The Zetigeist Movement: Orientation Presentation

Well, Zeitgeist refers to Americans mostly, but their message is more or less a global one. I would consider that Zeitgeist doesn't actually try to present a truth (although it does seem to do so at some points, especially religion), but rather shock it's audience and force them to start thinking for themselves and to actually stop believing all they see in TV. It tries to provoke the viewer into researching different matters, instead of sitting idle drinking beer.

Addendum seems to focus on more important and practical issues. Problem is that I'm not an American and I never cared to learn anything about Fed, so I couldn't tell whether the first part responded to reality. I guess the most interesting part was the Resource based economy. I had never heard anything about it before, and it did sound like a beautiful alternative. Still, knowing the international system as I do, I would simply say it's another utopia. I have not yet watched the third movie, but I suppose I will at some point.

But I never liked the way both movies are presented. A extremely well-thought dialogue and powerful rhetorics, it can easily be considered modern day propaganda. Plus, although they do cite their sources, the evidence in the movies are presented in an emotional and fast paced way. Pretty much what Tv does as well.

Anarchism seems to have inspired their message. If we exclude the fact that anarchism proposes violence and has little to do with technology, the goals of both movements are similar (if not excactly the same), in terms of morality and functionality.

Anyway, it was not enough to convince me to join their movement. I just doudt the effectiveness of such a movement.

 

Anarchism does not propose violence any more than our current systems do. That's a lie spread by administrations and governments who want to hold their power.

 

Ummm. No shai. It does. Kropotkin does. Bakunin does as well. Half of Kropotkins book "anarchism" is emphasizing on the necessity of violence. Violence is also praised in Bakunin's Statism. Note that by violence, I mean Violent Revolution. Mind you, anarchism is a movement that was created as a deviation from communism, due to the disagreement of Bakunin and Marx. Every theorist proposes violence, except one. The very first philosopher of anarchism, Pierre- Joseph Proudhon.

Noam Chomsky, to whom I suppose you reffer to as an anarchist, may have been inspired by those philosophers, but has proposed a theory that expands and differs from true anarchism, especially on the matter of violence, hence why he is held in such high esteem.
Besides, there are many different kinds of anarchism today. Green-anarchism, capital-anarchism and so on.

 

The ideas proposed by Zeitgeist Addendum and the orientation presentation make a lot of sense because they address the fundamental problems of human nature -- namely the broken economic and political systems as well as concepts such as cyclical consumption, scarcity and the future. I like this because rather than advocating a specific ethical alone view, it advocates the implementation of a system which takes human nature into account (in contrast with communism, which is an 'ethical' political system which did not take human nature into account). I enjoyed these presentations greatly because they address the fundamental ways in which the current economic and political systems are broken.

I think that society is changing and it has 2 different choices here:

- The continuation of the current system which will evolve into a corporatist system in which the world becomes comprised of corporate city states and archologies which war for the sake of increasing their own power.

or

- A system where the technological capabilities of man are leveraged to eliminate the concept of propriety -- as mankind has enough technological prowess to delegate machines to do his work for him. When the acquisition of resources is automatic, then those people can choose to (a) do nothing and pursue recreation, or (b) aid in the development of the system, as a service to humanity

The main concern I have with this is 'how' would the second scenario come about? At its most basic level, there is certainly advocacy, but advocacy is considerably less effective without action to back it up. We are still locked into a system which requires the exchange of goods and services -- for that you need sufficient capital and those who work to implement the system must be provided for. I, for example, couldnt help design the system if I still had to worry about working 7 hours a day (3 hours showering, eating, driving), paying rent and bills, buying gas and groceries -- and still giving my mind enough time to 'rest' through recreational activities.

The current realities obviously make things difficult. I wish it would spell out for me 'what can i do' and 'how do i know if my actions are having an effect'.

 

Chomsky isn't an anarchist, he's a moralist.

I guess I'd better write my book on anarchy so that there is no longer this bullshit about "what anarchy is".

 

I skimmed (perhaps I missed out the important points/misinterpreted, feel free to point them out to me D: )through the website of the Zeitgeist movement, (I'd love a nice clean world and all, but frankly) :/ some of the points raised don't make sense.

And if this some form of anarchy, it does remind me of a storm in a shotglass.

Anyway, I feel it's a very selfish movement. Most of the message geared towards America and most developed countries. I suppose if someone wanted a perfect world, third world / war-torn countries also should come into the equation, but I see it no where in their website (did I miss it?).

The part about religion being propaganda does irk me. A select group of people may have misused it for their own personal gains, but that doesn't mean religion is a kind of poison on the whole.

"Your reward for contributing to society is the well being of that society... which, in turn, furthers your well being." - honestly, !?!?!? After all that is being said the the entire objective is to further our well being instead of saving the world, and making it right for generations to come bla bla bla

I'm really lost for words now.

 

Oh this thread brings me back...

 

Actually it makes sense. It goes along the idea that by helping others you in turn feel better about yourself. It goes along the general idea of why people work on open source projects:

1) You get to problem solve
2) You create or contribute to creating a program that others enjoy
3) You create or contribute to creating a program that you enjoy
4) You feel good about yourself because you helped other people

The same ethic can be applied to any kind of charitable contribution. Of course there are limits to why this is not more common. Most namely that while a person is doing a charitable work he is not earning money for himself. If the economic system and earning money was no object many more people would contribute charitable works simply because by helping others you help yourself.

 

Idk maybe I'm way dense D: Shouldn't it be, you help people because you feel compelled to try to make things better for them, rather then to make yourself feel better?

 

Well ideally so, however I think that most people help others for their own benefits too. -- either consciously or subconsciously. For example would you travel to Africa to distribute aid if it did not provide some level of moral satisfaction to you?

Imagine then that the act only caused hardship and pain to you, and did not satisfy your need to help people. I guarantee that 99.9% of people would not do so.

It's not objectively bad -- it just means that the system proposed by the Venus Project takes such human nature into account.

Political systems such as communism have failed because they have not taken human nature into account (when things are grim most people will look after themselves, either directly or indirectly) -- hence mans fear of helplessness and thus need to subjugate the system to serve his purposes prevail, making it into a system which is restrictive to the freedom and well-being of the people it is supposed to serve (ie: chinese communism)