BDZ: I think you said something to the affect of you not really subscribing to everything The Venus Project proposes although I do realize you find it interesting and I see you agree with a lot of it. I think I read that on the first page but I don't recall. I just wanted to point out that I totally do agree with the Venus Project so far. I have to look into it and think about it a lot more because the ideas are kind of new to me. I never spent much time thinking about a society with no money and such.
Apologies if I have brought up old stuff in the thread. I got excited after scanning the posts to the third page and then just started typing hehheh.
I don’t think there is an official membership of any kind for the Zeitgeist Movement but if you like it, consider yourself a member
I can’t wait for the forums to open up at the website so I can talk more about it there. I just found this forum on a google search so I decided to chat about it here since it seems like a lively discussion so far. Plus James Randi is cool
I think we are posting in here for the same reasons. There are critical thinkers in here (or there are supposed to be) so I thought it would be a good place to find out why TVP is a bad idea. So far the arguments against it are elementary at best but I hope to be enlightened soon.
Now, about the jobs being automated. There are very few people working on automating these kinds of jobs because the economy would lose money. If there is no money to be made in automating jobs with technology then it will not be worked on. Almost every job in the world could be automated using machines, robots, technology but if everyone would lose their jobs why would it happen? Why would we work on that?
Take money out of the equation and technological innovation would flourish. We could do these things now. We have the intelligence, material and know how to make these thing realities but there is no money in it so it will not be done in this society. It will not be studied, worked on, thought about at all.
For instance, why would our government legalize marijuana? There is a big war on drugs industry which makes lots of money. It best for the government to keep the prisons, police and lawmakers as they are because there are a lot of jobs and money to be made there. Legalization of drugs would **** up the economy. If cops had no “grow ops” to bust that’s just one less thing they have to do. Instead, our tax dollars are spent on cops being paid and equipment being bought for our police forces to do these awful things.
Same for the automation of many labor intensive jobs. Yes, robots can do it now but we have not looked into it because it would ruin the economy. We don’t even study these things because there is no money in it. It will only weaken the economy. The fake economy.
Like I said before, technological innovation is held back by money. If we had been at the forefront of technology in the past fifty years we would see things now you would not even believe. I think that technology is moving forward but not at the rate it could be. Not even close. In fact, in this current society it must not.
All of that information is in Z: A and also TVP website so its kind of redundant for me to repeat it here...you have read the site and seen Z: A right?
About the airplane thing: Good point. What I meant is that its time and energy consuming. We expend a lot of time and energy to get fossil fuels plus they are non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form, and reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being formed.
Planes are not efficient or even really that fast in comparison to maglev technology. Flying is great but at what expense? If people want to fly, they can hop in an air balloon hehheh
Again, its all in Zeitgeist: Addendum.
The complete automation of many labor jobs would require a redesign of certain aspects of current urban designs. For instance if you want build a building using little or no human labor then the building would look different because they are being built different. I don’t want to talk too much about that yet because I’m still going through all the info that TVP has to offer but I’m learning a lot. Interesting stuff.
The Venus Project has some good info on city design that would make automation much easier. It would be challenging to retrofit machines to work in current designs but new cities, buildings etc would be much easier because they would be built from the ground up to be automated.
When it means the alleviation and liberation of humans from outmoded labor so that they may spend their time doing meaningful things with their lives instead of labor that makes them ignorant, then all option should be considered.
Neally. Interesting points. In regards to you comment about humans throughout history: Well, throughout history there has always been these issues but that does not mean it is an infinite condition. Humans will mentally evolve. The concept of humans being naturally war like is an awful idea. So very wrong on so many levels yet it seems to be believed to this day by many.
First, you will need to explain why I am not greedy, violent or war like. Of course, you don’t know who I am but I assure you I am not that way. Is everyone you know greedy? I doubt it. How do you explain the people who are not greedy, war like, violent or oppressive? Are they not truly human then?
There is no such thing as human nature. We are conditioned to act the way we do through experience. If you grew up in violence, you will be violent. Yes, there is always choice. People choose their own actions but that choice is based on that persons experience.
Neally says that re-educating has been done in all types of societies but those societies all had money and competition for labor in them. We are talking about a whole new society here. It has never been done with this level of technology involved and of course, it could not have been done because technology was not at the level it is at today so comparisons to past attempts are totally irrelevant. How can we compare this to anything else when there has never been anything else like it tried before?
No Money. No competition for labor. No “jobs”. No politics. Eventually there would be virtually no laws. No advertising. People will act differently. You may not even be able to comprehend the affect this will have unless you think about it a lot or actually see it in action. Perhaps re education would not even be necessary.
Also, new humans would not need to be re educated since they would be born into this new society as a clean slate.
I'm not sure I really understand the need for re education. Re educate who? Why?
I also want to point out that when I say no jobs or work I mean no labor employment. No paid slavery. We will all work in this society just as I am working right now to discuss this new society. This is work I love. I am still typing and going through the motions of, say, a receptionist except this work actually matters and is much more meaningful. That’s just an example.
We will all “work” in this society it’s just that it would actually contribute to the lives of everyone in meaningful ways. That’s incentive enough for me but there would be all kinds of incentive we have not even thought of yet. We don’t know this kind of place because we have never thought about it before.
We will not just say “Oh hey I’m gonna lay around in the sun all day!”
There are all kinds of incentive you have yet to imagine because you have never had a reason to imagine them. All we can think of is “how much money do I get?”
I think the insistence that humans will always be violent or always be political and that this is perpetual without end is a sign that many people don’t understand the symbiotic and emergent nature of the human species and, therefore, do not understand their own nature and existence. All they know is what they been taught to do and act like. People speak rhetorical nonsense and, like many, will refuse to accept any new information, only the same outmoded mindframe that gets perpetuated through this society. I know people can break out of that mind frame thought. Actually, it’s inevitable.
The human species as a whole is rather close to a major mental shift in how we think about ourselves and everything around us. I can’t wait for it to really take hold. Should be fun!
We are emergent, constantly changing advanced organisms. We cannot stay the same forever. The nature of the universe is not like that. It's evolution, baby.