The Zeitgeist Movement... why not?

This is my "grasp" of your "answers"
Francesca R said:
The "efficiency* sucks", and you want to "improve" it but you have "no answers", yet if someone comes up with a more efficient system that allows you to do without title or money, you'd have "zero problem" accepting it.
Click to expand...

Please point out what is wrong or missing from it.
 
Seems like a great summary of BDZ's entire meandering posts so far.
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
I'm somehow in the middle, I certainly would like to have a much better system, one in which production and consumption were ruled by something else than obsolete political ideologies (capitalism, socialism, free markets, democracy, you name it) and an economy based on money. I have provided concrete examples on why I consider the current system's efficiency lacking and some arguments in favor of a culture that would be motivated to be productive even when no money was placed as "an incentive".

And I put it this way because money is not an incentive, this is merely the way we have been taught to think about it. A different way to see this is to look at money as the physical limitation between you and your own survival. This is, arguabily, a society based on the concept that you owe your life to the state. And you are in permanent debt with everybody else, "you have to work for a living" is one of the dogmas that is taken as if it were a "natural law" of some kind. Well, I disagree, is not a "natural law" but a social construct, nothing but a custom.

Now, this does not automatically leads me to blindly accept something like the ZM or TVP. First I want to see how they solve some of the issues raised on this thread. For instance I'm not quite convinced in that every "mcjob" could be performed "by machines". I do believe it is an interesting field but one the approach (from both camps) so far seems to be naive.
Click to expand...
Francesca R said:
The "efficiency* sucks", and you want to "improve" it but you have "no answers", yet if someone comes up with a more efficient system that allows you to do without title or money, you'd have "zero problem" accepting it.

OK I think I get that. Trouble is, it's riddled with hogwash and devoid of critical thought.
Click to expand...
 
I hoard a bunch of widgets and then I go and destroy the machines that make them. I now have the sole or largest supply of them and everyone will do my bidding to get them.
Click to expand...

How diabolically eeeeevil of you! :eek:

I suggest reading “The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War” It is a blueprint for the things I've been talking about. It answers all question anyone has had so far. Including any that Francesca R has. :)

Its redundant to try and repeat it all here. Plus, I’ve been thinking about this for about 6 days and the author of the book has been thinking about it for 60 years.

Most of what Travis has said in his last post is so silly I'm sure he doesn't really expect me to answer them so I'll refrain.
 
Last edited:
Mr_Mix said:
I suggest reading “The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War” It is a blueprint for the things I've been talking about. It answers all question anyone has had so far. Including any that Francesca R has.
Click to expand...
"Read some long-ass book and get back to me" is not an argument, still less a debate. Rather it smacks of the lack of one.
 
"Read some long-ass book and get back to me" is not an argument, still less a debate. Rather it smacks of the lack of one.
Click to expand...

I wasn't aware that you wanted to debate or argue so bad. Count the words I have posted in this thread in comparison to your own and tell me who has been discussing the issue and who has been chiming in with little else besides sarcasm. If that's what you want to do then perhaps all the logic and answers in the world could not convince you. Then I would just be wasting my time but my suggested reading would not be that hard to read nor would it take too long. You might learn something. Actually, I get the feeling you would learn a lot.
 
Mr_Mix said:
How diabolically eeeeevil of you! :eek:
Click to expand...

Yes. It seems that magic robots won't eliminate that aspect of humanity.

Most of what Travis has said in his last post is so silly I'm sure he doesn't really expect me to answer them so I'll refrain.
Click to expand...

Dismiss the other poster's rather pertinent, salient points, that you don't want to admit you have no answers to, as "silly."

I wonder if the leaders of the people on Easter Island also dismissed the suggestion that chopping all the trees down was not a good idea as "silly?" Maybe nobody had the courage to question it at all? Whichever it was they proceeded down an irrational road that led to the collapse of their civilization.

Did anyone try to speak up to Pol Pot to tell him that simply telling the city folk to grow more food in areas not suited to agriculture wouldn't work?

Did anyone even bother telling Mao that thousands of small iron smelters was not a good idea?

Substituting an impractical fantasy for a tangible and functioning reality is something that should be questioned.
 
Mr_Mix said:
I wasn't aware that you wanted to debate or argue so bad. Count the words I have posted in this thread in comparison to your own and tell me who has been discussing the issue and who has been chiming in with little else besides sarcasm.
Click to expand...
Oh it's wordcount that equals substance? Sorry but I'm not about to waste time or bandwidth if logic, reason and answers are avoided so conscientiously. If you can't make the case at all succinctly and can't deal with it on the level of sceptical inquiry then I'll not be bothering.

If that's what you want to do then perhaps all the logic and answers in the world could not convince you.
Click to expand...
Have you responded directly to any of my posts in this thread before your "read this" comment? I don't think so. What's so hard about them? I am not here to listen to woo-like propaganda/broadcasting.

ETA--Oh and I defy you to locate any sarcasm in my posts. It is true it gets tedious when I keep asking direct questions to Bhodi Dharma Zen and getting a dance-around. You and the OP might not like the questions much--perhaps you find an ability (on the part of others) to be logical and direct rather vexing? In that case whatever you are trying to argue (more like "push") rather fails to stand up to any critical analysis. That observation is, at least, indicative of how much sense is behind it.

Any time you want to address the real questions, go back and review my posts here. As you point out, there are not all that many of them and they are not lengthy, so you don't have a huge hurdle to overcome here . . .
 
Last edited:
Oh it's wordcount that equals substance?
Click to expand...
No.
OK I request that your answers be more than a few sentences and be void of sarcasm and assumption. Then I will make a case for a resource based economy. The stuff I'm talking about has been written in many places so reiterating it all here seem like a waste of my time if you're not willing to consider them. Would you like me start? Will you respond accordingly as I have requested? Its easy for people to just spout crap here so I'm reluctant. People are on their skeptical high horse as expected. You understand?
 
Dismiss the other poster's rather pertinent, salient points, that you don't want to admit you have no answers to, as "silly."
Click to expand...

You mean you weren't goofing around? Wow. I was going easy when I said silly.
 
Mr_Mix said:
No.
OK I request that your answers be more than a few sentences and be void of sarcasm and assumption. Then I will make a case for a resource based economy. The stuff I'm talking about has been written in many places so reiterating it all here seem like a waste of my time if you're not willing to consider them. Would you like me start? Will you respond accordingly as I have requested? Its easy for people to just spout crap here so I'm reluctant. People are on their skeptical high horse as expected. You understand?
Click to expand...
--See my belated edit to post 170. The prior posts were all directed to BDZ.
 
Mr_Mix said:
No.
OK I request that your answers be more than a few sentences and be void of sarcasm and assumption.
Click to expand...

Wait wait wait wait wait.


Did the guy whose plan is:

Robots will do all our work for us
All undesirable jobs will be unnecessary
We all get everything we want without working for it
Crime will vanish
Wars will stop
​

just start lecturing about unwarranted assumptions?

:boggled:
​
 
Last edited:
Francesca - Understood.
I love questions because it causes me to see possible problems and issues in my points. I want to be proven wrong about a resource based economy if it is in fact a dream.
I am logical. I am not vexed. I don't want to give the impression that I am pushing or even making an augment for something. A resource based economy seems to make a lot of sense so far. Our current system is not conductive of a decent, civilized, moral society. I will review your posts as requested and post when time permits.
 
Coyote - The plan is hardly unwarranted. What do you know about a resource based economy as described by the Venus project?
 
Mr_Mix said:
Coyote - The plan is hardly unwarranted. What do you know about a resource based economy as described by the Venus project?
Click to expand...

Admittedly very little. Make me an argument that addresses the problems raised.

I use unwarranted in this context to mean that a reason hasn't been given to accept your assumptions, not that those assumptions are invalid. eta: Though if your idea is similar to Bohdi's I'd probably think they are.

Dumping the burden of argumentation via "go read book X" does not lead to a valid warrant.
 
Mr_Mix said:
You mean you weren't goofing around? Wow. I was going easy when I said silly.
Click to expand...

I was only goofing around in the sense that trying to respond to utter ridiculousness, even in a serious way, is bound to sound somewhat goofy itself. For example; any reasonable response to a claim that ants can build fusion bombs with peanut butter is bound to seem somewhat like parody.

You made numerous claims, most of which fly in the face of 6000 years of history, science and human behavior, with no evidence and I called on you to explain how my examples of human behavior and technological limitations that you seem to have either overlooked or ignored might be dealt with:

You claimed everyone would have anything they wanted and I asked how this would deal with the fact that some people will be greedy sons-of-bitches that will demand ridiculous things in huge quantities.

You claimed that somehow vermin, like rats, would disappear and the job of dealing with them would no longer be necessary. I asked how that would come about.

You claimed mundane jobs would be done by machines and I asked who would build them and how they would be designed to deal with many of those mundane jobs.

You claimed there would be no law, prisons or lawyers. I asked how this would deal with the very real fact that people will continue to harm and kill each other for various reasons.

You claimed there would be no black market because everything anyone wants will be provided and I asked how the needs of people who desire things that are harmful to other people would be provided for.

You claimed there would be no scarcity of anything and I asked how this would deal with people who demand things, like nukes, that are harmful to others.

You claimed that competition, war and suffering would all be eliminated and I asked how that would come to be seeing as such things exist in nature and not just in humans with money.

You claimed crime would disappear and I demonstrated two methods that might be used by people, criminally, to manipulate the system.

So would you like to now do some explaining and providing some evidence?
 
Travis - Points taken. They are all good questions really.
Where to start? The title of the thread is TZM...why not. So I guess we'll start there...again:boggled:

It went downhill pretty quick but I think that's because there are associations with Z: A and conspiracy theory because its a sequel to Z: TM which had a bit of that kind of thing.

So who here has actually read up on The Zeitgeist Movement? Just want to make sure we are on the same starting page ya know? What parts are consider the most unrealistic and why? Are the problems stated on TZM website not really issues in the eyes of its opponents?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom