Zeitgeist

= a series of documentary movies, and a movement

Zeitgeist Movies

The first movie was the one that was heavily biased and based on all sorts of ridiculous conspiracy theories. The 2nd was more balanced and introduces the Venus Project as the real alternative. Now we also have a third that next week will be released on dvd/ internet and was released through independent/ underground cinemas this week.

The first one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist:_The_Movie, criticized for its conspiracy theories

Transcript at http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/wiki/index.php?title=Zeitgeist,_The_Movie_transcript

The second: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Joseph#Zeitgeist:_Addendum & http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/wiki/index.php?title=Zeitgeist_Addendum

Review

By Thomas Greco:

"Back in June of this year I viewed an amazingly good documentary film titled, Zeitgeist. I recommend it highly. Get it at http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Most of the information in it was already known to me, and includes much of what I've been trying for years to tell people in my own humble way. This film is well put together and pretty accurate as far as I can tell. One aspect that was somewhat new to me was the material that shows the congruence among the various "redeemer" myths going way back B.C. That part, and some of the political material, won't go down easily with true believers of any stripe -- the devout and patriotic, but if one can keep an open mind, there is much to be learned - much that could save our lives.

Now there is an addendum to the Zeitgeist movie that focuses more attention on the "money problem," economic imperialism, and emerging sustainable technologies. The Zeitgeist: Addendum can be downloaded from: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/; also at,

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

The first twenty minutes do a creditable job of describing how our conventional political money is created. It's a good supplement to the films Money as Debt and The Money Masters that I previously recommended.

The next part of the film features John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He does a superb job of clearly explaining how the empire achieves dominance over other countries, giving examples from his own experience. As he describes in his book, there are three levels of action. The imperial forces first try to corrupt the country's leaders and get them to play along, saddling their people with huge debt loads and selling off government owned assets. If that fails, they will stir up internal opposition and either overthrow or assassinate a recalcitrant leader. If that fails, the military will be sent in as a last resort.

In recent years, the reluctance to use the last option seems to have diminished, as war affords opportunities for great profits to be amassed by political cronies and well-connected companies, and the power of Congress to mount opposition to military adventures has all but evaporated.

The original Zeitgeist movie contains important information about the central banking system and the Federal Reserve. If you don't have time to watch the entire film, a relevant seven minute excerpt can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ."

The Movement

Quote by Peter Joseph:

"The Zeitgeist Movement is a grass roots campaign to unify the world through a common ideology based on the fundamentals of life and nature. "

Discussion

Dante Monson

Dante is personally concerned, after watching one of the movies, that the Zeitgeist movement does not seem to offer much governance alternatives. Dante would like to understand better what these governance proposals could be, and its approach. Currently Dante is concerned that with its current approach, ideas of the Zeitgeist movement could lead to a centrally planned, technocratic mode of governance built on its use of technology. In other words, not towards a peer governance, peer property and peer production approach.

Dante says : "I remember that there is some criticism of the monetary system, which I personally understand and share what concerns a central bank, debt and interest based fiat currency. I remember and notice through a web search that some people relating themselves to the movement seem to prone a "moneyless society", yet at the same time prone a resource based management system for allocation of resources.

From my own point of view, the use of measurement units as vectors in resource allocation information systems, can correspond to certain kinds of currencies.

I yet need to understand in the latest Zeitgeist Movie ( 2011 ) what their proposals are for such information systems, information systems which can use measurement units which from my point of view can be understood as a form of currency. Who would control or choose what metrics to use ? Can each individual choose and enable its own choices for participation in transactions ? "

Further comments by Dante in a message to S. regarding the third movie of the Zeitgeist Movement ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w ) :

I would say I would like to go further then what I currently decipher and seem to understand from the Zeitgeist and Venus project movements.

In my view the video aptly questions what I perceive as current mainstream vector systems maximizing addicted control.

( control of interdependencies through , for example, centrally controlled vector protocols such as fiat central bank debt with compound interest , and various so called "Free Markets" using such vector protocols )

YET...

I do not hear a distributed alternative in their discourse. No, what I hear in the discourse of the movie is some suggestion for a technocratic, centrally planned and controlled set of vector protocols.

This third official Zeitgeist Movement documentary seems to suggest some "central control / Mainframe" ( 2h03min ), and also suggests ( at 1:49:12 ) that " nature is a dictatorship " ... They also make an emphasis on "science". Does their suggestions mean that "science" can help better go along living with such dictatorship ? Who ultimately defines the vectors used in the resource based management ? To my knowledge, Science still requires humans to think about it, and decisions for metrics in the management of our resources can still be defined by humans. My impression from the video at some point was that they seem to suggest that "because science can take care of it", there is no more need for politics or economics... ? ( note : there is a specific excerpt I remember and which which I try to relocate underlining this point )

I am not sure how they define dictatorship in this context ? In terms of "human societies", I view "dictatorship" as defined by one agent having control on all the others. I do not see "dictatorship" as synonymous with fully distributed, networked systems at every levels of abstraction , including at the level of the vectors whom agents may choose to use or create when wishing or needing to participate into interdependencies - hence enabling networks of individuals to freely join or leave systems, create systems, create specifically defined alliances or synergies between parts of systems, or avoid interactions with other systems if they wish to.

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Hence, my own personal and hopefully shared alternative aim for defining "Transaction Contract Networks" , aims at facilitating the implementation and use of distributed libre/free and open source set of tools/architectures, which themselves can empower for every agents to choose or create its meta-protocols, which themselves aim at enabling every peer agent / every individual human being to be included equipotentially ( http://p2pfoundation.net/Equipotentiality ) , based on its own preferences and potential for agreements with other peers, even if these preferences would be socio-culturally induced. ( note : the video seems to suggests that there is no freedom, because of the influence of socio culture on our choices ? )

By enabling a potential for open data ( or private encrypted data within transaction networks who choose for it ), I want to enable for each peer a broader overview, from which to build new choices, access and contribute to potential collective emergent intelligence.

With the aim of such broader overview enabling the access for each peer to make choices beyond the restrictions of our socio cultural conditioning, through the abilities of our combined capacity for imagination and creation - which is one of the human traits.

Hence "ReQuest" ( http://cashwiki.org/en/ReQuest ), or as we mentioned more recently in some conversation, some kind of "semantic operating system" - with hopefully such distributed meta-protocol, ontology creation for each human peer to choose and create from, is for me an important way of expressing an alternative to centralized planned protocols.

I look forward to continue promoting and hopefully using such ever evolving tools together.