*********THIS IS WHY G. EDWARD GRIFFIN DOES NOT LIKE ZEITGEIST ADDENDUM******
Posted October 10th, 2008 by CaseyJones
output
My friend Social Engineer wanted to show you all something. Social Engineer would also appreciate it if he could be un-banned from the Daily Paul, and he promises that he will not flame anymore trolls too hard, if you could be so gracious.
I don't like to criticize anything that is helping to spread the truth about the Federal Reserve and 9/11 but I must agree with the substance of what you have said about this video. I watched it two nights ago and was deeply disturbed by its message. At first, I thought it would be best to just let it play itself out in expectation that most viewers would cross it off as whacky. However, the production value is high, the effects and sound score are compelling, and there is enough truth embedded in the beginning to capture the attention and possibly the trust of many within the freedom
movement. So here are my comments on a few items of concern:
1. The information about the Federal Reserve is, for the most part, right on target. However, I practically fell out of my chair when the program repeated that old, silly argument about the Fed not creating enough money to cover the cost of interest on debt; and, therefore, the world must forever be in debt. I knew right there that the writer did not read The Creature from Jekyll Island or, if he did, he forgot my analysis of this common myth. For those who are interested in that topic, it is fund on pages 191-192 of The Creature.
2. The next jolt came when the program praised Civil War Greenbacks, calling them debt-free. Actually, Greenbacks were contrary to the U.S. Constitution and, although they were not fiat money issued by the
banks, they were fiat money issued by the government. That was better than paying interest on nothing to bankers, but they still wiped out the purchasing power of American money through massive inflation. They
can not correctly be called debt-free, either, because they represented debt on the shoulders of the government, which means, of course, on the shoulders of the taxpayers. It never ceases to amaze me how people think
that the solution to money created out of nothing by those big, bad bankers is to have money created out of nothing by those nice, trustworthy politicians. Yet, that is what this program supports.
3. There is a lengthy segment in which the author of I Was an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins, tells the story of how propagandists in the U.S. manipulated public opinion to support military action against several Latin American countries. Then Perkins says that these propagandists scared Americans by telling them that the leaders of these countries were Marxists who were aligned with the Soviets. This, of course, is a half truth that is just as dangerous as a total lie. It is true about the propagandists and
their strategy to scare the public into supporting military intervention in those countries, but it is false to portray those dictators as great humanitarians who cared only for the well being of their people. That is total bunk. They WERE aligned with the Soviet Union and they WERE part of a Marxist/Leninist strategy to dominate Latin America; a strategy that continues to this day.
There was plenty not to like on both sides of that struggle, but objective historians would never depict the Rhodesians (the CFR crowd in the U.S.) as bad guys but depict the Soviet puppets as good guys. In his book, Perkins reveals this same slant. He exposes the foul tactics of international corporations, the IMF, and World Bank, but he never mentions a Leftist dictator, such as Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez without praising them. Perkins is a collectivist aligned with the Left, and that strongly influences his telling of this story. Yet the producers of the video make no mention of this bias and give him an inordinate amount of time to present his slanted view without challenge.
4. Perhaps the biggest insult to our intelligence is the main theme of the program. It is that profits are the root of all our problems today. That being the case, we must change mankind to reject profit and we must work together on some other basis. It is never quite clear what that basis is, but, whatever it is, it will be administered and directed by an elite group, at least in the beginning. I was stunned by the fact that this is pure Marxism. Mark theorized that people had to be re-educated (in labor camps, if necessary) to cleanse their minds of the profit motive. He and his disciples, such as Lenin and Stalin and Khruschev, said that, eventually, the character of man would be purged of greed, and then the state would wither away because it no longer would be needed. Sure! We saw that in the Soviet Union and China, right? Yet this Marxist nonsense is exactly what is offered in this video program. It is Communism without using the name.
The profit motive is neither good nor bad. It can be applied either way depending on social and political factors. The desire for profit is merely the desire to be compensated for our labor, our creativity, our knowledge, or even for our risk. Without profit, very little would be accomplished in the world - not even if everyone spent a few years in labor camps to be re-educated. It is a basic part of man's nature and is the mainspring of human progress, as Henry Grady Weaver described it in his book by that same title. Throughout history, whenever man lived in a system that allows him to be rewarded for his work, there has been great productivity and abundance. By contrast, where social engineers gained control of the state and restricted people from receiving the fruits of their labor, productivity fell, and scarcity was the norm.
The profit motive functions differently in different political systems. In a free system where government does not intervene in the market place, the profit motive always will manifest itself as competition, each person or each company trying to deliver better quality products and services at lower prices. That was how it used to be in the early days of America, and that is what led to the greatest outpouring of productivity and abundance the world has ever seen. However, in a collectivist system where government controls every conceivable aspect of economic and commercial activity (the system that now exists in America), the profit motive always manifests itself as a quest for political influence and laws to favor one group over another. The net effect is to eliminate competition in the market place. Under collectivism, success is achieved, not by creating better products and services for less cost, but by controlling legislators and government agencies. It is a system of legalized plunder, as Frederic Bastiat called it in his famous treatise, The Law. Unfortunately, it is the system that dominates most of the world today.
Zeitgeist Addendum ignores this reality. At one point the narrator even says that the greatest evil in the world today is "the free enterprise system." That's an incredible statement, especially inasmuch as the free enterprise system has been dead for several decades. It lives in name only. The whole world now is in the grips of non-competitive monopolies and cartels that have forged partnerships with governments. All of the evils to which this program alludes are the result, not of the free enterprise system, but of
the abandonment of free enterprise and the adoption of collectivism. This program creates a mythological boogeyman and then advocates more of the very thing that has brought us to the mess we are in today.
The enemy of mankind is not profit. It is a political system of big government. Yet, this program is supportive of some of the most notable big-government collectivist on the planet. Marxist/Leninists may be enemies of collectivists in Washington, DC, but they are collectivists in their own right. The Communist model is no better than the Nazi model.
There is much more that could be said about other program topics such as technology supposedly being our salvation, about the a future world in which no one has to work, and about common ownership of land, oceans, natural resources, etc. but, for the most part, these merely are sub issues to the ones already described, so I will spare my readers the pain of further discourse.
In summary, this program does NOT offer a cure. It offers a mega dose of the disease itself.
Ed Griffin, 2008 Oct 9
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I can't believe how many of you bash this film.
I can't believe how many of you bash this film.
If you read Griffin's review carefully, it sounds like more of an envious opinion than anything else.
**1. The information about the Federal Reserve is, for the most part, right **on target. However, I practically fell out of my chair when the program **repeated that old, silly argument about the Fed not creating enough **money to cover the cost of interest on debt; and, therefore, the world **must forever be in debt. I knew right there that the writer did not read **The Creature from Jekyll Island or, if he did, he forgot my analysis of **this common myth. For those who are interested in that topic, it is fund **on pages 191-192 of The Creature.
He uses this point to make you go and buy his own book by saying "read pages 191-192 of my book". Why not explain your position instead of making us go and by your book Mr. Griffin?
There are alot of people on other particular forums that disagree with Griffins review.
First of all, Perkins is right on about all of his points. He lived it. Griffin did not. I bet Mr Griffin did not read Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hitman".
Griffin is another conservative who cannot stand criticism of his own government.
**It is true about the propagandists and
**their strategy to scare the public into supporting military intervention in **those countries, but it is false to portray those dictators as great **humanitarians who cared only for the well being of their people.
So who cares? Griffin nit picks. How Perkins feels about some dictators is a mute point. He points out how he feels a bit sorry for how we conned countries for their resources...and basically "broke" them by enslaving them into "debt".Thus, the "economic hit man".
Alex Jones criticizes the Venus Project part. I think it's an interesting piece NOT meant to taken seriously. Society could not exist under the Venus Project. It's a pipedream, but a an interesting fantasy. It lays out all of our fantasy's for us. The guy Jacques Fresco is a typical "there is life on Mars" type of UFO believer.And on that note, of Peter Joseph included this as to be taken seriously, than we should agree or accept the criticism directed at this segment.
I don't know about anyone else, but I took it as pure "wishful thinking" and "ahhh, if only" and a pure "science fiction" dream.
I guess you can tell that I am one of the very few on this forum who enjoyed the film despite the 2nd half being a pipedream segment.
So, basically -- watch the first half and forget the fantasty segment if your mind is so fragile that it cannot accept such segments at face value.
Big Brother is not your brother
G. Edward Griffin has awakened more people to the New World Order (including myself) then Peter Joseph does in his Fabian-Utopian wet-dreams.
This article thoroughly debunks Zeitgeist Addendum and its adherents/apologists.
----
Support The Feal Good Foundation. Watch "Dust to Dust" and "Dust to Deceit" to learn about the ongoing 9/11 Holocaust of dying 9/11 First Responders.
There have been moneyless
There have been moneyless communes for hundreds of years. Most last a short time and fall apart. Those that last longer fall apart as they grow or after a generation. Just because some random groups of people who all agree can function for a short time is hardly evidence of a fully functional, relatively long lasting society.
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Liberty Activism Repository
Ok and our system has worked???
If living like a slave is the result of our system, I'd rather live in a "commune" and be free. Our system failed to protect itself even with really clear written directions from our founders. Lets not forget that.
FAILure...
This system is built on debt, on fiat currency. It's NOT money, and you can quote Ron Paul on that... ;)
In terms of your kool-aid commune..
Yeah; Anarcho-COMMUNE (ism) It's called a tribe mate. Devoid of civilization.... There is NOTHING stopping you from going to the outback and joining the aborigionals, or the American indians, or the tribes in the Amazon... or setting up your own.
You would rather... well you CAN sell up and leave us to do the fighting, you go and become a hermit in squalor. Please do it fedor, I beg you. :rolleyes:
"What has government done to our money" By Murray Rothbard.
You refuse to read this, because you don't want to know the truth.
The whole premise of this movie is flawed. The dude is clueless about what REAL money is and it's affect on society.
Wake up Fedor, you're a clueless shill mate. CLUELESS.
And if you don't like Rothbard's book... how about RON PAUL'S?!?!?
GOLD, PEACE & PROSPERITY... by Ron Paul
http://mises.org/books/go...
no shit right?
as if it was all written in some alien language!
"uhhhh......i can't read this thing.........so..............free for all!"
Global Revolution
1. Living in a commune and being free is a contradiction in terms although you are free to go and live in one if you want so why don't you?
2. A system is an abstract concept. Systems don't protect themselves, silly, people protect systems.
3. The system being protected now is corrupt. All the more reason for another war of independence from the present tyranny which is now global.
"the urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."-- H.L. Mencken
Check out the intro to
Check out the intro to "Zeitgeist Addendum", it's more than just plain aesthetics. First it makes you focus on a single point like a hypnotist, then it incorporates these intense periods of fast flickering strobe like imagery, followed by periods of instant calm. That throws people's brains for a loop without them even really knowing about it, and then induces a far more mesmerized and suggestible state. It's as if it was produced by a PsyOps technician or something, or at least someone who knows brainwashing type techniques.
It's also like what integrators do, they shout and scream at people, then offer them tea and biscuits, then shout and scream at them again, it's a way of breaking down people's mental barriers. The first film's intro also had this type of sequence, presented in a slightly different way with tanks and bombs bombarding people’s senses, with intersecting “serene” moments.
After doing a lot of editing work myself I look at this and think: "what is this guy trying to achieve with a sequence like this?". My conclusion is that he’s trying to produce something that's not designed to please people, but to actually try and reach into their brains a bit, so that information can be sort of more implanted than absorbed and accepted consciously. I don't know, but I certainly don't feel right about Zeitgeist from a technical stand point, it seems rather disturbing and manipulative.
I've done a lot of editing
I've done a lot of editing too and that was the first thing that popped into my head, pretty creepy.
I do enjoy those movies though. I don't agree with everything but there are entertaining and present interesting ideas.
An excellent review,
An excellent review, CaseyJones. Thank you for the time and effort. Many forces are trying to pull people in many ways during a time of crisis and change.
As for money and profit, in my view, money is a tool, a convenience, neither inherently good nor evil. If I have chickens to trade and need lumber, you want chickens but have potatoes to trade, exchanges using a more universal value such as money is far more convenient than both of trying to track all the intermediate trades necessary for me to find lumber to trade for and you finding someone with chickens who needs potatoes. The money, of course, needs to have an intrinsic value of its own, or the system will ultimately fail when someone in power gives his products an artificially high value or decrees that I may no longer raise chickens that compete with his brother-in-law's business.
Profit is a motivator. Why should anyone work all day to support the the system that makes him work all day? I will gladly work all day to feed my child and my animals. I will work even harder if I have enough left to buy some flowers and vegetables for my garden, maybe some paint to make our home more attractive. I will not do more than the absolute minimum if the results of my labor is going to be given to some lazy fat-a$$ who sits home all day and demands something for nothing. Honest profit is good, using government to steal someone else's profit is evil. That is where we are now. I don't see anything obscure or mysterious about that. We are a socialist nation with delusions of past freedom.
Pat
BOHICA!!
Marxist infiltration
I agree with those who've already caught on...this is an attempt to infiltrate and trick the nondiscerning, a corruption of the liberty message. This is how the Fabian Marxists work, it is how they have taken over the Republican Party completely and silenced any true libertarian, small government viewpoint.
Liberty?? How...."fringe"...how "unrealistic"....how passe. We are all Marxists now, comrade, talking the collectivist talk and walking the collectivist walk, planning utopian "societies", atheistic heavens on earth where there is no "greed", "hate", "ignorance", poverty, illness, etc..
And free ice cream and puppies for all!
Spot on. Thanks.
----
Support The Feal Good Foundation. Watch "Dust to Dust" and "Dust to Deceit" to learn about the ongoing 9/11 Holocaust of dying 9/11 First Responders.
Listen friends, this movie
Listen friends, this movie has tremendous value to the uninitiated layperson that hasn't a clue about how things work in the world. The Venus Project has some great ideas, especially with regard to energy. It has other ideas that we know mankind isn't ready or willing to try and attain. Take from the movie what you want and leave the rest on the cutting room floor.
The filmmaker is trying his best to give people a glimpse of a world without:
WAR
POVERTY
DESTRUCTION
I applaud him for that.
To bad the movie pushes
To bad the movie pushes anti-free trade, anti-money twaddle on a multitude of young minds that are not sufficienntly trained in economics to see through this nonsense, thereby contributing to yet another generation that will vote against freedom, as Addendum told them profit, money and free trade are bad.
marlow
Well in terms of what you
Well in terms of what you consider "profit, money and free trade" these people are merely suggesting we should re-think what that is. That's fine by me. You could still "profit" depending upon your merit. The cream rises to the top in all economies. The problem with what we have today is that the "free market" is neither free nor a real market. Imho we have a corporatist structure that props up the established wealthy elite. Anytime you use the government to enrich or insulate your business through rules, regulations and law against competition you're engaging in protectionist corporatism. Over time the benefits to everyone in the system become less and less. We need a resetting to occur. I admit there are no perfect answers and no perfect systems.
No they are NOT...
[...] these people are merely suggesting we should re-think what that is.
No that is most certainly NOT what they are doing. What they are doing i "maneuvering" the viewer's train of thoughts through the movie so that they are not only willing to abandon everything they know of common sense, but will instead adopt the propaganda's viewpoint without examining or questioning its practicality.
Giving this piece to an "uninitiated layperson" (your choice of term there is interesting in several ways ...but I digress) -- giving this piece to an "uninitiated layperson that hasn't a clue about how things work in the world" is the equivalent of feeding your child a bowlful of sickly sweet cereal that is laced with Aresenic. As you have stated in your definition of the person, they are "clueless" about how things REALLY work in the world... ergo they have little or no knowledge or experience to use as a discerning filter or gauge to determine what are lies and what is true.
This thing is not merely "less than perfect" -- it is specifically designed to be "sweet" in certain specific ways so that the "poison" goes undetected -- it is designed to "initiate" some one into the "priesthood" of socialism.
Perfect Answer: No Universal System Pretending Perfection
I agree with xcited defense of this film. I also agree with Griffin’s substantive additions, and respect those with trepidations over the exposure of innocents. But I think critics are way off base to claim it promotes socialism or that Zeitgeist’s theme is:
“…we must change mankind to reject profit and we must work together on some other basis. It is never quite clear what that basis is, but, whatever it is, it will be administered and directed by an elite group, at least in the beginning.”
True, the merit of the invisible hand of the profit motive is not promoted, or even reconciled in the flick. This is a legitimate objection. But I heard nothing about administration and direction by elite groups except by way of correct indictment of the inherently corrupt status quo.
If the movie didn’t go far enough to explain that totalitarianism and communism are bad, I say we take a breath and consider the author’s intended audience. No one needs to tell me decentralization, voluntary association, nonaggression, and property rights are indispensible, all of which, I agree, were not developed in this installment of Zeitgeist. Except for these omissions, I had no problem with the film as far as it went.
Frankly, I suspect many who reacted vicerally to this film are tender over an issue the movie only subtlely raised which many conservatives are certainly not prepared to embrace. And that is: We don't need a universal system. Voluntary exchange........Freedom.......unleashes creativity and an abundance of good things. It isn't a system at all. It is the tolerance of an absence of system. To appreciate this, and the benefits which might flow from its regard, we are all still babes in the woods.
I understand the concern of those who clamor that Zeitgeist may cause confusion in impressionable minds for what it left out. But I suggest we use the stir the film may cause to approach the minds opened by it to supply the rest of the story. More substance; less clamor. Less stridency; more guidance that artfully avoids being categorized as an apology for the corporatism which is not free enterprise; or the managed trade which is not free trade; or the fascist monetary regime which is not free market republican capitalism.
These old paradigms are being repudiated. Let’s not foster confusion by insistence on old semantics. As the turbid dirty bath water of this failed system swirls around the drain let’s splash around in the rinse to make sure our precious concerns don’t go out with the swill, but rather rise to the top of a clear fresh unadulterated surface.
thank you
someone had to say it. Venus Project is total garbage. the movie is propaganda mixed with enough truth on 9/11 and fiat money to fool the uneducated.
agreed
If anyone has read Rothbard, Mises or Ron Paul, Addendum is the opposite of what they are talking about. Addendum is anarcho-communism. Everyone owns everything. Murray Rothbard argues the opposite in his book The Ethics of Liberty. All Ron Paul supporters should read the book.
So sorry, Marlow
You may be on the wrong website. The creator of this site called it "genius". So go ahead and start the name calling. Seems a bit foolish. All you have to do .......is leave. Simple.
Hi Fedor, I bet you enjoy this comment.
You are so awfully ignorant. You have proven that you have totally:
No respect for the founders;
have no respect for Ron Paul;
have no respect for liberty;
and no respect for this Dailypaul community.
You are trying to enforce your crazy communistic no money society on us, and you never get in depth on well thought out comments you receive. You are the worst of the worst when we talk about TROLLS. I would recommend Michael Nystrom strongly to use his power to remove you from this forum.
When I spoke out earlier my hope that you might sometimes think of the Libertarian founders of the US constitution, who fought and died for you to have the right to live that way, you replied " fought and died,then lost it".
I mean, what are you doing here.. GO AWAY..
-- Chuck Baldwin is closest to RP's message. --
Sometimes peoples first
impressions are different than their last.
Maybe it's time to cool down a bit friend. This is the daily paul, not the daily zeitgeist...I think zeitgeist has its own website now BTW.
www.baldwin08.com - Chuck Baldwin or New World Order!
You've got it wrong. What
You've got it wrong. What name-calling? Just frustration that you won't address our concerns and consistently call for a moneyless society while ignoring all our attempts to explain why modern societies cannot function without them. And, awareness that your attempts to create a moneyless ideal can only be acheived by government force. Sure, I could just leave but for some reason keep hoping to reach that kernal of rationality inside you.
I liked parts of Addendum but certainly don't see it as "genius". And plenty of intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate people concur as to its flaws.
marlow
Yeah I think we got this debate sewn up
1) We're not pushing anything on anyone
2) We're just floating ideas and that's not illegal unless you're outside of a free speech zone
3) We got real examples of people living off the grid
4) Everyone who attacks never mentions they want to end the fed too, all they can do is attack our idea.
It's really pathetic cause I'm allowed to think whatever I want and I never force anyone to do anything I wouldn't, but some people feel its their right to thrust their ideas in my face and accuse me of being "manipulated" or "on an acid trip" because I don't believe whatever made up garbage they happen to think. Real patriotic and independant when people mock those with free thoughts.
Go live in your nice little
Go live in your nice little anarcho-commune with the abolition of money (Maxism) and the abolition of private property, and the ownership of the means of production.. (Marxism)
Just don't for one second contend you've got anything new on your hands...
All Addendum does is throw in magical robots who do anything and everything.... Where scarcity is non-existent :rolleyes: and human nature has been altered, to where individuals do not live for themselves, following their own self-interest.... They in fact no live their lives; for other people... P-I-P-E D-R-E-A-M.
You sir have never read anything on Austrian economics in your life. You speak out of ignorance. I used to be a Chomskyite, roman catholic. I'm an atheist / agnostic - anarcho-capitalist now.. because I found Ron Paul... then Mises & Rothbard.
I've seen your arguments before, I used to be making them. Wake up.. OR, go live on your little commune - just stfu, your ideas are based on false premises & mistruths. Whats it matter to you? Go live in your fantasy land... no-one is stopping you.
Tell pipedream
to those people who are living it. Either you don't know about www.earthship.com or urban homesteaders or any of the other thousands of communities that don't need money to live (like the amish who've lived quite nicely without a real need for money for hundreds of years-even though they do use it) or you have chosen to forget everything we all know.
Today though we don't have to live like the amish because we can harness the power from natural systems around us. Either you can stick your head in the sand and not see the living examples of people living free from most of their needs or you can respect those people who do make it happen.
The earthship folks are not living in a cashless society.
Zeitgeist Addendum advocates no government, no borders, no money. Pardon me for being just a tad sceptical about that.
You'll have to excuse me. The problem with me is that I just don't "GET IT".
http://uk.youtube.com/wat...
Would you trade your liberty for a flying car?
http://www.youtube.com/wa...
Zeitgeist part 3: http://www2.b3ta.com/mind...
I am so fed up with anti-money comments
You Addendum supporters continuously spout off about getting rid of money - displaying your utter ignorance of economic law. I realize you are so wedded to your delusions you will never consider criticisms of your belief. I've written several long, detailed posts on these various Addendum threads patiently explaining why modern societies will crumble into oblivion without a free market price system. I've explained the positive function of interest bearing loans. I cited Lenin's catastrophic attempt to abolish the marketplace. I pointed out only small subsistence level groups can live without money. I've referred you to specific readings by Mises wherein he magnificently explains the crucial role money and prices play in maintaining our standard of living (and I'm not referring to fiat money) and wherein he put the world socialist movement into intellectual retreat by forcing them to confront the fact that prices (money) are absolutely essential to the operation of modern economies. Without a price system to coordinate production the mass of humanity would die like flies and the remaining few would live primitive subsistence lifestyles. All the little feel good communes you rhapsodize over are utterly dependent on the productivity of the outside, money using world for the bulk of their products. Sure, they grow their own food. That's about it.
Myself and several others here keep bringing you back to these flaws in your views. I've yet to see an attempt to address the criticisms - because you can't. We keep lopping off the heads of your "arguments", if wishful thinking can be termed arguments, but like the Hydra you just pump out two more posts of nonsense.
You may live any lifestyle you wish. We critics of Addendum don't object. What we object to is your denigration of the necessary conditions for a free prosperous society - that is, free markets, private property rights, a commodity based monetary system.
marlow
marlow
The only problem with a tech based society is that it can never
last. The only sustainable level of technology is stoneage technology. Thats why we see pyramids littered all over the planet. Saying that I prefer a society where I can go where I want, do what I want,(as long as no harm is done to others), be what I want, and to speak my mind when I want. So far only the system the founding fathers of the America devised seems to offer me those options. It worked well as long as we protected Her, but as soon as we looked away in prosperity induced euphoria She was raped and pillaged by wicked people laying in wait for her riches and the libery of her people. I am an ex-USAF security police drug and bomb dog trainer/handler. I took an oath to protect her future,, so She could take care of me and my families. I have nowhere else to go.
God bless America and Her constitution!
Poor Ed missed the point
http://www.earthaven.org/
These people are living the movie. Creating a transition. They are not "commies" etc. That's just paranoid ranting. They are true Patriots and they are paving the way to real Liberty. What a great movie. Thanks for sharing it Mike.
http://www.earthaven.org/
'Real Liberty'
Yeah you're right. We need 'real' liberty as in no private ownership, no individuality, no free-markets, no national sovereignty (hell what does freedom have to do with liberty anyways?), ... So yeah our liberty movement was just going along nicely over the past year on the notion of individualism, free-markets, sound money, national sovereignty, limited government but then we all saw Zeitgeist Addendum and decided that all those concepts were complete junk and instead we need collectivism, no-markets, no-money, a unified World Order, and a technocracy whereby a technocratic elite make the 'laws' by programming instead of legislating. Wow I can't believe we listened to those naive individuals like Ron Paul and G. Edward Griffin...
"Greater than the force of mighty armies is the power of an idea whose time has come"
- Victor Hugo
What?
I'd like to be free from money and the crimes love for it causes. Without money there'd be no bribing or blackmailing or assasinating so all the underhanded, deceitful things people do to topple governments would be eliminated.
What the movie is missing is a middle piece that explains the transitional stage where there is sound money based on something of value (like gold or silver) and then once all of the community's needs are met they can become fully automated and never have to worry about their needs again.
People are spouting stuff like robots-which could happen, but not until people get to providing for their own means first.
Atlas Shrugged
Read it and you will understand why money is glorious.
You are a part of this movement....but you have yet to understand it.
Freedom "from" something is a NEGATIVE freedom used to take away real freedom. Freedom from hunger. Freedom from pain. Freedom from life.
The great zero.....
A book is not what rules my life
I'm sorry your paradigm can't be changed and you lack the vision to go beyond a dead writer. I see the possibilities and that doesn't mean I have to follow whatever rules you put on "our" movement.
What I got from Atlas shrugged was the most skilled people in the world created a self sufficient retreat to wait out the vampires and rebuild in a free economy (exactly what I'm espousing). Ayn Rand didn't have the vision to see an economy without money-but I do and I'm proud of that.
Then please tell me
how would an economy without a means of exchange work?
You arent seeing anything new when you espouse freedom FROM anything.
Do you really remember D'Anconia's speech about money? Your "vision" is contrary to reason.
What're you talking about?
Either you know there is abundance enough for all of us or you don't. If you think we have scarce resources then you need a way to control the resources so everyone can survive (aka money). If there are abundant resources tools like money to control those resources are not necessary.
I'm showing people there are societies that are depression proof with no need for money because they know resources are abundant, even infinite.
It may be what YOU are espousing, but it is NOT what the
It may be what YOU are espousing, but it is NOT what the "ZitGuest" propaganda is proposing.
And while you want to "see an economy without money" that very statement shows your complete naivete.
Any "economy" or functioning society must either inhibit its own progress by being a purely barter & "swap" based society (which is tedious in the extreme) -- OR, it must have "something" that it uses as a common "medium of exchange" -- even if it is just a "chart" showing the current relative values of one item versus another in the form of some ethereal "credits."
The selection of some "object" to be used as a "portable counter" allows for both portability, storage, and easy exchange. Other attributes are desirable to keep the medium of exchange at an optimum functionality -- that the objects can be easily divisible, that they so not easily deteriorate, and ABOVE ALL that they cannot be counterfeited or produced in vast quantity without a significant investment of physical work. Finally, a desirable (not not wholly necessary) feature of the "object" selected is that it should have some inherent "value" in and of itself -- some "utility" or usefulness in society beyond it's designation as the medium of exchange.
THAT is what leads -- in all functioning societies (and even the supposedly "communal" societies of Native Americans had such things in the form of the Wampum beads) -- to the creation of something that inherently serves as "money."
You cannot destroy "money" because money is not a THING -- it is a CONCEPT, and and IDEA that will eternally "spring" from the fertile ground of the human brain wherever people gather and work together in any appreciable number beyond that of a single family.
thanks for proving my point
money is an idea. So is no money. Don't be afraid of ideas. There has never been a society without money. There are societies who don't want to live on the energy and food grid everyone else is on. If they transition out of money then they'd just be exchanging one idea for another.
No... you are trying to KILL an idea.. a concept...
And the idea and concept you are tryng to kill is that a person's labor has VALUE -- that their ideas have VALUE -- that they are entitled to compensation for that VALUE.
What you are attempting to do is claim that all labor and ideas should be "free" -- free for the taking by others... especially by those who do not want to do any such things. (Demonstrated for example, by the fact that you only bothered to read the LAST paragraph of my post before replying).
And if you want to go and live in a subsistence "commune" environment where you live your life completely without money -- indeed without the "idea" of money -- in the land of "no money"... well, what the heck is stopping you? GO... there are plenty of places in the world where the people live a subsistence life and where they barter back with others, trading a half-rotten fish for a stringless hunting bow & etc.
In short, you're an idiot OR you've been thoroughly "duped" -- either way go have fun with your socialist/marxist commune life, and say "hi" to Trotsky when you see him.
So why aren't you doing it?
Do you live without an income (money)?
I'm guessing the answer is "NO".
Do you live in a community of people where no-one uses money?
I'm guessing the answer is "NO".
If I ask you and Fedor to go live-in a self-sufficient, money-free community instead of just TALKING about one, that makes me a "Dictator" in your eyes doesn't it?
http://uk.youtube.com/wat...
http://www.freedom-force....
Zeitgeist part 3: http://www2.b3ta.com/mind...
Money is only a form of
Money is only a form of wealth that's traded for other wealth people really want, like food, cars, houses, iphones, etc. Money is property, like anything else. It's a store of value. It has a supply and demand, just like anything else. Ban whatever is currently used as money, and something else will naturally become a money. Then that will be traded, stolen, etc.
How is some technocratic government going to know what should be produced and in what quantity (so you don't waste by producing more than what's wanted)? How are they going to know that you want some widget? How do they know some guy in your neighborhood doesn't want one of those widgets?. What's stopping them from stealing it from you? A widget doesn't just magically appear for them when they decide they want one...it takes time to request one, produce it, and receive it from their global technocratic masters. It's just faster to get that "profit" of stealing what they want from those that already have it.
Technocracy is a joke.
I have no problem with technology at all. Technology is great. I have no problem with machines doing work so people don't have to do that work. What I do have a problem with is that some people think that they know better than I do of what I want, or what's best for me, and that they can just program that into various machines limiting my choices (if not completely eliminating them).
Why would anyone want to live a life where they can't choose for themselves what they want or how they want to live, and instead have their lives indirectly dictated by other imperfect people through machines that have at best a limited, imperfect understanding of their true wants and values?
The only way to have the least prohibited wealth production is to protect individual freedom.
You're right
Technocracy is a joke. Government is a joke. Everything government has ever done is a joke. A big, horrible joke that's been played out ever since we learned we can swindle our neighbor if we lied enough.
What we have now is pathocracy. Rule of the Sociopaths. They were either born this way or were infected with a malevolent need to kill and steal from anyone they could.
What if we weren't governed by people but by infinite resources? What if people actually knew that the natural sunlight, wind, wave and geothermal energy can give us all the energy and food we need? This isn't a life of no choices. It's a life with all the choices you never had, but a responsibility to maintain your resources. Don't we do that now with money-maintain our resources (get money to pay your energy and food bills). Only this way no one can hold money against the population. Everyone is given infinite resources and the ability to use them is meted out to everyone.
Everyone would understand how to gather energy from the earth, would understand how to grow their own food. It's a vision I see without a real need for government.
The truth is 1% of the population is naturally sociopathic and that sociopathic behavior infects other minds whenever you live in a pathocratic society. Our monetary system drives people to the top because they can lie the best or swindle the best deal and therefore today we reward the liars in society. I can see a totally transparent system where everyone retains their freedoms, but I understand if others can't.
Let me quote you.
"I can see a totally transparent system where everyone retains their freedoms, but I understand if others can't."
Wow. You are so clever and enlightened. Won't you show us unenlightened stupid people how its done? Will you be our leader?
http://uk.youtube.com/wat...
Would you trade your liberty for a flying car?
http://www.youtube.com/wa...
Zeitgeist part 3: http://www2.b3ta.com/mind...
Everything that is automated... eventually breaks down.
And if enough time has passed (a matter of months or years) and the people who built it and maintained it are gone...
Then the whole thing comes to a grinding halt.
(I know this from experience in many businesses over the years -- despite the "hippie/sci-fi" concept businesses LOVE the idea of automation. But inevitably either the machine/system breaks or the environment around it changes in a way that the system is unable to deal with... and if all the "engineers" are gone and all you have are left are the cake-eating ignorant "Eloi" around, then the whole thing collapses... just ask any experienced IT guy, in general, people are helpless idiots!)
Fact of the matter is that "work" per se, cannot be eliminated, and if it ever were eliminated (temporarily) then the skills necessary to maintain the equipment that is reducing and eliminating the work will also disappear.
And all "communes" end badly -- it's called the "Tragedy of the commons"
TANSTAAFL
There is no "eloi" in my future
Or morlocks-just hardworking people who think it's necessary to reap the benefits from the natural abundance around them. They won't be ignorant of the engineering specifications for maintaining their energy or food needs and they'll be able to monitor all of the resources of their community, but not control it. Money is the control and once it's gone no one will have a reason for control again.
Here's the distinction I see-either you say we have abundance or we don't. If you say there is abundance enough for everyone in the world to have whatever they want then you're in my camp. If you think there's real scarcity not manufactured by this credit bubble in the stock market then you'll never see my point. That "tragedy of the commons" nonsense is when dealing only with a FINITE resource. Last time I checked sunlight, wave, wind and geothermal power are all INFINITELY RENEWABLE. No one competes for any resource because we have everything we need.
Also, in all likelihood this isn't a two year plan,or even a ten year plan, maybe a half a century plan or a century plan and that's what alot of people can't see. As proven by your posts and others people won't see the possibilities of living without money and will have a hard time getting away from hoarding pieces of paper.
Work wouldn't cease automatically either. I swear people expect things to be handed to them automatically. It will be a gradual transition. Those "hippies" you're despising ARE depression proof and that type of self reliance is what started this country. Alot of people left the daily paul because of comments like yours that degrade people who practice what they preach. It would be a better world if we all took a cue from non consumers.
I'm NOT despising the "hippies" -- trust me if they have a
FUNCTIONING community that has been around for any length of time -- then they KNOW that it requires continuous WORK to maintain that in a long term fashion.
And they definitely do not allow "slackers" and "goldbricking" -- they may even dream of further automation and robots, but I sincerely doubt that THEY think it can be implemented without a lot of WORK by EVERYONE.
As for people leaving DP -- a LOT of people have left not just DP but the various RP meetup groups because they do not want to be associated with "wackos" who are pushing a variety of new-age disguised (but hate-filled) "psychobabble." A lot of people do NOT want to be colored with that "brush."
The flaw in your "plan" is that you think the wiser and more intelligent and harder working folks will somehow be "perfectly fine" with having to work harder and longer while their "comrades" get to slack off... that they have some "moral obligation" to support them -- and THAT is ignorance of human nature on a profound scale.
Volumes have been written on the vastness of this foolish flaw.
http://www.working-minds....
http://www.youtube.com/wa...
The flaw in your plan
Is you're blind to the people who have succeeded. Here's the post about them: http://www.dailypaul.com/...
Learn from history or else you'll just be spinning your wheels back into it.
And labeling hippies as acid dripping, bong smoking loafers is demeaning no matter what way you slice it.
Succeeded?
Its an "aspiring ecovillage" -- in other words... not there yet.
And "We are in the process of developing our own village-scale economy" -- in other words... oops, haven't quite achieved it yet.
These kinds of things have been tried many times before -- they all succeed "for a while" possibly even a generation or two -- but eventually they merge more fully back into the general surrounding society and culture... OR (worst case) they get perverted (by which I mean "altered beyond and contrary to their original purpose") and turned into a cult-like compound by some "wacko" with an ego-complex and eventually FAIL, destroying the entire community.
History is replete with examples of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w...
It looks like an interesting place... and a group of hardworking, innovative, and interesting people... strong>but it most certainly is NOT proof of the ZitGuest thingee; if anything, it is a refutation of such a "pie-in-the-sky" foolishness.
They are doing a serious effort to creating a new community -- but it is NOT some effortless little "utopia."
Give me one example of them merging
Even if you could do you know why they would "merge"?
It is because of that same thing you're so scared of - the 'collectivist' need to conform to society. If our society would encourage sustainability people would live with alot less worries. Unfortunately we don't and we're paying the price right now.
No one ever said "utopia" in the film-by the way. That's your word for it. Its the drawings of a futurist and the one person they put in the film. I base my knowledge on more concrete examples like www.earthship.com.
Amana Colonies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...
Or try the entire state of UTAH and the Mormon colonies in the Salt Lake City area.
Of heck... go digging through this listing: http://en.wikipedia.org/w...
I'm not gonna be your F'in robot and dig you up a specific list of which ones failed and which ones merged... do your own work.