I think this debate could have been a lot better if there was structure to it. I was only sure what the hell the topic was halfway through the debate. It seems to be something like, "Will a RBE prove more efficient at production than the current system."

That's what I can see, anyway but it changes so much!

Should've started out with a clear statement that either side had to prove or disprove or whatever and that would be the foundations of the debate. The worst part was, "Anyone can join in," which has just led it to be more confusing for everyone. It should be TVP, Aegis and one or more moderators. It should be like an actual debate where each participant will have to summarise their point and then later on the rebuttals will occur. I've been reading through this and I haven't gotten anything from it. I don't feel more educated on any of the things people have talked about and I haven't got as much of a better understanding of Aegis' position that I thought I would... probably because there's no structure here.

Sorry for doing nothing but complaining but I don't like to see people waste their time. I don't like to see TVP and Aegis get frustrated over things that have no merit to the users here.

aegis wrote:
Even if they were able to prove that the system I am advocating is inherently flawed, which as of yet they have not done,

OK, now your just in denial, or you honestly think that things are fine the way they are. And I would dare say that means there is not much we are going to accomplish here. I gave you more then one example of proof that this system is utterly failing.

But you also think the political system works just fine even with the systems in place to allow big money to own the government. Which is in of itself, absurd.

VTV wrote:
aegis wrote:
Even if they were able to prove that the system I am advocating is inherently flawed, which as of yet they have not done,

OK, now your just in denial, or you honestly think that things are fine the way they are. And I would dare say that means there is not much we are going to accomplish here. I gave you more then one example of proof that this system is utterly failing.

But you also think the political system works just fine even with the systems in place to allow big money to own the government. Which is in of itself, absurd.

I'm assuming his mindset describes the system as working under the "correct", while believing greed and corruption and those variables generated by competitiveness inherent within the consumerist component is the way of the world and as such is widely accepted as the norm. So I don't think denial is the word, but instead his belief.

Xtylish wrote:
I think this debate could have been a lot better if there was structure to it. I was only sure what the hell the topic was halfway through the debate. It seems to be something like, "Will a RBE prove more efficient at production than the current system."

That's what I can see, anyway but it changes so much!

Should've started out with a clear statement that either side had to prove or disprove or whatever and that would be the foundations of the debate. The worst part was, "Anyone can join in," which has just led it to be more confusing for everyone. It should be TVP, Aegis and one or more moderators. It should be like an actual debate where each participant will have to summarise their point and then later on the rebuttals will occur. I've been reading through this and I haven't gotten anything from it. I don't feel more educated on any of the things people have talked about and I haven't got as much of a better understanding of Aegis' position that I thought I would... probably because there's no structure here.

Sorry for doing nothing but complaining but I don't like to see people waste their time. I don't like to see TVP and Aegis get frustrated over things that have no merit to the users here.

The conversation topic is this:

He came here claiming he could demonstrate emphatically that what we propose does not work, and will not work.

He then demonstrated he doesn't even have a strong grasp of what we propose in the first place.

Then he tried to state that I am in a position where I have to explain it to him, insisting that I must re-type out all the material for him that he should of studied before he made a bold statement like that in the first place.

As the conversation progressed, he drew some graphs based on no statistics, including graphs that he drew up about what he believed a RBE was proposing. I pointed out that there were many variables he was not taking into account, most importantly that we don't seek to mimic the production currently seen in a Capitalist system. And that a great deal of demand is artificially and superficially created through advertising and brain washing tactics deployed in marketing.

I also had to explain to him that we don't seek to produce one of everything for everyone, but instead want to focus on producing enough to give everyone access to things as needed. (Further proof that he did not in fact review the material.)

Now he is asking me to provide the science behind all of this claiming that he has reviewed all of the material, which he obviously has not. I have rounded up some of the scientific studies that I have used in the past to help make our points.

He has offered no actual proof that we will fail. And is all the while repeating that it is we who have not provided any proof.

VTV wrote:
Cool. Can you link these numerous studies?

Do you have access to any major journal publisher (SAGE, Oxford)?

I'm still looking for a study on emotional attachment to groups I read somewhere, but I can't find it right now and spending an hour looking for it would be senseless if you can't access the article.

But the general message is pretty clear: We care so much more about a friend catching a cold than we do about 10,000 children starving to death.

In a major economy, people you'd never know have to rely on you all the time, whether it's sending a huge shipment or fixing a broken power line. At the moment, our economy holds you personally accountable for that - if you break your promise, you'll be fired or sued, but there isn't an approach for that in a TVP society, nor the transition leading to it.

Regarding the discussion:

From what I've gotten out of it, aegis is arguing on two levels:

a) You don't have any reason to say that a society w/o money is better than one with money, and you refuse to accept basic economic though.
b) Even if you had a reason to do that, you'd have to prove that it's sensible to subscribe to a RBE - saying that X is good, because Y is bad is, as he/she already stated, a logical fallacy.

You're arguing on a different level:

c) There is some amount of "wrong" (crime, pollution, corruption) in the system, and anybody who disagrees with TVP must think the system is allright.

If you continue, you'll just argue on completely different levels.

Try to make a short solid case against money itself, and try to separate money from monetary fetishism and the profit motive.

CyborgJesus wrote:
But the general message is pretty clear: We care so much more about a friend catching a cold than we do about 10,000 children starving to death.

That is true, but it was engineered to be that way. And it can be engineered to not be that way.

Regarding the discussion:

From what I've gotten out of it, aegis is arguing on two levels:

a) You don't have any reason to say that a society w/o money is better than one with money, and you refuse to accept basic economic though.

He didn't really provide any "basic economics" and I said I knew most of what he was talking about already. I don't refuse to accept basic economics. I just know their solutions are obviously flawed.

b) Even if you had a reason to do that, you'd have to prove that it's sensible to subscribe to a RBE - saying that X is good, because Y is bad is, as he/she already stated, a logical fallacy.

You're arguing on a different level:

c) There is some amount of "wrong" (crime, pollution, corruption) in the system, and anybody who disagrees with TVP must think the system is allright.

If you continue, you'll just argue on completely different levels.

Actually, I didn't say that anyone who rejects the RBE thinks the current system is ok. He is the one who repeatedly said various obviously extremely broken facets of the current system are fine, when obviously they are not. His marginalizing and ignoring the effects money has on politics being the most blatant of them. That's how the conversation went in that direction. He himself stated when he started all of this he was going to defend the current system. I pointed out where he failed. And he quite intentionally is ignoring all of those faults.

Try to make a short solid case against money itself, and try to separate money from monetary fetishism and the profit motive.

I have been. You have been projecting a lot into what you feel is going on here. Right along with the claim that all of our arguments were emotionally based when I have provided common sense and statistics for him to look at as well.

Aegis I suggest you read this Interview with Bernard Lietaer, his criticisms of the current system are really good but his solutions are not so good for a permanent system only a temporary system I think.

www.ibiblio.org/london/permaculture/mail...ure-WA/msg00184.html

Here's some excerpts:

“Furthermore, I believe that greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament; I have come to the conclusion that greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using.”
Bernard Leitaer - Economist, Author, Professor

“For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.”
Bernard Leitaer - Economist, Author, Professor

I also suggest you read this book:
The Cancer Stage of Capitalism
www.amazon.com/Cancer-Stage-Capitalism-J...287421049&sr=1-1

Book Description:

"In this bold new look at the recent uncontrolled spread of global capitalism, John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, develops the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer. Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and--if not soon restrained--could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability. On every continent, in every state, there are indicators of profound economic and environmental collapse. From the lands of indigenous communities to the currency markets of Asia, from the ocean floors to the ozone layer, the collapse is all-encompassing and deep-reaching. John McMurtry traces the causes of this global disorder back to the mutating assumptions of market theory that now govern the world’s economy. He diagnoses the malaise as a pathologist would a biological cancer, tracking the delinked circuits of the global system’s monetised growth as a carcinogenic disorder at the social level of life-organization. In the wide-lensed tradition of Adam Smith, Marx and Keynes, McMurtry cuts across academic disciplines and boundaries to penetrate the inner logic of the system’s problems. Far from pessimistic, he argues that the way out of the global crisis is to be found in an evolving substructure of history which provides a common ground of resolution across ethnic and national divisions. Reaching beyond conventional textbooks, this fascinating study offers a new paradigm which is accessible to intelligent citizens the world over."


By the way we are open to any alternative system that can be used as a transition to a RBE. This is just me speaking personally now but I would rather have the current system be managed by democratic socialism rather than a pure capitalism. As a transitional system anyway.



All we are doing now is raising awareness of the problem with monetaryism and proposing an alternative system that we would slowly transition into. Even if it took 100 years the need to create a completely new society will always be there as long as we have the exchange of money as a means in which to manage our planet. This movement is about education, awareness and sustainability. I see no difficulty in gathering data, creating graphs and charts. Maybe we should have a project team that has the required skills to do this.

How is the need to take into account all the Earth's resources unscientific? To intelligently manage the resources for all the people. To create an abundance so that everyone is provided for. This is simply impossible in a monetary system as history has shown and as we are seeing now. We are also talking about a complete value change based on needs and not wants. At the moment people are being manipulated into buying things based on a artificially created assumption that if they get the product with the certain logo or badge on it then it is somehow better.





If everything is available without a price tag, if people have access to what they need and wants are not projected into them from a young age then they will be mentally healthier human beings. Why would someone steal in a world with no money in which they have open access to everything? They couldn't sell it on or trade it. We want to create equality. You can never have world-wide equality while using a monetary system that requires infinite growth to operate on a planet with finite resources. If people are motivated by profit then they are motivated for all the wrong reasons for there are good reasons to contribute to society other than blind self interest. It is the same problem as people being motivated by religion to do good things, they are doing it for the wrong reasons when perfectly good reasons already exist.

Another great book:
The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier
www.amazon.com/Impact-Inequality-Make-So...287422525&sr=1-3

Book Description:

"A groundbreaking inquiry into the relationship between societies' inequality and their citizens' happiness and well-being. Comparing the United States with other market democracies and one state with another, this book offers irrefutable evidence that unequal societies create poor health, more social conflict, and more violence. Richard Wilkinson, a pioneering social scientist, addresses the growing feeling—so common in the United States—that modern societies, despite their material success, are social failures. The Impact of Inequality explains why inequality has such devastating effects on the quality and length of our lives. Wilkinson shows that inequality leads to stress, stress creates sickness on the individual and mass level, and overall society suffers widespread unhappiness and high levels of violence, depression, and mistrust across the social spectrum. The evidence he presents is incontrovertible: social and political equality are essential to improve life for everyone. Wilkinson argues that even small reductions in inequality can make an important difference—for, as this book explains, social relations are always built on material foundations."

Another important one to read:
Web of Debt
www.amazon.com/Web-Debt-Ellen-Hodgson-Br...287422781&sr=1-1

Book Description:

"EXPLODING THE MYTHS ABOUT MONEY. Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been privatized, or taken over by a private money cartel. Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions -- including the private Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices -- and robbing you of the value of your money. Web of Debt unravels the deception and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation's, you should read this book."

I just want to point out the fallacy of suggesting that we provide some science to back up what we say but at the same time not realising that Economics is not a science. Economics is not based on natural law. If your system is not based on nature it is bound to collapse as we are seeing now. The fact that automation is more efficient than human labour....is that not self-evident? Well it is what we "propose". Our system is also based on human behavior studies by anthropologists. Social Science. Give specifics, what kind of science do you want to see?

Science And Human Behavior - B.F. Skinner
www.amazon.com/Science-Human-Behavior-B-...287423426&sr=1-1

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth - R. Buckminster Fuller
www.amazon.com/Operating-Manual-Spaceshi...287423518&sr=1-1

Why We Cooperate - Michael Tomasello
www.amazon.com/Why-Cooperate-Boston-Revi...287423790&sr=1-1

Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics - Alfred Korzybski
www.amazon.com/Science-Sanity-Introducti...287423928&sr=1-1

Suggested Reading List:
www.thevenusproject.com/index.php?option...w=article&id=459

Venus Project FAQ:
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/inde...;id=28&Itemid=66

Designing The Future e-Book:
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/A-Designing...tureE-BOOK-small.pdf

TZM Orientation Guide
www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/The%20Zeitgeist%20Movement.pdf

On the point of no one starving to death in the US or western europe you have to realise that the CDC do not track deaths by starvation in the US. I'm pretty sure lots of people starve to death or die from diseases caused by malnutrition.

There is an interesting discussion here on this very issue.

ask.metafilter.com/148923/Does-anyone-kn...in-the-United-States

Yes, the capitalist system you adore so much, is working very well and here are its results.

library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm

brillig.com/debt_clock/

www.usdebtclock.org/

www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock

Taxes that Americans pay each year:
www.goodcitizen.org/WWLA%20Book/Chapters...%20Taxes%20email.htm

By the way we would use systems such as the following to track and manage resources and information. These are just primitive examples by the way:

www.cosmosmith.com/population_clock.htm

www.worldometers.info/

www.wolframalpha.com/



"Europe's Plan to Simulate the Entire Planet
The 'Living Earth Simulator' will mine economic, environmental and health data to create a model of the entire planet in real time."

www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25126/?a=f

People who try to "debunk" the RBE or TVP seem to think that we here on this forum are the scientists and engineers that are going to make it a reality. Then proceed to ask us where the blueprints are or whatever. We are simply communicating the ideas. We don't even have to call it a Resource Based Economy or use the name The Venus Project. One way or the other whether it takes 50 years or 1000 years humanity will either destroy itself or move into the system we propose or something very similar to it. Regardless it will be moneyless, money has no relationship with natural law. Oh and CJ you more than anyone should know that money is based on faith not reality.

I always have to take a step back in shock when I hear scientists and experts in various fields say things like:

"Asteroids will eventually come our way, we can avert a disaster like that but the real problem is not a technical one it is a financial one. To stop this disaster will cost us a lot of money."

I just think to myself. So if we cannot afford to stop the huge rock coming to destroy us, we will just let it happen?! I heard a similar thing when watching a program about Stephen Hawking. He was talking about the need for us to eventually leave the planet but the cost of building a gigantic starship will be our biggest obstacle in human history. WTF?! Who do we have to pay? Ourselves? Does the Earth have a slot to insert money before we are allowed to do something? How can the planet be in debt to itself?

Its just unsane....