Zeitgeist Addendum

[arteom]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

I have to disagree with this portion as it sound socialistic.

We cannot eliminate a world of scarcity. As long as there are human actors which value subjective things, we can never eliminate the problem of scarcity.

We compete because of scarcity. It is quite ridiculous when you think about it, the very few at the top control our resources, control the flow of our resources to us, selling them at a pace that will make the most profit for them. The idea that a few people on this planet own the planet is appalling, worse even is that they are lending it back to us, with interest.

The idea in the movie was that we have the resources and the ingenuity to make technology that would work for us to the point that we really don't have to work. Stating that machines would do about 90% of the work that we humans do. So we are free to pursue the better parts of life. I think it is a great idea to get away from a monetary system, it is highly defunct ethically. It really makes me lose hope in humanity when I see people put money before anything else, and to accept and embrace this as a way of life is perhaps the greatest tragedy in all of this.

Great movie, highly recommended.

[jgk3]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

I have to disagree with this portion as it sound socialistic.

We cannot eliminate a world of scarcity. As long as there are human actors which value subjective things, we can never eliminate the problem of scarcity.

You can make certain resources less things scarce, for example, by moving towards abandoning oil as an energy resource and taking the boundless supply of solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal energy more seriously.

Obviously, we're not going to topple our oligarchs in order to "switch over", but you can definitely chose to stop playing their game if you're serious enough about it. I think that's the point Zeitgeist is trying to make, though they want us to do it as a mass movement adhering to something called "logical and critical thinking", which imo is quite diametrically opposed to how the masses like to think as we have seen throughout history so far.

I don't know if what the Venus Project proposes for mankind would lead to a socialist free society, but I don't think they are intending to sound socialist at all. As arteom said, it would be the automation of machinery in labour and continual technological development to free up more resources for anyone who wants to use them that would be the factor in freeing up our lives and changing our behavior patterns away from one of competition. A ruling class that distributes the wealth of society is not discussed in this scheme. There is no worker class because there is no work to be done, and thus there is no wealth to be distributed, kind of like in the movie Wall-E (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall-e), though everyone becomes fat and forgets how to use their legs after 700 years of this way of live).

If there are no politics to dampen our human ingenuity in solving technological problems, they propose that we'd have no trouble moving in this direction. They basically propose that our technological reality would constantly be updated in such a scheme, much like our artistic traditions become so through unbraced interaction of artists and appreciators in whatever themes/styles that interest them.

We already know that humans are capable of interacting this way in their discussions and propositions towards technological development, much like we are so in art, but again, politics, pursuit of profit, get in the way. People that accept certain patterns of living (particularly because of necessity for labour), instead of playing around with them all their lives, get in the way.

You may say this all sounds "fine and dandy, but..." and I agree with you. Things like the Venus Project are not something we have seen on a grand scale exhibited by any social group, and it is no doubt understandable to feel skeptical.

I've read things that are very logical from Julius Evola for example that actually make the entire scheme of the Venus Project fit into a pattern of the down-gradation cycle of mankind, where a most enlightened society is one of an organic nation ruled by a spiritually awakened leader that understands how to make all classes below himself, work for him to give him all the power he would need to transcend his bodily restrictions and become as large as the nation he rules over, thus becoming interested in its survival, growth and power on the Earth. The masses are not the ones to be empowered, ever, because they cannot govern what is higher than themselves, and they are the lowest specimens of humanity in terms of power and self realization and thus cannot ever take the reins of society without muddling its underlying ethos and traditions that keep it healthy and capable for enhancement. To Evola, taking the reins of a state whilst adhering to its ethos and traditions are activities that can only be pursued by a self-aware aristocratic class.

Question is, is our degree of technological advancement in potentially being able to free up all of society's resources for infinite use able to obsolete such conclusions by thinkers like Evola on power structures of society?

[Armanen]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

How does one become the leader of the masses, according to evola? Or what are the traits that a leader must have to even be able to transcend his bodily restrictions?

[jgk3]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

How does one become the leader of the masses, according to evola? Or what are the traits that a leader must have to even be able to transcend his bodily restrictions?

In short, right now we have oligarchs who are the leaders of the masses. But they have no concern for a nation's organic qualities and prefer to rob their host nations of their wealth instead of making them stronger by adhering to the underlying traditions practiced by these nations that once made them resilient.

The oligarchs are invisible to the masses and this makes them (the masses) easy to plunder through a variety of institutions (like our monetary system) which only rely on the production of real capital or actual exchange of goods and services as a means of injecting debt money throughout the entire system, forcing the masses into a state of perpetual debt. Everything ever produced or acquired by labourers will always be less than a yard away from the banks' leverage power to seize this wealth. Zeitgeist explains this situation quite well.

Evola just implies that Oligarchs are not the only type of leadership for the masses. You can have a noble class (in an absolutist system) that subordinates the classes in charge of the production of all a nation's goods and services, just like it subordinates the masses. Thus the reins of power and control to make decisions on how the economy should function are not in the hands of a group of profit seekers.

It must be a single real administrator who represents the aggregate, the production of his state's social stratification, race, military and cultural traditions who drives the state. Statements like that of Louis XIV, "I am the state" illustrate this well. Of course, you could have good kings or bad kings, but this is a natural part of a scheme that constantly seeks a family line that is on the whole, good enough to earn the keeping of administration in their hands alone.

This leader doesn't concern himself with the modern ideals like putting his entire nation into debt and ravaging his own nation when it falls on its knees, in order to stay in power. He holds onto power by adhering to the traditions of valour and hierarchy that got his family line or social class into power in the first place. In Medieval Europe, you find chivalric tradition as the underlying example and you'll tend to find similar practices throughout the realm of Indo-European peoples in history. The wealth of a (race) nation is not divided up amongst the classes. Only its management is handed down throughout the ranks and essentially climbs back up to the sole ruler.

It is thus in the nation's interests to enhance a nation's health in order to create high culture, a state and a cultural tradition that is powerful enough to stand on its own. It is also in a nation's interests to preserve strong ties between race and nation so that neither its wealth and power, let alone its identity, slips away to another (race) nation.

Having a leader in the position of absolute power that does not associate with any other social class (not to be confused with a dictatorship, please, it's not the same thing at all) and adhering to and building on a nation's traditions keep away undesirable things such as revolutions in political hierarchies, such as socialistic revolutions, that only serve to topple on ruling class by gaining the support of the ignorant masses, only to instill a less noble class, like a bourgeoisie into power and eventually leads to oligarchical supremacy.

I decided to elaborate on this instead of pming you Armanen, so that I can illustrate an alternative scheme for social stratification that most people nowadays feel prejudiced towards without ever really trying to understand it, and thus, they do not take this scheme into consideration when they view things like the Venus Project in Zeitgeist II.

[Armanen]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

Thanks for the detailed explination jg!

[jgk3]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

I will note that I haven't finished reading Evola's book called Men Amongst the Ruins which provided me with the insight I used for this post. I have yet to tackle the next chapter with a profoundly interesting remark such as "The economy is the opposite of the state". Should be interesting.

I'm glad you enjoyed what I had summarized

[Anonymouse]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

You can make certain resources less things scarce, for example, by moving towards abandoning oil as an energy resource and taking the boundless supply of solar, wind, wave, tidal and geothermal energy more seriously.

Obviously, we're not going to topple our oligarchs in order to "switch over", but you can definitely chose to stop playing their game if you're serious enough about it. I think that's the point Zeitgeist is trying to make, though they want us to do it as a mass movement adhering to something called "logical and critical thinking", which imo is quite diametrically opposed to how the masses like to think as we have seen throughout history so far.

I don't know if what the Venus Project proposes for mankind would lead to a socialist free society, but I don't think they are intending to sound socialist at all. As arteom said, it would be the automation of machinery in labour and continual technological development to free up more resources for anyone who wants to use them that would be the factor in freeing up our lives and changing our behavior patterns away from one of competition. A ruling class that distributes the wealth of society is not discussed in this scheme. There is no worker class because there is no work to be done, and thus there is no wealth to be distributed, kind of like in the movie Wall-E (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall-e), though everyone becomes fat and forgets how to use their legs after 700 years of this way of live).

If there are no politics to dampen our human ingenuity in solving technological problems, they propose that we'd have no trouble moving in this direction. They basically propose that our technological reality would constantly be updated in such a scheme, much like our artistic traditions become so through unbraced interaction of artists and appreciators in whatever themes/styles that interest them.

We already know that humans are capable of interacting this way in their discussions and propositions towards technological development, much like we are so in art, but again, politics, pursuit of profit, get in the way. People that accept certain patterns of living (particularly because of necessity for labour), instead of playing around with them all their lives, get in the way.

You may say this all sounds "fine and dandy, but..." and I agree with you. Things like the Venus Project are not something we have seen on a grand scale exhibited by any social group, and it is no doubt understandable to feel skeptical.

I've read things that are very logical from Julius Evola for example that actually make the entire scheme of the Venus Project fit into a pattern of the down-gradation cycle of mankind, where a most enlightened society is one of an organic nation ruled by a spiritually awakened leader that understands how to make all classes below himself, work for him to give him all the power he would need to transcend his bodily restrictions and become as large as the nation he rules over, thus becoming interested in its survival, growth and power on the Earth. The masses are not the ones to be empowered, ever, because they cannot govern what is higher than themselves, and they are the lowest specimens of humanity in terms of power and self realization and thus cannot ever take the reins of society without muddling its underlying ethos and traditions that keep it healthy and capable for enhancement. To Evola, taking the reins of a state whilst adhering to its ethos and traditions are activities that can only be pursued by a self-aware aristocratic class.

Question is, is our degree of technological advancement in potentially being able to free up all of society's resources for infinite use able to obsolete such conclusions by thinkers like Evola on power structures of society?

I want to address the part about scarcity but I fear it will further deviate the thread so I will make a separate thread specifically about economics and scarcity.

[jgk3]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

I think that would make a good thread.

[Federate]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

I was under the impression that there was a video that was released which purported to refute the claims of the first Zeitgeist.

Am I wrong? If so, can you shed light on this? I greatly enjoyed the first one as it confirmed and pointed out all the things that I had mostly already known or read, and some new information.

Let me know.

I just found a video that refutes the alleged "debunkation" of the 1st part of the 1st Zeitgeist if you guys are still interested.

"ZEITGEIST, Part 1" Debunked? Acharya Responds

[jgk3]

Re: Zeitgeist Addendum

If you guys are interested in viewing some criticisms of the second movie: http://www.freedom-force.org/freedom...refpage=issues

Pretty relevant points are being made against the ultra-socialist nature of what Peter Joseph proposes in the second Zeitgeist for all humanity.