LN reminded me of the highly concentrated bundle of miscellaneous wisdom that is the Zeitgeist series. This is the most recent movie (2:41 min documentary, worth every second):

Past the intro, the first section on epigenetics and human nature has direct application to love-shyness and the other subject matter frequently discussed on this forum.

The entire rest of it has direct application to the cluster-fuck our society and economy has become... but quite optimistic in providing a solid way forward.

Ugh. I could only stomach the first 20 minutes of that leftist propaganda. I tried very hard, based on the recommendations of highly respected posters Small Pink Blob and loveablenerd.

Its principle point seemed to be that "Since behaviors are not completely determined by genes, therefore society is to blame for bad behaviors. Furthermore resources should be allocated toward overcoming negative genetic predispositions, even if those resources could more profitably be spent on people without those negative predispositions, and even if it means stealing money from the latter to give it to the former."

I.e., the Democrat party line.

Did the "highly concentrated bundle of miscellaneous wisdom" occur later in the show? If so, please give me the TL;DW version.

Sure, the basic philosophy is that we should make decisions based on what is possible, not what is affordable. The money/market system not only creates unnecessary artificial barriers toward solving problems... it actually creates an incentive NOT to solve problems but rather exploit them and profit from their continuance rather than end them. A classic example is our continued dependence on fossil fuel, over 100 years later after countless other means of providing unlimited renewable energy have been discovered. Solar, tidal or geothermal, which are for all practical purposes infinite and could easily provide all the energy the entire world ye with zero environmental cost, yet are not considered cost effective monetarily (or at leas that is the propaganda) so are relegated to the backwater while we keep invading Middle East countries to control their oil.

Tl;dr, the monetary system is not free market because it has been monopolized by a single entity (the world banking cartel), and it not only resists social evolution but actively prevents it. It needs to go, and resources need to be allocated by scientific methodology rather than private profiteering. A large part of the documentary then goes into the details of how such a "future by design" would look. It isn't perfect, but 100000x better than we have now.

If you prefer an anarcho-capitalist alternative, you might look into the Thrive Movement/Movie. Their solution would also be 100000x better than what we have today.

So the movie claims that renewable power is actually cheaper than fossil fuels? *boggle*

A command economy, eh? I stand corrected, it's Communist propaganda.

And slightly past that, it goes into the topic of intrinsic obsolescence... which is somehow reminiscent of modern relationships.

you're really still banging that drum? You really think oil provides a sustainable future? please... please walk me through the plan on that one.

It is when you get the artificial commodity of money out the way and just look at social cost. Again, if money and the exchange model were removed from the equation, the only true costs are in manpower and material resources. Some upfront cost, but the payoff in the long run is astronomical. It is also inevitable as the fossil fuels are only available in finite quantities... The current economic model utterly depends on a constant state of accelerated growth. A reduction of growth is called recession and is very painful. Completely stalled growth is a depression, and I don't even want to think of what they will call the reversal that is inevitable. Infinite growth on a planet of finite resources is the real pipe dream.


Marx loved central banking. The Zeitgeist movement is opposed to banking entirely, as well as money itself and any kind of system of exchange. And screw the politburo! We already let science determine so much in our lives, why not let it devise the most efficient means of distributing resources according to need and availability?

Marx also dreamed of a worker's paradise. The Zeitgeist movement recognizes that we are long past that, and nearing the stage where 95% of all current human jobs can be automated or eliminated due to utter irrelevancy. This would make it a robot workers' paradise where the vast majority of humanity, no longer constrained to trading their time and energy for money to support their own existence, is free at last to pursue self actualization. The 5% still needed would be easily obtained by volunteerism. People would be glad to, the same way more than that volunteer their time today for everything from firefighting to auxiliary police to charity work to free/open source software development to support forum administration to you-name-it. This in spite of giving at least 40-60 hours per week of their time to the old rat race. Imagine what they would do with that time freed up.

There is an issue that we are well aware of on this board that Peter Joseph never brings up because it would be politically incorrect to do so. Once money is eliminated and all of the resources to sustain life are produced by automation and readily available at low to zero environmental cost, there is only one commodity left that will be scarce. This could easily become a defacto currency, and I don't even have to tell the men here what that is. Peter can't talk about it, but let's just say there won't be a solution to that one until AI and robotics get a lot more advanced.


Yes, designed obsolescence is a huge problem in today's economy. Whether it is obsolescence due to fickle taste via fashion (mostly manufactured desire through advertising), staggered release of years-behind technology as in electronics, or products actually designed to breakdown after a certain time like most appliances and consumer vehicles... it is extremely wasteful... both in the amount of resources it costs consumers and in the amount of destruction it renders upon the environment in every stage from extraction to production, shipping, storage and disposal. Complete and utter The only reason for it is profit, in order to maintain an antique and itself long obsolete system.

--

But I would also endorse the end goals of the Thrive Movement, which is a libertarian/pure free market approach to the solving the same issues. Oddly enough, their recommendations are almost verbatum the Ron Paul Presidential platform yet they never mention him by name... perhaps for tax exemption reasons? Sadly, they are so true to the capitalist element of their free-market philosophy that, unlike the Zeitgeist movies, you cannot view their excellent Thrive movie for free. You can "rent" an HD stream of the movie for 72 hours from their site for $5.00 however, and it is well worth it in my opinion.

--

Anyway, how could I endorse two seemingly opposite-end ideologies? Because they both agree on the root problem.... on a global and a local level, not to mention every level in between, our society is being bled dry by a particularly nasty and increasingly deadly parasite... like in most pyramid structures the parasite is at the top of the pyramid feeding on all the layers below... in this case the upper echelon within the global banking cartels. Oncebitten was kind enough to provide us with mounds of statistical evidence in this thread.

Anyway, until this parasite is removed, bickering over the fine points of what comes next is like arguing about what anti-venom to give a rattlesnake bite victim while the snake is still attached to his leg.

Exactly. Everything else these days is not built to last, why not relationships as well ? (My sig line from Loveablenerd sums it up well)

Sorry, guys. I've learned through hard experience that it is pointless to try to convince people of the merits of free markets. It's just too counterintuitive.

The only practical effect of such discussions is to make people angry at each other. So, respectfully, I'm ducking out of this thread.

So I'm respected?

Okay, I get the impression that the free market vs organized resource rationing debate isn't new around here... But just to address your point, you might want to watch from this point onwards...



So, if you trust the studies, there's a statistical basis to the benefits of allocating resources equally (which is not the same as overcompensating for negative genetic predispositions).

Correlation does not imply causation.

But seriously, I can't muster the energy to do a point-by-point rebuttal of all of the arguments in this thread. I'm sorry, you deserve a better adversary.

Update: Apparently the pay-for-play model wasn't working, or petered out at any rate... so they have put the Thrive movie up on YouTube in its entirety for free. Here it is, for anyone interested.