creates, you would not at all be able to arrive at a conclusion. If you have not already arrived at a conclusion, the Venus Project would not exist. If you were able to arrive at a conclusion with which you based the Venus Project without any experimentation and subsequent data, it would not be based off of the scientific method at all.

There is a great deal more to it then that. There are some statistics that back our theories. But most of what the Venus Project is at this time is a proposed approach. Jacque Fresco sites a lot of it in the material you should aquaint yourself with before you start making statements like "I have emphatic proof that your wrong".Hold on a second.

And I mean everyone. What you are telling me is that the Venus Project, which has from the very start claimed to be a movement based entirely on the scientific method, has yet to verify any of its propositions using actual science?

I believe I am reading you correctly. This movement, which has been promoted on the single, solitary idea that it is grounded in nothing but the scientific method has yet to apply the scientific method to anything it has proposed? It is all still a hypothesis, verified by nothing?

Fresco's lifelong work and city systems are entirely based upon his own experiments. He is an engineer. The entire system as a whole obviously hasn't been 100% tested, but the concepts have been. The buildings are designed to be space and material efficient. The circular designs and transportation is designed to energy efficient, etc. All of this coupled with the fact that all TZM cares about is scientific proof and research...which is actually EXTREMELY hindered or "tainted" in a monetary system due to the profit motive. Examples of this are in the medical industry with pharmaceuticals, and in the food industry with completely profit-motivated research that is performed with the intent to spread information that will benefit sales.

"Now, think about your utility of any item. For the first bit of it, you get a lot of use. As you get more of it, your usefulness of each one goes down. In terms of food, think about an apple; for your first apple you love it. Your second apple is good too, but not as good as the first."

This is a fallacy, the use of the apple is nutrition, not taste. Taste is a matter of luxury and is subjective. The pure Utility of the apple is the nutrient it supplies. Now I can see how having a surplus of an item that performs a function such as a wrench, could reduce the utility of each successive wrench by a portion of the preceding wrenches utility. This is also a fallacy though, because who is giving me these wrenches? Am I trading something for them? In an RBE I believe the concept is the understanding that If I only need one wrench, the resource will be regulated to produce the wrench as the necessity of the utility of the wrench dictates.




"Now, let’s think about present and future value of an item. After all, you could choose to get an apple now, or get it later. But it is better to think about this in terms of durable goods; you could get a car now or later. But what happens to the utility of the car over time? How does the utility of having a car today compare to the utility of having a car, say, a year from now?

Well, the present value of that car is higher than the future utility. Why? Because you would be getting usefulness of that car between today and a year from now. All of that utility adds together, and so the total benefit of having the car is higher now than if you were to wait."

I believe here the lifespan of the car is relative to it's total usefullness, in that the functionality of the car diminishes with time, so if one was to wait one year to get said car, then one year would be added to the functionality of the car for that person from the date of the desicion to buy the car or not. You get the car today, and you still have to expect the lifetime of the car to be the same as if you got the car a year from now.



"If you look at your utility for an item, you know that its value still does go up as you keep adding to it, even if that value keeps diminishing. This is true for all goods and services. So if you want to know at what points you will have the exact same amount of utility when comparing two items, or one item against the combined weight of all items, you get an indifference curve."

The first statement in this quote makes no sense to me? I could be misunderstanding, it would not be the first time I misundrstood something.It also seems to directly contradict your first statement about apples, in which you made the assertion that the more you had, the less utility the apple had. I must say that Utility in itself cannot be cross compared, for an items utility is specific to the task it performs. So you can only compare the relative utility of two items that have the same function.

"The next concept is opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of doing something or producing something is all other things that you could have instead done with those resources. For example, if I have a lump of gold, the opportunity cost of me turning that gold into jewelry would be that I can no longer turn that same lump of gold into plating for electrical components. If at a later date I decide that I would rather have the plated electrical components, the opportunity cost of me melting down the earrings I made earlier is that I no longer have the earrings. The best way to compare opportunity cost is in units of utility; I can decide whether I am going to make the earrings or the electrical plating (or any other use for gold you can think of) based on which option is going to give me the highest utility.

Keeping that in mind, using resources, or all resources for that matter, for the production of another results in the opportunity cost of not being able to use those resources for all other things. But then we get into how efficiency of the production process can help retain utility as much as possible.

For the first unit of production, it is going to cost everything else the most. After all, you have to build the factory, get all the machines, and all the raw materials together to churn out your first item. However, the second item no longer has this requirement of building all of that stuff, its only real cost is the additional raw materials. Each additional unit of production is similarly cheap, up until a point.

At a certain level of production, you will be using all of the machines and factory floor space you can possibly use. In order to increase production by one more unit, you are going to have to add another machine, increase factory floor space, ect. This means that you are going to have to divert more resources away from making other things; the opportunity cost of creating each additional unit is going to go up. This can be expressed as a function of cost and production"

Opportunity cost is a moot factor when the most efficient use of a resource is the determining factor in it's use. The product "gold earring" has no value attached to the fact that it is gold. Only the "earring" has a function, and since the gold can be utilized with a function in and of itself than that resource of gold will not be used for an earring. Any variety of other available resources can be used for the earring and the aesthetic of the color gold can be added as well without using the resource.

"The price of the good is the reflection of the opportunity cost of producing that good or service against the opportunity cost/utility of producing all other goods with those resources. Demand is nothing but an expression of utility of the economy as a whole.

In order to express the opportunity cost or utility of an item, you need a unit which is convertible across ALL goods and services AND across both cost and benefit (utility). The unit that you need to use is money. Money is nothing but a medium of exchange, a standard unit by which you can measure other things."

Utility is a measure in and of itself without the measurement of money.I think I could go on and on quoting the various people in the thread but the fact of the matter is this, We do not have a democracy. If we did then every single decision would be made by a one person one vote poll.The fact that G.Bush 2 became president in 2000 should do well to display the fact that the people have no control. We are destroying the planet because of the fact that the goods produced are done so without concern for the effects of production.




I suppose I am appalled by the fact that graphs that display theory and conjecture of a money system that exists in a textbook only are used to support a system that does not consider Human Life in their "opportunity cost"... There is no way to graph the atrocity of enabling genocide to clear an area of the world in order to steal that regions resources for the purpose of personal, in the pocket profit.

The fact that the FDA is ran by the exact same people who own a monopoly on genetically modified food(Monsanto) and will not allow regulation for labeling of GMO foods, and are attempting to patent human genes, and have introduced e.coli dna into the staple of corn (which you say feeds everyone) for the purpose of allowing it to survive being sprayed by herbicide and also having an antibiotic tracking gene which allows them to shut down any farm for copyright infringement when natural cross pollenization occurs and these plants begin to infiltrate farms who do not use the GMO seed. This antibiotic gene also causes immunities to antibodies in the people who eat this corn so that they cannot effectively fight off infection when taking prescribed antibiotics shows the flaws in a profit driven society.

Health Care should not be profit driven, it completely defeats the notion of the Hippocratic oath.

High Quality Education should not be available according to purchasing power.

The Venus Project represents a shift in the global social consciousness. It represents an attempt to account for the value of all human life, not just those that make money for those that have money. It represents the fact that the institutions that are in place in society now are not working for anyone but a very few rich folks.

I just can't reconcile economics with the over all lack of humanity in the concept of profit.Not to mention that capitalism will fail as it is predatory in nature and there is no "natural balance" to stop it from consuming all the "prey". Capitalism is geared to create monopolies, these monopolies destroy innovation and human progress through the stifling of scientific research that may threaten the monopoly. It also perpetuates the separating of the classes of purchasing power until the extremely wealthy will have no one to feed their wealth, no one to buy their useless crap, no one to fill tanks of gas, no one to pay their utility bills.

I am not so naive to think that tomorrow we can just turn off money, and *poof* RBE works and everyone is happy. But I am also not so naive to believe that the current system has a sound economic base, it doesn't. Jacque Fresco made an appropriate analogy in an interview I watched with him, "A man is searching frantically under a street lamp in an otherwise pitch black street. A woman walks up to him and says "What are you looking for?"
The man replies"My Pencil" the woman says "Where did you drop it?" "Across the street,"he replies. the woman looks puzzled and asks"Why are you searching here?" after a moment of silence in which the man seemed to be wondering why the woman would ask such a ridiculous question he replies" this is where the light is..."

Our pencil is across the street. The system we are operating in does not coincide with the potential of what the world can be,but we have to start the search where the light is.