Skeptic Project

> more than a thousand posts in one year, which is more than 3 posts a day.

More than 4,000 posts in 2 years..

I'm also in 2,000+ other forums as well.. (I worked out a little while ago that I must have posted more than a million messages in the last 25 years..)

> Where the hell did you find the time?

As a 70wpm touch typist, it takes me hardly any time at all to put together a message.

> Because of this alone I think you slowly got an urge to rush for an RBE, Nanos.

No I was already well into wanting an RBE some 15 years ago. (A friend of mine has been pushing the same thing for 40 years himself, so he is well ahead of me, with land and housing, but not yet a business.)

There is somewhat an urgency, after all, no point us all ending up homeless and penniless, that is hardly going to put us in a position to change the world.

> months before the ban, moderators started to have problems with you 'subtle' behaviour.

That is perfectly true. (I'm not the most agreeable of people to work with.)

> The base of communication is talking face to face

Why ?

Thats awfully inefficient in todays world with the internet and even the telephone!

And very expensive to transport each other back and forth for face to face meetings. (And why I hardly ever turn up to UK Chapter meetings, I cannot afford the transport, and why I'm building my own solar vehicle so I can travel at practically zero cost. (And why I would have been keen to see a group effort to build solar vehicles so the rest of us didn't have to spend litterly hundreds of pounds pointlessly thrown away on train/bus/petrol costs for no use when an internet forum/IRC meeting would do just as well for the vast majority of meetings. (Unless its a meeting that also involves phyiscal work that needs people to be in the same place at the same time..))

> So Nanos, you have always been TZM member, ever since you joined at your local chapter

Thats good to know then!

> You might be stealing so many jobs as to drive the country that RBE cities are in, into anarchy,
> due to leaked advancement of those cities.

I'm rather confused as to what you mean there, could you explain what you are saying there more for me thanks.

> Of course those riots would not start or be so severe if the nation had basic income implemented.

I reckon a basic income idea is probably workable, and something you could introduce in built communities, rather than having the entire nation introduce it.

> I fear that technological unemployment would raise so high that it would start nationwide riots that could possibly
> turn the nation into anarchy long enough make security of self-sustaining cities stand down and those cities would
> be the first to get raided for resources.

I reckon technological unemployment will rise high enough as we saw in the 1980's and we will see a return of riots to the streets.

And yes I quite agree those communities we build ourselves will be prone to being raided, but I reckon we can defend ourselves from attack well enough to fend them off. (Building next to an army base might be a good move for example.)

The location I'm looking at a first community myself is an island location some 100 miles off the coast of the UK, so its already somewhat isolated and not a nice sunny warm place that everyone would like to doss around in thinking about rioting tomorrow after they had a good smoke :-)

I intend ramparts, and bunker defences, so it won't be a push over to take my spot without some serious coordinated effort.

If riots are going to happen anyway, then the entire country will fall into chaos, civiliation will break down and there will be no safe havens for anyone, and back to the stone age for us.. (Even worse once our infarstructure starts to rot and there is no one to make it safe.. nuclear reactors anyone..)

As I see it, building communities that can withstand this onslaught of riots is the only way forward to save our country, that and hopefully building said communities fast enough that we can stall those riots and help people enough that there is no grand outbreak and fall of our civilisation here.

Hoping that the country will wake up and change to RBE any time soon is rather wishful thinking in my book, and we are best placed to physically build this new RBE ourselves, one brick at a time, until it eventually replaces the current system silently during one night without anyone even noticing as the last person in the last 9 to 5 job turns off the lights finally moves into one of our communities.

We could start building today if we wanted to, if we really wanted to, why some of us have already got land and housing, and just need a hand. (Bob in Wales for example.)

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/csofarming</p>

When I have a job I can take with me, I'm looking forward to seeing if I can help out Bob with some physical effort.

I'm very keen to try and impliment a basic income system myself in my own community building efforts.

As to the argument that we cannot build such a community, here is an example of one that was started 40 years ago in the UK and is still going strong, it mirrors I reckon quite well some aspects of what I would see as a good community. (Particularly its low carbon footprint, half that of a typical UK home.)

http://www.findhorn.org

> but that gets lost in the shuffle if you let just anyone represent your message.

For Cody Vickers read PJ/Thunder/VTV/etc. in TZM, each as bad as each other..

Not quite so easy is it in practice...

> If I were working hard to get a project or a movement started and someone who was from my group started acting in
> a manner unbecoming in public, I would be pissed.

Likewise.

But if it was in a personal capacity, rather than work/group related, I would have far less issue with it, after all, people must have a private life they can call their own.

> In TZM we have mods that do it.

But no group to curtail the behaviour of rogue mods..

> but you get tarred by the same brush when other people perceive your rogue members as “spokespeople” of
> the organization

This is true, and why we need to remember that some people we might not get on with, say VTV, does not mean we don't necessarly get on with the entire organization. (Though I have to say, I now get on with VTV, where previously we had more difficulties with each other.)

> First Bill Maher is a comedian

Many people can be a comedian if they want to.

Its a common problem I see in many organisations when someone tries to be humourious, often its taken badly. (When people take the piss out of me (And there is even an entire forum dedicated to that, if you can find it!) it doesn't really bother me, and is sometimes rather funny.) People should lighten up a bit more I reckon. (Yes there is a fine line between amusement and abuse, and yes sometimes folk here cross that line, which is why its necessary for comedians to listen to public feedback so they can adjust their act to be just on the right side of that line..)

To reject all attempts at humour, in an effort to bring forth a more civil forum debate style is admirable, but rather difficult to do in practice and can tend to leave you with a dull and dry atmosphere.

But could be easily solved by having two parts to the forum, one for serious, civil, no humour purposes, and one for the rest of us jokers who like to poke and prod from time to time, then instead of people hanging out in places like this, they would at least be on the offical forum, where such communication would be less disjointed and people would feel less of an urge to voice dissent because they wouldn't be banned unless it was really serious!

> I am for free speech and against censorship as just about anyone you could ever meet, however, free speech doesn’t
> give anyone license to act like a jackass while they are a guest in someone else “house”.

Likewise.

And in other forums I've been in, they have as one of their severe punishments a years ban, rather than a lifetime ban, this works well I notice in getting folk (Myself included.) from behaving well. (This has been in practice for 20+ years, so I think we can call it successful in that no ones ever been permanent banned and thus had a reason to act like an asshole because of their lifetime ban..)

> I believe in second chances

Likewise.

> You and I are not so far apart

Agreed.

>, it is too bad that you were banned.

Well, you can still chat to me here, in the UK chapter and even on my own forum, so its not all bad :-)

Maybe one day I might ask to go back to TZM, but for now I don't think the two of us are compatible enough to work together. (Beyond me chatting to folk like VTV, so at least some of my ideas/etc. have an avenue into the organisation, enough I reckon perhaps to mean important aspects are not neglected.) So thats good enough for me to at least have diplomatic channels open and some dialogue back and forth.

> I was thinking more along the lines that as hunter/gathererers we were nomadic and most personal property fell into
> the category “if you can’t carry it, leave it”, but upon the perfection of agriculture our ability to survive become
> tied to our ability to protect a plot of land by denying access to that land to others. Thus the push to codify private
> property laws. If our individual survival is no longer tied to protecting a plot of land, then the pressure to have
> these private property rights cease to be relevant.

Nicely put.

It does now appear to be coming back into fashion so to speak, though I cannot easily find the ULR to a story about people with gadgets being more able to move freely around.

Though it doesn't address the issue that they need an income to afford to pay for said gadgets, where as in the days living in the forest such gadgets existed from the trees and plants..

And, in old age.. in the days of forest living, we just died if we got too old to look after ourselves or ill..

> I think most of that result from not liking the work they do.

This is increasingly people who have never worked in their entire lives, so how would they know they wouldn't like the work!

> being on the dole means you have to consistently demonstrate your helplessness otherwise the gravy train ceases
> to flow.

Depends if you know how to work the system or not, honest folk do have to demonstrate, cheaters and liers do not.

(Which is why I would be keen on a basic income solution, as it would reduce hugely I reckon the red tape associated with having to sort out the cheaters from the genuine folk who need help, with everyone getting the same, the genuine folk I reckon would feel better knowing some cheater isn't getting more than them.)

> If we were given the basics with no expectation, we would most likely be more productive with our time.

I think its worth experimenting with to find out. (I think overall, we would see some improved productiveness, but not necessarly a great deal, not that it would really matter if 99% of people sat around watching TV, and only 1% worked, if we only needed 1% to work to keep the wheels of civilisation turning..)

> Why bother with prisons, just have them chose exile

I'm a little in agreement with that, but my concern would be if you exile folk and allow a barbarian culture to grow outside your walls, one day they will invade and break everything..

Reminds me of the fall of the Roman Empire, or even the Inca's..

> hopefully my local chapter won’t ban me.

There seems far less banning in local chapters than the main one, though I have noticed some chapters get what I would call infected with bad moderators who ban anyone not conforming to the gospel of PJ..

> I have discovered a many groups, books and much knowledge that I wouldn’t have had before.

I do find the TZM forums are from time to time a good source of information that would otherwise not have come to my attention. (And why its tiresome to have to go through a proxy server to view their forums just for this, and why its less productive to make community groups not accessable from outside TZM membership as such information is then hidden from public gaze and hardly helps to spread the word!)

> oooo that was lawyerly.

FX [ smiles ]

> why don’t we just remove the incentive?

I don't think its as easy as that.

But I'm willing to explore experimenting with various theories to try and improve what we have, or test an entire new system, once someone (Probably me!) has built one to test..

> What is the motivation to steal? Mostly because you don’t have enough currently

Mostly its greed, rather than need in my experiences of listening to thieves reasoning.

I've rarely met anyone who stole to feed themselves, but plenty who wanted another colour TV!

> If you could provide enough and plan against future shortages then the motivation to steal diminishes.

Now, I do think that if we could provide people with greater incomes, where they could more easily afford two colour TV's if they wanted, would reduce thefts somewhat.

But I also think if we spent far more on policing to catch thieves, and prisons to house thieves, and more to stop properties from being broken into and have stolen from them, that this too would have a big effect in reducing theft..

> It not really a trick, in economic terms, food and water could be produce in sufficient abundance which a high
> degree of efficiency that it is virtually free.

Oh I agree it could be done today.

Just that you aren't going to get people with resources to suddenly do that in any realistic fashion anytime soon. (If ever..)

But, I do reckon you could buy those resources from them in time.. (eg. we create our own businesses and eventually buy them out, rather like how we got into this position in the first place..)

> that is the insidious trick of money, exchanging inflationary pieces of paper for real assets. It is a game of
> musical chairs, when the music stops the people left holding the money but no assets, are out.

Agreed.

But I reckon we can only beat them by playing them at their own game, only doing it better, better because we can coordinate and cooperate.

Or at least I thought we could coordinate and cooperate, but in practice I find that is not really the case.

Which is why the rich are rich, because they can coordinate and cooperate..

(I hang out in rich people forums, there many rich people help each other, but in poor forums like TZM, hardly anyone helps anyone else, just why is that!)

Its rather ironic I find that rich people helping me with advice (And even a little bit of money sometimes!) far exceeds the help I got from TZM members by a huge margin, when that should not have been the case at all.

I can quite see why rich people say fuck the poor, they never helped me!

I've accepted that the poor aren't going to get organised and help themselves, and only the rich can help them, as such I must become rich and then help the poor, I just have to remember not to get pissed with them and behave like many rich do and not care about them once I am rich.

> Which leads to the wage gap between the top 10% and the bottom 90%. That is inequality.

I don't mind inequality so much, as long as those at the bottom have a decent life, after all, is someone is worth only £1 million really suffering compared with someone worth £100 million.

> Or that others saw the American model and copied it.

Possible, but from what I've seen, the UK had such consumerism decades before the US.

> It’ll happen sooner than we think.

I'm reminded of how you can buy new for £50 on Ebay from China, Nokia N97 mobile phones, which are for all practical purposes palmtop PC's:

http://www.itechnews.net/2009/04/13/nokla-n97-nokia-n97-clone/</p>

Whilst not 100% the same as the real thing, they do show what can be mass produced cheaply. (Rather amusing that western companies go on about producing a sub $100 laptop and here the Chinese are already having done it..)

> Sure I could agree with that.

Nice to see we can work out solutions.

> Or just look at the really rich investors.

Having looked at the rich investors in MMORPG's, they tend to be like in the real world, people who exploit others, lie and cheat, and play politics..

Not quite the kind of people I would want running things to be honest :-)

> Seriously, I hate to sweat.

Likewise!

And I remember living in cold places where I couldn't wait to move someplace with a warmer climate, now I can't wait to get back!

> Sure that is reasonable, we should test it out.

Agreed.

> Lots of wealth is created through that.

Agreed it is.

> if we can create wealth and thus create a higher standard of living for everyone, how come this has not happened?

I've wondered about that myself.

Talking with many rich people, they talk about how they don't care about others, because no one cared about them in the first place to help them, and thus its a reinforcing cycle of abuse so to speak..

Just about every rich person I know is a cold hearted bastard who wouldn't help their own mother.

Its perhaps interesting that some who used to be hippies in the 1960's, and had a sense of love to their fellow man, are likewise, turned out to be the very people they hated in their youth.

But, I'm not entirely sure thats all there is too it, because, during my experiences whilst playing a MMORPG, I noticed a strange behavioural change in people working for me:

People who was very cooperative, when they became rich, they stayed cooperative. (This was strangly mainly people from Nordic countries.)

People who tried to appear cooperative, but was always out to play the odds, turned up late for work, didn't work very hard, tried to cheat their fellow workers, who once they earn't enough to be seen as rich, left and said 'fuck you' to everyone else, and then went about screwing everyone they could now they had the wealth to not need to work with anyone else ever again. (This tended to be UK/US folk..)

> One step at a time

Agreed.

> but the model is there to be improved upon.

Agreed.

I look towards this effort in the past that worked rather well in practice when it was needed:

http://enc.tfode.com/Cybersin</p>

> Matter in fact I remember when i got over a half a million people on a websites on a consist bases within a
> few months...

I would be keen to learn what you think you did right to enable that to happen.

I am rather a fan of RBOSE myself incidently.

> I would imagine the owners of the server which is Peter Merola.

I had hoped everyone would chip in and pay for it, and relieve Peter of the responsibility..

> see people have the option in the virtual world to mute and ignore others

I reckon the TZM forum could benefit from having an ignore feature. (After all, my local UK chapter forum has that feature.. (Though they did get upset when I mentioned who I had ignored..)(Basically I wasn't allowed to mention who I had ignored or I'd be banned..))

@Nanos
Well, after face-to-face talking comes video chat.

> "As to the argument that we cannot build such a community..."
Never said you or we couldn't, I just worried about long term stability of it, but you only confirmed my worries. :(

This reminds me of the scene in the Pitch Black movie, when the captain reached the shuttle and Riddick said "You can't save them, so at least save yourself.".

Although a part of outcasts may still transition to an RBE community, but only a part.

---

But what about the argument that you won't have all the resources when building cities independent from a global movement towards RBE? Such as no aluminium deposits around the city. Primary resources, first, I guess.

Wow. Just...wow.

So now we have Nazi Zeitgeisters coming to our board to apologize for genocide and push their racist, fascist and totalitarian agenda.

Maybe Pendrokar can design a new logo for the Zeitgeist movement. Maybe that little glowing world with a swastika over it?

@Muertos
> "push their racist agenda"
Prove it. All you can do is still assume that I and Nanos are supposed to be anti-Semitic, even though I clearly described I'm not and why I ain't.

> "fascist and totalitarian agenda"
Only described the positive traits of the Third Reich. I might become fascist if the idea of an RBE turns out to be an utter failure. I can't be fascist and a TZM member, since fascism has conservative and xenophobic traits.

> "Maybe Pendrokar can design a new logo for the Zeitgeist movement. Maybe that little glowing world with a swastika over it? "
1) Personality of one semi-member(cause I haven't met my local chapter) makes up the image of TZM?
2) Having a swastika on TZM logo would mean that Germans would be masters in the movement. That... some how doesn't come together. :?

@Kepp
> "This thread has some long ass posts."
Blame Nanos. :D

*Getting country out of debt

Where'd you get that from? Nazi Germany was heavily in debt, they went from owing 11 billion Reichsmark in 1932 to 150 billion in 1938.

*Volkswagen - People's car

The VW was mainly a way to get money out of the markets to avoid inflation. When Germany started employing more people in the military industries, the overall money in the pockets of the workforce increased, but the amount of goods stayed pretty much the same. This would ultimately lead to hyperinflation due to more money than goods in circulation, so Germany used the compulsive saving program to decrease this effect.
Taxation and Mefo Wechsel also served this purpose.

*Construction of Autobahn

This wasn't that difficult, if you consider the fact that it was financed by debt.

*High morale of the population

If you leave out communists, socialists (including social-democrats), Jews, Sinti and Romanies, sure. Don't forget anybody who didn't want to hail Hitler.

*Decreasing unemployment (Of course jobs were made harder to lose too)

The new jobs were almost exclusively jobs in the metal and military industries that were financed by debt and mefo wechsel. Germany planned to pay these debts back by receiving reparations from the conquered countries.

*Rapid increase in quality of life of the population

This one is - if you focus on the racist ideal this was applied to - mostly correct.

Nazi-Germany is a sad episode in international history. You should seriously spend more time on research before trying to justify anything that happened in that time, or people will rightly stop listening to anything you say.

Wow, ethics fail.

How so? I draw the line before torture and murder. Is don't see much consequence of banishing some groups out of a nation. Today it is very hard to determine those groups.

I don't see Americans having problem with it, since they are an immigrant nation that blocks most new immigrants that come from Mexico.
Also we see it now in France. Media tells us that France is specifically targeting the Roma for forced emigration. French would demand or force out any community that would set-up their own commune that doesn't pay taxes to the nation they are in. Same would go for an self-sustaining city, that also wouldn't pay taxes.

---

@CyborgJesus

Where'd you get that from? Nazi Germany was heavily in debt, they went from owing 11 billion Reichsmark in 1932 to 150 billion in 1938.

Well... eh... I ... I only assumed they would. :) But from what I read that debt was mainly internal, so they did get rid of the external one.

The VW was mainly a way to get money out of the markets to avoid inflation.

Maybe, but the car VW Beetle was praised a lot by even foreign countries.

Don't forget anybody who didn't want to hail Hitler.

They could easily leave the nation, well if they could afford it, I guess. Were Nazis ready to pay Jews to leave the country?
But at least you could leave, unlike the prison of USSR.

I knew about new jobs being mostly in metallic industry and armament, but what other jobs could they create?

---

...

...

Hmm, I didn't realise the change of stance in 1936, when the internal debt was growing more rapidly and the only way to not go bankrupt would be to go to war and loot the nearby countries. So even though Nazi-Germany wanted to be self-sufficient it still imported 30% of gathered resources.

The high morale boost could have been put to better use.

I guess Nazi-Germany really was great only for Germans. Everyone else would either try to merge/fit in somehow or get banished to more and more poorer lands. I know I said that here before, just didn't realise how true it is.

In the end The Venus Project fails because it doesn't understand human behaviour and it ignores our current situation (just try and find a real "transition plan") while also relying on futuristic theoretical technology to get round any problems someone may have with their idea.

The End. The Venus Project, nice idea, but can never work.

Well... eh... I ... I only assumed they would. :) But from what I read that debt was mainly internal, so they did get rid of the external one.

I would have to refresh my memory on that one, but the Nazis pretty much maxed out on every loan they could get and pulled in new countries to max out theirs. Internal debt - mainly the 14 or so billion Reichsmark for war machinery was handled in Mefo (=Metallurgische ForschungsGmbH) Wechsel, which were debt tokens created for about six months to the future.

Maybe, but the car VW Beetle was praised a lot by even foreign countries.

And it reached those countries after Nazi Germany had already been destroyed. The compulsive saving program was later used to finance jeeps for the war, the people who actually got one of the few cars produced before 1950 were the occupying powers, not the proud german nation.

The 280 million RM worth of saving points were, of course, worthless after the war was lost.

They could easily leave the nation, well if they could afford it, I guess. Were Nazis ready to pay Jews to leave the country?
But at least you could leave, unlike the prison of USSR.

Also untrue. Communists were mostly fought on the streets or put in jail, some managed to leave. Spanish socialists were used in concentration camps for slave labor, that should about show you the freedom of the third reich.

I knew about new jobs being mostly in metallic industry and armament, but what other jobs could they create?

The better question would be, how would you pay for those jobs. Unless you think conquering every country in reach, steal their riches and demand tribute is a sound strategy to lead a nation, there's not really much positive to learn from Nazi Germany.
And don't forget letting people literally work to death.

Hitler was extremely incompetent in politics, uninterested in financial affairs and sometimes gave completely opposite orders within a couple months. The projects (Autobahn, renovation of Berlin, KdF) were daring, but given in a sense of "I want this, you figure out how to do it".
If the project was too expensive to achieve, the debt was simply pushed far enough into the future so that the person in command wouldn't have to fear immediate punishment or could lay the blame on someone else.