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THE Zeitgeist Movies Thread (merged)

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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby TWilliam » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 03:32:57

Few if any believed the Berlin Wall would ever come down either.

Until it did.

The thing about evolutionary leaps (and they occur in thinking as well as in biology) is that you don't see them coming, and you can't say what they'll look like until after the fact...
"It means buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas? Is goin' bye-bye... "
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby IsThisRealLife » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 04:33:53

The lectures in chapter 1 were awesome. Very eye opening. Many things that I didn't know or that I didn't have the knowledge to express. More tomorrow.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby Fredrik » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 08:08:52

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', 'T')he thing about evolutionary leaps (and they occur in thinking as well as in biology) is that you don't see them coming, and you can't say what they'll look like until after the fact...


But I'm fairly certain that no "leap in thinking" will lead to renewable-powered techno-cities without cheap, abundant fossil fuels for the transition - certainly not in global extent. Especially with the climate change switching to high gear in the near future. Any succesful solution to our predicament will be local or regional, possibly national in some places.
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"A fundamental, devastating error is to set up a political system based on [individual] desires." -Pentti Linkola
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby mos6507 » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 09:11:28

This movement is just another ecotopian myth. It has a huge gaping missing variable in their calculations, that being limits to growth. It stands on the premise that the only problems we have are the wrong -ism, not resource constraints.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby mos6507 » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 11:31:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')The Venus Project is not a Utopian concept.


Rule #1 of any utopian concept. Deny that it's a utopian concept.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')In a resource-based economy many of the shortages that we have today could easily be overcome by technological ingenuity and the reduction of waste.


Sure sounds like Tomas Friedman-style technofix to me.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')A high standard of living would mean that all members of society would have access to all of the necessities to sustain life


Which has never happened even in the best of times, hence utopia.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')our life style could far surpass anything imagined today.


If that's not utopian rhetoric, I don't know what is.

I'm all for shooting high, but you've gotta have realistic expectations.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby vision-master » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 11:33:57

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f that's not utopian rhetoric, I don't know what is.

I'm all for shooting high, but you've gotta have realistic expectations.


Why? Let's aim for the Stars....... :)
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby IsThisRealLife » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 11:54:10

Chapter 2 is more of the old same old "we live in a eff-ed up world". Nothing new there.

:P
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby Ludi » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 12:28:17

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')
I'm all for shooting high, but you've gotta have realistic expectations.



I agree. The thing that possibly bugs me most about the Venus Project/Zeitgeist Movement (and there's a lot that bugs me about it) - is there's really nothing for the regular person to apply to their own life besides "changing their consciousness" -whatever the heck that is. There don't seem to be any incremental steps offered toward this new society. At the end of the film it just magically springs into being after the people throw their money away.

Any plan that says the first step is to "change our consciousness" is doomed to failure, in my opinion. Attitudes and behavior change together with new knowledge. If people learn some facts and then sit around waiting for their consciousness to change without changing their behavior, nothing will actually change in the society. You have to move to the front of the bus, not just think about moving to the front of the bus, to use an analogy.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby vision-master » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 12:45:43

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ny plan that says the first step is to "change our consciousness" is doomed to failure, in my opinion. Attitudes and behavior change together with new knowledge.


Wake up it's happening now!

An Apocalypse (Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis; "lifting of the veil" or "revelation") is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby Ludi » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 13:12:18

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ny plan that says the first step is to "change our consciousness" is doomed to failure, in my opinion. Attitudes and behavior change together with new knowledge.


Wake up it's happening now!

An Apocalypse (Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis; "lifting of the veil" or "revelation") is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted.



I'm happy for people. But for those of us who don't know what "it" is, it doesn't help much.

I probably need to use magical plants or stop taking my medications, then I would know what "it" is. :)
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby vision-master » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 13:27:13

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m happy for people. But for those of us who don't know what "it" is, it doesn't help much.

I probably need to use magical plants or stop taking my medications, then I would know what "it" is.


Go to South American, visit a Shaman and take some ayahuasca. :)
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby mos6507 » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 13:35:18

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')Typical Mos.


What's your problem? You don't believe in population overshoot? If you do, how is all the stuff they or you suggest going to prevent all suffering? Zeitgeist doesn't want to admit that there is going to be a downslope of limits to growth and it's going to be painful no matter how elegantly we try to drop and roll. That's all I'm saying. You just can't sell any of this stuff as a solution because it's too late for "solutions" where everyone wins.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby IsThisRealLife » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 13:52:00

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '.')..it's too late for "solutions" where everyone wins.
I'm pretty sure I won't make that selective group. I hope my loss comes swiftly.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby Ludi » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 13:52:45

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ')You just can't sell any of this stuff as a solution because it's too late for "solutions" where everyone wins.



I think there's value in solutions which attempt to reduce or limit the inevitable suffering. So household or local-level non-utopian solutions like, for instance (but not limited to) permaculture could, if implemented, reduce or limit suffering. To claim we will eliminate suffering is, in my opinion, unrealistic in the extreme.

Solutions which are so fantastic they are not being implemented, like the Venus Project, are not helpful, in my opinion. The Venus Project ideas have been around for decades and there is still no vertical farm anywhere on the planet, to my knowledge. Not one.

Other "utopian" community visions have been or are being implemented, which, in my opinion, gives them more credibility than the Venus Project.

A couple examples:

http://arcosanti.org/

http://www.findhorn.org/aboutus/vision/history/


Solutions which aren't implemented are essentially useless, in my opinion.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby IsThisRealLife » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 14:08:44

You know, being a middle-age child-less person, I kind of shrug at the solutions for the long-term. My time on Earth is within sight. Another 30 or 40 years. I'll change my resuscitation order to DNR within the next 30 years. My living will is clear; no living veggie.

I care about people, I don't like to see people suffering, but AFAIC, I think the next 30 years will be plenty livable ... for me, though.
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby TWilliam » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 14:41:19

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fredrik', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', 'T')he thing about evolutionary leaps (and they occur in thinking as well as in biology) is that you don't see them coming, and you can't say what they'll look like until after the fact...


But I'm fairly certain that no "leap in thinking" will lead to renewable-powered techno-cities without cheap, abundant fossil fuels for the transition - certainly not in global extent.

But that's just it; by definition you can't know that to be the case...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'A')ny plan that says the first step is to "change our consciousness" is doomed to failure, in my opinion. Attitudes and behavior change together with new knowledge. If people learn some facts and then sit around waiting for their consciousness to change without changing their behavior, nothing will actually change in the society. You have to move to the front of the bus, not just think about moving to the front of the bus, to use an analogy.

Yes, but one must first have the thought of moving to the front of the bus before one may act to do so. That's the entire point here as I see it; we tend to forget (or at least take it highly for granted) that all human creativity in the physical world begins in the mind. Wasn't it Einstein who said (approximately) that "problems can never be solved at the level of thinking that produced them"? Until we change our thinking about these sorts of issues (for example, replacing the thought "this is just more Utopian rubbish" with something like "wow, what if we could actually do this"), nothing will change.
"It means buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas? Is goin' bye-bye... "
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby TWilliam » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 15:48:09

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '&')quot;wow, what if we could actually do this"



Do what, exactly?

What exactly, is "this"?

In the context of this conversation, creating a society where "all members ... would have access to all of the necessities to sustain life - medical care, education, food, clothing, housing, entertainment, leisure time and more. Man-hours [would] be reduced considerably until completely eliminated. By eliminating planned obsolescence and the replication of the same products by many different manufactures and by surpassing the need for advertising, sales, lawyers, business personnel, bankers and all of the other non-productive professions we [would] easily provide many more goods and services to all people. Today's middle class lives better than all of the kings of the past. In a resource-based economy, when the main thrust and total aim of science and innovative technology [were] directed towards a higher standard of living for all, our life style could far surpass anything imagined today."

Personally I can't understand why anyone with even a shred of sense would consider such a world undesirable, much less actively oppose attempts to create it...
"It means buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, because Kansas? Is goin' bye-bye... "
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Re: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Postby vision-master » Wed 02 Feb 2011, 15:56:07

It's not a scheme, how we are living right now is. :)
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