Found here, it pretty much trashes the current economic and political system with headstrong and relentless ferocity. It presents its argument with strong intellectual insight coupled only with the tact of a blunt 2x4. It takes some time to get up to gear, but I realize that this is only a necessity, for the information it presents attempts to build a strong foundation on which to base its conclusions-- and with good reason. I found the conclusions logically inescapable, and that our current economic system is doomed for failure.

I never liked John Locke much anyway.

I would appreciate more thoughts on this. Hopefully from those of us educated in these matters [cough]Kame[/cough].

There are like 800 topics a few topics, 8000000 posts or so, on this already in SD. Go read them. Zeitgeist crap is all useless biased rhetoric aimed at making its own case. I don't know why the authors of the zeitgeist crap do their stuff, they're probably paranoid conspiracy theorists.

I thought you might find this of particular interest.

I don't think Vrael would deny that he didn't use %100 of is logical thinking tools, and powers of rebuttal, but there just comes a time for every person when they see the same thing to the point of nausea that they forgo their manners and embrace their inner vulgarities because it truly expresses just how they feel. And it feels so good.

I never knew zeitgeist was an English word.

I heard about this a long while ago. I had a sc friend who was way into this stuff.

I ran into him again not too long ago, and he said that zeitgeist has boiled down to all talk and nothing else.

I watched the old version of this film and it was pretty good.

I can't vouch for this one, but skeptics have pretty much destroyed all the 9/11 claims made by the original Zeitgiest. The religious claims made, regarding all the pagan similarities, are not accurate either.

There is so much actual evidence people can use to discredit Christianity, it is a shame that some people feel the need to make stuff up anyway.

He didn't even click on the link, else he would know it isn't about the first two films.

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This is the third Zeitgeist film, and it shows logically and with evidence how the economic political system of our present day is doomed to collapse, and has been. There are some very basic arguments that simply cannot be denied. Such as mechanization.


It is difficult to do anything about it. But the fact that it is all talk and no action does not invalidate any of the claims presented. We either have to change, or we will die.

Well, CAFG put it pretty well, and Sacrieur is right, I didnt click the link. Same shit, different movie. My point is the zeitgeist people aren't even close to reliable, so I'm not gonna waste my time with a third movie of theirs, and I don't think other people should either.

What do you mean "die" per se? The human race will become extinct? How so?

Not so much as extinct as apocalyptic. Continual increase of debt and mechanization will put many out of work and homeless. They will starve and die. It's inevitable: businesses want to turn in a profit and cut costs and machines can provide incredible efficiency-- they are an employers dream. Machines will begin to replace the social workplace, as you've probably seen in grocery stores with "self check outs".

Our entire economic system is based on debt. And if you care to look over at how the Federal Reserve Banking operates you'll see that they make money out of nothing virtually which they loan out to us, and then we must pay them back more. The value is stolen from the existing money in circulation. In essence, the money they create is stealing our money. This perpetually increases debt on all fronts. The video explains these things very well, and I've done a butchery of it.

Wait, I thought the Zeitgeist movement (according to Wikipedia:

is pro-automation of industry.
wants to replace the capitalism with a semi-communist, semi-anarchist system in which computers control the economy.
believes private property will become "obsolete", including currency.

The Zeitgeist movement seems far too radical to be accepted by mainstream society. I don't think the world could exist under a unified government without either a) excessive force, or b) if everyone wanted to, or c) no one wants to go to war.

It's not like they have a choice, our current system is for crap. I really don't see there is such and such problem with abundance of food, etc.

I mean, you don't see everyone at a buffet trying to hog it all for themselves? You don't see people trying to hoard water from water fountains. But you're correct about it being so radical it cannot be accepted by the mainstream. Most will dismiss it as garbage while wondering they've been laid off from their job. But there are no real objections to a society working as such other than it just being a radical change.

One of the most striking points is how much money we spent bailing out other countries, when that money could have completely gotten us onto renewable energy practically overnight.

The current system is only crap and unsustainable from your subjective point of view. Every human will not become obsolete, even with Utopian-level automation, only the working class becomes obsolete. Only the working class will become homeless and eventually maybe die off. That is, over course, if we didn't have voting. At that point it will be painfully obvious that we're being phased out, and labor parties will win the elections, like they already do some times.

This is clearly the suggestion of an anarcho-communist society. Funny how they try to deny it within the movie, but anyways, that's not affecting their argumentation much.
I really like the ideas exposed, and everything seems to make sense (to me).
I don't see much conspiracy bullshit anywhere... the guy's really making a logical approach as to how capitalism is leading us and the planet to fatality.

Some of the graphs shown could've taken in count some more variables before implying direct correlations, though. ;o

Are those higher not dependent on the lower to consume the products they make? Machines cannot engineer new cars, but there is no use engineering new cars if no one drives them. So engineers get laid off. Those engineers were consumers. So more engineers get laid off. Can you see where this is heading?

I would gladly try to engineer cars for nothing but my enjoyment of doing it. In fact, we'd all be willing to contribute something-- we're all here on a SC mapping forum where we make maps for no profit, and are all owned by someone else. For no other reason than we love doing it.

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Actually watching the video, you'll notice they bring up some incredibly valid and shocking points that simply cannot be denied except by doublethink or just plain irrational denial. As I mentioned above, do the math of what it would take to get America off of nonrenewable energy wise with the money used in the bailout. Is the government really doing things for the American populace? I don't think so.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 30 2011, 5:38 am by Sacrieur.

Some people believe computers may be able to think for themselves one day, leading to a point at which the AIs can redesign themselves and make themselves more efficient. They could engineer other machines as well. I don't know if this will ever be possible, though.

[qoute]I would gladly try to engineer cars for nothing but my enjoyment of doing it. In fact, we'd all be willing to contribute something-- we're all here on a SC mapping forum where we make maps for no profit, and are all owned by someone else. For no other reason than we love doing it.[/quote]
A lot of people would do things for fun, but a lot of others wouldn't. For the average person, which is more likely: creating a beautiful piece of art, or laying on the couch to watch TV? What's the incentive to do any work, if you're not being compensated in the form of goods or services? You get a good feeling when your project is done, but is the average person going to undertake projects? Look at what happened under Soviet Communism. There was little incentive for quality. A better system would be meritocratic, where the people who actually work get rewarded. And they would have to be rewarded with something, most likely in the form of currency.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it's the best working system we have right now. I don't know a government system that would make decisions based on what's good for more than just a certain group of people.

Abolition of private property seems a bit extreme. I think most people would not like other people stealing their stuff because it doesn't belong to them.

The beauty is that most people can be fat lazy slobs without affecting anything. Take a look at Wall-E, society was functioning perfectly well despite everyone being comically obese.

And on the contrary, the current "motivation" system is restrictive-- it is what causes people to be lazy. Have you ever seen a lazy toddler? Or five year old? It's only after we hammer them through some industrialized medieval education that they show laziness. We force all of their creativity and fun out of them in the name of profit. You go to work, you come home, you're bloody exhausted because you hate your repetitive job. Are you going to go work on some project? Fuck no, you're going to sit on the couch and watch TV with a beer.

Look at the liberal arts mostly. Artists and musicians do what they do because they really love it-- not for bloody profit. And architects could spend their time actually designing cool buildings that they want to design instead of some bloody stairwell.

That would be great if everyone could spend their time going whatever they wanted to do. Now, how do we get there without causing massive social upheaval and violent revolutions before we invent the technology to completely automate non-creative processes?