Zeitgeist part 2: Addendum

[iivanov]

I have fallen back on these notions that human beings are ineviteably tenacious, competitive, self interested, and i still do.

This is an interesting observation.
I used to be fully into this point of view my self until i read this great book, so great in fact that i can't remember what it was called or who wrote it , point being, the argument of the book was that part of why humanity has become the most successful animal is precisely because we have compassion and a perpencity toward peace, because of this we have to justify committing these great acts of violence and conquest by associating them with God and nationalism...

I was just thinking things through, and I am sort of examining where these human behaviors come from. I personally have grown up without any economic constraints, any nationalistic sympathies and no course of action to in any way hurt other people in the name of god. I think there is a necessity for humans to do bad things irrelevant of social depravity or any other implication of social constructs or conditioning. but my main point is that the non-existence or demeaning of these things will lessen negative human tendencies to what would probably be the equivalent to the amount of negative things I have done in my life which I really think are the effect of boredom, curiosity, lack of emotional sentimental association with other living beings, being heartbroken (if this is what the world is like, I might as well not care about other people mentality). people just do these things growing up, and will do these things when they're adults too, also not out of nationalism, religion, social depravity. It could be out of something like heartbreak, fear of death, loss of a loved one, existential dread, etc., spawning so called crimes of passion.
I have always felt that without any human conflict, the world would be a boring place, moreover it would be an equivalent of what heaven, nirvana, utopia, the platonic universe. I think human conflict is inevitable and dare I say a good thing, but, again, exterminating the monetary system (and its derivatives, nationalism and religion) would probably limit human conflict to these crimes of passion.
It's only within the past couple of years that I have acquired that certain affinity for all of life and all living beings, and for no real reason, simply feeling love and experiencing its limitless potential. this natural progression I think (from observing myself) is what would happen with the average person in the resource based system.

but then again, I could be wrong and the human race is just doomed because we're all unconsciously sad self interested decaying mortals, but we're kind of neither. and now I'm perpetuating the vicious circle of postmodern dialectic.

my point is that even a cultural awareness and shift towards the resource based system is PROBABLY better than contemporary society don't you think?

[silverlulu]

wow, literally just finished watching Zeitgeist 2 and i am very pleasantly surprised.

the first one left me scared and depressed but this one gave me some hope and direction. i am so glad it actually gave us things we can do to play our part.

i loved it.

[Aequitas123]

Although i'm very excited about the possibility of this 'resource-based society' i'm a bit sceptical:

What is to be done about complacency and laziness?

Will a monetary based society be required to build this?

What will drive innovation?

and lastly...

How could we every get to that point? Breaking our current economy seems like a very difficult task.



I wonder if Obama has seen this?

[silverlulu]

yeah it's a good point... i think any change would be made in small increments .

do you guys believe in obama? because if you do, you HAVE to go and vote. i am not in usa. i like what i have seen from him. but i am torn in my views. he could be the puppet of the corporations anyway, in which case it doesn't matter who the president is.

i think if you want some of your questions answered, zeitgeists forum which should be up any day, should help.

[Emissary]

Although i'm very excited about the possibility of this 'resource-based society' i'm a bit sceptical:

What is to be done about complacency and laziness?

Will a monetary based society be required to build this?

What will drive innovation?

and lastly...

How could we every get to that point? Breaking our current economy seems like a very difficult task.



I wonder if Obama has seen this?

i think societies like the venus project have existed since the dawn of man. Take the native american indians for instance. Within each tribe if you didn't pull your weight then you were excluded from the group. The native americans were a resource based society, and even though there was much war between tribes, they still treated the earth well (mainly because they had learnt from previous lessons)

Remember that there would be no consumerism in the venus project. there would be 1 type of tv, 1 type of radio, 1 type of car and so on. There would be no competition as everyone would be working on creating the best thing possible. Ok some may say this would lead to sameness. but only in things that didn't matter. I think a society like the venus project would be filled with only 2 types of people. scientists and artists. The artists inspiring the scientists and the scientists providing more technology for the artists to use to inspire the scientists and so on.

I dont earn a cent from music making most of the time, but I still do it. It gives me more joy if someone tells me they really enjoyed a work i have done rather than if someone just bungs me a tenner and says nothing. Society would have to adjust but it would happen eventually. Anyway for all this to happen their would have to be some global event that destroyed vast numbers of the population.

[silverlulu]

isn't there supposed to be this bad ass polar shift happening in 2012?

[ethios4]

I haven't watched all of this yet, but I'll throw in some comments anyway.

#1 Peter Joseph lost a lot of credibility with me on Zeitgeist, so I have a really hard time trusting anything in this one. I can already tell that he probably got quite a bit of his understanding of the Federal Reserve from other internet movies such as "Money as Debt" and "Money Masters". For example, he fails to discuss the fact that the money that is "created" in the fractional reserve system (M1, M2, M3) balances out to zero. This is a mistake made in all the internet documentaries on this subject. I'm not saying I think the Federal Reserve system is good, but just that I don't trust Peter Joseph's portrayal of it at all.

#2 It's sounding like utopianism already. Sorry, not interested in armchair philosopher pipe dreams...I have enough of my own already. In Zeitgeist 1, he goes on and on about the evil that men do, then wraps it up saying there is no good and evil and we're all really one....well, which is it?! If we're all one, wouldn't that mean that we are one with the "evil" in the world too? The philosophizing in this is just ridiculous feel-good mumbo-jumbo so far, IMO.

#3 - The sole thing that has ever improved our lives is technology?!?!?!? WTF?!?!? Utter and complete bullshit!!!!!! Hello you fucking imbecile, nuclear weapons are technology! Pollution is caused by technology! Guns are technology! RFID chips are technology! Federal Reserve banking is technology! Gas chambers are technology! Technology is fed by money and politics! Like everything else in this world, technology is a double-edged sword and will always have "good" and "bad" uses. Therefore technology is not the solution anymore than politics, money, or religion.

[Aequitas123]

i think societies like the venus project have existed since the dawn of man. Take the native american indians for instance. Within each tribe if you didn't pull your weight then you were excluded from the group. The native americans were a resource based society, and even though there was much war between tribes, they still treated the earth well (mainly because they had learnt from previous lessons)

But the American Indians weren't technology based.

[Aequitas123]

I haven't watched all of this yet, but I'll throw in some comments anyway.

#1 Peter Joseph lost a lot of credibility with me on Zeitgeist, so I have a really hard time trusting anything in this one. I can already tell that he probably got quite a bit of his understanding of the Federal Reserve from other internet movies such as "Money as Debt" and "Money Masters". For example, he fails to discuss the fact that the money that is "created" in the fractional reserve system (M1, M2, M3) balances out to zero. This is a mistake made in all the internet documentaries on this subject. I'm not saying I think the Federal Reserve system is good, but just that I don't trust Peter Joseph's portrayal of it at all.

I think you'll need to expand more on why he was wrong on these points. Right now this is just an ad hominem attack.

#2 It's sounding like utopianism already. Sorry, not interested in armchair philosopher pipe dreams...I have enough of my own already. In Zeitgeist 1, he goes on and on about the evil that men do, then wraps it up saying there is no good and evil and we're all really one....well, which is it?! If we're all one, wouldn't that mean that we are one with the "evil" in the world too? The philosophizing in this is just ridiculous feel-good mumbo-jumbo so far, IMO.

The idea that because it sounds like a utopian society makes it "ridiculous feel-good mumbo-jumbo" is absurd. We need to continually strive for Utopia (however unobtainable that is) to improve our quality of living standards.

#3 - The sole thing that has ever improved our lives is technology?!?!?!? WTF?!?!? Utter and complete bullshit!!!!!! Hello you fucking imbecile, nuclear weapons are technology! Pollution is caused by technology! Guns are technology! RFID chips are technology! Federal Reserve banking is technology! Gas chambers are technology! Technology is fed by money and politics! Like everything else in this world, technology is a double-edged sword and will always have "good" and "bad" uses. Therefore technology is not the solution anymore than politics, money, or religion.

"The sole thing that has ever improved out lives is technology" does not imply that technology has never been used for bad purposes. I think you would be hard pressed to argue that our lives are worse off now than 200 years ago, even if we do have more powerful weapons and tools of corruption. We now have Penicillin and we've cured or eradicated several diseases and we're constantly working on others. We have the vast wealth of knowledge provided to us through the internet. We have Ableton!

[Machinesworking]

I haven't watched all of this yet, but I'll throw in some comments anyway.

Having gotten halfway through it as well, I feel you're the only person here I can discuss our half digested understandings with!

In Zeitgeist 1, he goes on and on about the evil that men do, then wraps it up saying there is no good and evil and we're all really one....well, which is it?! If we're all one, wouldn't that mean that we are one with the "evil" in the world too? The philosophizing in this is just ridiculous feel-good mumbo-jumbo so far, IMO.

OK this is interesting to me, you're basically saying that there is no way to get out of the cycle of good and evil? I thought you had read some Zen Buddhist teachings and such?
Here's my take on it. The universe as a whole sees no action of man as either good or bad, in fact it doesn't matter one bit whether man lives or dies on a universal scale. We perceive things as good or bad in reaction to our surroundings and conditioning.
Every time mankind fights evil, he is in essence creating evil to fight. You cannot fight violence with violence, wars to 'free' the people from tyranny that backfired are easy to find, just look at nearly every revolution. We create a situation where violence is acceptable if used for the right reasons and we are in effect creating evil.
The problem is not simple, but once you target something as evil and give it power, then unleash your own wrath at it, you yourself are perpetuating the cycle.

The sole thing that has ever improved our lives is technology?!?!?!? WTF?!?!? Utter and complete bullshit!!!!!!

Without any doubt this is true. From a perspective of what is our sole and only power for survival? Without the ability to manipulate our environment to suite our needs, we are essentially a week and ill equipped chimp.
This is true regardless of the modern problem of abundance,which leads to our search for evil in each other, which manifests itself most obviously in war, monetary hierarchies etc.

[Angstrom]

I have fallen back on these notions that human beings are ineviteably tenacious, competitive, self interested, and i still do.

This is an interesting observation.
I used to be fully into this point of view my self until i read this great book, so great in fact that i can't remember what it was called or who wrote it , point being, the argument of the book was that part of why humanity has become the most successful animal is precisely because we have compassion and a perpencity toward peace, because of this we have to justify committing these great acts of violence and conquest by associating them with God and nationalism...

Desmond Morris points out in one or two of his books that humans are naturally compassionate, but overcrowding and competitiveness for resources drives that nature away. Other people become objectified 'others' and everyone goes a little bit insane. Our societal impulses are best suited to small groups (less than 100) which interact with each other occasionally, rather than cities of >5 million people all without obvious connection to each other.
The psychotic mode of being is all we have been used to since the industrial revolution, so we often take it as our natural state.

That said - these idealistic utopian society plans which require everyone to be a productive artist or an eco-aware scientist really don't take into account the realities of the human psyche. We are genetically predisposed to be bigoted, 'racist', competitive, oppressive, manipulative, self-centered, arrogant, and to advance our own genes at the expense of the 'other'.
This is our genetic imperative, and even in resource based tribal societies bad things happen.
The idea that any non-commercial tribe is inherently 'good' is just delusional. There is a lot of stuff written about native americans, for instance, which makes them sound like eco-saints gently cuddling the outdoors while flexing their bronzed organic muscles. It's just eco porn, a fantasy woven from a few facts and a few ommisions.

[Aequitas123]

Desmond Morris points out in one or two of his books that humans are naturally compassionate, but overcrowding and competitiveness for resources drives that nature away. Other people become objectified 'others' and everyone goes a little bit insane. Our societal impulses are best suited to small groups (less than 100) which interact with each other occasionally, rather than cities of >5 million people all without obvious connection to each other.
The psychotic mode of being is all we have been used to since the industrial revolution, so we often take it as our natural state.

That said - these idealistic utopian society plans which require everyone to be a productive artist or an eco-aware scientist really don't take into account the realities of the human psyche. We are genetically predisposed to be bigoted, 'racist', competitive, oppressive, manipulative, self-centered, arrogant, and to advance our own genes at the expense of the 'other'.
This is our genetic imperative, and even in resource based tribal societies bad things happen.
The idea that any non-commercial tribe is inherently 'good' is just delusional. There is a lot of stuff written about native americans, for instance, which makes them sound like eco-saints gently cuddling the outdoors while flexing their bronzed organic muscles. It's just eco porn, a fantasy woven from a few facts and a few ommisions.

While i agree that the lifestyle of the Native American is romanticized, i do believe that the zeitgeist (social movement, not the film) is progressing away from bigotry and self-centeredness and towards a more accepting, understanding and rational society.

[Angstrom]

I would say that is probably true, and I think that it derives from improved communication media from the early 20thC onwards - from telegraph to newspapers to magazines to TV and internet.
this helps large groups of people see how others think and view the world.

that said the move is incredibly incredibly slow, it's only by looking back over the last hundred years or more that we can see any kind of progress and there are many people who would say that the progress we have made is not progress. So we cant take anything for granted - this may just be a tiny blip due to popularity of certain memes and cultures (western/greek/romantic philosophic) .. and we soon drift back the other way if another meme becomes dominant.

[ethios4]

I think you'll need to expand more on why he was wrong on these points. Right now this is just an ad hominem attack.

I'm not saying he is wrong about his depiction of the Federal Reserve, just that I don't trust his depiction. I've been reading up on the Fed and I don't even come close to fully understanding how it works. The issue with M1-M3 monies comes up in the other two documentaries I mentioned, and through research I found that they are giving an incomplete description of the system... I have read enough to know that M1-M3 monies lent must be replaced with deposits so that they balance out. With an issue as complex as fractional reserve banking, we must rely on the credibility of sources even more than usual. I question Peter Joseph's credibility because of the onslaught of inaccuracy, distortion, fabrication, and fantasy that is Zeitgeist part 1, and also because he is not an expert in these fields and so far does not respect modern standards of scholarship by providing credible bibliography for Zeitgeist 1. Again, not saying he is wrong, just that I don't trust him.

The idea that because it sounds like a utopian society makes it "ridiculous feel-good mumbo-jumbo" is absurd. We need to continually strive for Utopia (however unobtainable that is) to improve our quality of living standards.

First off, you're making an assumption that "Utopia" is something to strive for. I do not believe that is necessarily the case, as history shows that the worst of atrocities are committed in the name of some utopian striving, however wrong-headed it may seem to us now. Utopian ideals do make us feel good....that is why we like them. I call it mumbo-jumbo because it is easy to dream up some ideal world, and far more difficult to put into practice. I believe this difficulty in practicing utopian ideals often comes from faulty assumptions in the utopian model in question. I tend to think of "utopia" as more of a process than a destination.

"The sole thing that has ever improved out lives is technology" does not imply that technology has never been used for bad purposes. I think you would be hard pressed to argue that our lives are worse off now than 200 years ago, even if we do have more powerful weapons and tools of corruption. We now have Penicillin and we've cured or eradicated several diseases and we're constantly working on others. We have the vast wealth of knowledge provided to us through the internet. We have Ableton!

I don't know....200 years ago we weren't concerned whether we might destroy our own species! Technology, religion, money, and politics all serve both good and bad purposes. It could be argued that certain religions have laid the philosophical foundations upon which science has been built, and technology created. It could be argued that without religion, politics and money, there would not be the social stability required to generate the technology we have today. As they say in Zeitgeist, it is all inter-connected. Furthermore, modern distinctions between science, religion, philosophy, and production are often anachronistic when applied to past civilizations, so it is difficult to say that technology is the only thing that has ever improved out lives in the sense that excludes religion, politics, and money.

[ethios4]

Here's my take on it. The universe as a whole sees no action of man as either good or bad, in fact it doesn't matter one bit whether man lives or dies on a universal scale. We perceive things as good or bad in reaction to our surroundings and conditioning.
Every time mankind fights evil, he is in essence creating evil to fight. You cannot fight violence with violence, wars to 'free' the people from tyranny that backfired are easy to find, just look at nearly every revolution. We create a situation where violence is acceptable if used for the right reasons and we are in effect creating evil.
The problem is not simple, but once you target something as evil and give it power, then unleash your own wrath at it, you yourself are perpetuating the cycle.

I agree. That is my problem with Zeitgeist. In targeting in on these evils, they become the evil they objectify. False authority is the target, and yet Zeitgeist is a false authority! Good/evil is a cycle if you are attached to one or the other. I believe there is a middle path that rises between the extremes...for me that path is simply trusting God.