Skeptic Project

I've been following your debate over there Ed, you have a whole lot more tolerance than I do. I would have called them all stupid assholes and left long ago.

"Why in all the posts I've seen from you are you overly hardcore skeptic and negative on the elements you feel you can attack, where's your desire to water the seeds of good in Zeitgeist?"

That question kinda shows how these kids absolutely don't get it. When your movement's foundation is bullshit and lies, what guarantees the seeds sown will grow into something humanity even wants? History shows us what happens in regards to that. All the pie in the sky promises and dreams doesn't change the fact that the entire movement is based on absolute bullshit and lies.

To the Zeitgeisters, maintaining the image of total open mindedness is more important than accurate information. That is not who I want running society and I don't think many others do either or we would have Intelligent Design in public schools.

They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Without the conspiracy garbage, they have no recruiting tool. With the conspiracy garbage, their recruiting tool is probably going to bring them nothing but nutballs who assure that no one outside of woo circles will accept their proposals. Between the radical vegan rhetoric and the anti religion rhetoric, I really don't know who else this crap would appeal to other than those predisposed to woo.

What I find most amazing is the levels of intellectual dishonesty they will go to in order to avoid just admitting it. They make themselves look totally dishonest and absurd with their dancing around the woo angle, despite talking about science in regards to TVP. Merola has those kids by the balls. I wonder if it will last another year.

"I'm used to thinking of Truthers as typically leftist kids who I would think be generally adverse to a staunchly conservative political theory like global warming denial."

Libertarians are just right wingers who smoke pot.

Sick.

I should have figured. That's the last time I will credit Zeitgeisters with any capacity for rational thought. 9/11 Twoof pisses me off, but global warming denial is really starting to get my goat. These people want computers to make economic decisions for them and talk about what a great society we'll have if we apply science and technology, but they don't even believe in science when it comes to global warming.

These peoples' only real allegiance is to conspiracy theories. What a pathetic joke this "movement" is.

"Zeitgeisters link the same damn Rense articles that fringe rightwingers do.

I guess the Zeitgeisters just conveniently ignore all the Jew hate on Rense."

Imagine a young kid new to all this, reading those post thinking "Damn, for hippies these guys really hate jews."

xD

I would suggest that you don't generalise about "Zeitgeisters" too much, there is much less woo in various members than you would expect. The main guy that is anti-GW Denial still supports the movement for example and various other people have said bad things about conspiracy theorists but are still "in" the movement. Its not entirely fair to say what all of them believe based purely on one of two people, or even what the local truther population think.

Matt, I'm probably as anti-Zeitgeist as anyone here, but I'm not willing to go quite so far as you are. Is ZM a conspiracy movement? Yes. Do they have a coherent narrative? No. Is the ostensible reason for their existence (the Venus Project) a realistic goal? No. Can a resource based economy work? No. Is it a bullshit movement? Yes. Must they reject all conspiracy theories and repudiate Merola entirely before they are even capable of being taken seriously? Yes. Even then, do they stand a real chance of changing things? No.

That said, I believe Ed that there are some non-CT Zeitgeisters, and there probably are those who really honestly believe the Venus Project is the best thing for the future and are genuinely frustrated that their movement is run by CTs. Those people will never have any significant say in the movement, and consequently the ZM will be remembered, if at all, solely because of its association with conspiracy theories. I also believe the percentage of the movement who fit in this category is extremely small.

I think there may be a very small percentage of Zeitgeisters who eventually reject conspiracy theories and decide to get involved in real world activism. They'll probably look back on the ZM as childish, unrealistic and shallow, as well they should. But I could see maybe 1 kid in 1000 being disappointed with how silly the ZM is and looking into something real like Habitat for Humanity or something like that. The ZM is total crap, but some good may yet come out of it. Maybe. (Not an excuse for conspiracy-slinging in the Zeitgiest film, which is totally unacceptable).

I'd like to see more about the Haiti thing, I wasn't aware of any situation at TZM about it.

"The Zeitgeisters probably rationalize it like other CTs do: "They don't hate Jews, just Zionists." Since the Zeitgeisters probably think Israel is an evil bully and Palestine is full of warm and fuzzy victims, this is just fine.

Of course, anyone with a clue can see through it. "

I think the ADL put it best when they said:

"Criticism of particular Israeli actions or policies in and of itself does not constitute anti-Semitism. Certainly the sovereign State of Israel can be legitimately criticized just like any other country in the world. However, it is undeniable that there are those whose criticism of Israel or of "Zionism" is used to mask anti-Semitism."

I've encountered plenty of people who will talk about how they only have a problem with Zionists, not Jews... but they'll let some anti-semetic remark slip in every now and then. It also presents a problem when trying to have any sort of rational discussion about Israel or the Middle East... some Jeff Rense'er might just drag you through the mud with him and make you look like some anti-semetic, holocaust-denying loon. It's happened to me before that's for sure.

@ Matt:

"Can you give me a logical reason to assume that a movement born out of a conspiracy movie filled with lies should be given the benefit of the doubt?"

I cannot. You and I agree on this.

"As far as I can tell, the movement actively tries to convince members not to donate to charities, as it is all a part of the monetary system."

I believe I stated in a topic on Sunday that I think this is extremely unfortunate. Even crediting the Zeitgeisters' supposed ideology as genuine, there's nothing whatsoever in it that would prevent them from supporting real charities who help real people.

"Did you read their thread about the situation in Haiti? That was some pretty offensive shit."

I did, and I agree with you.

"What has Fresco done that benefits humanity?"

Nothing.

"What does that silly old fart do besides tell stories and water his lawn anyways? Why does he get the benefit of the doubt either? Because he's old and at one point drew pictures of a future that will never be?"

Jacque Fresco is a joke, I think we both agree on that. However, I also believe he didn't ask for what happened to him, and in fact was actively deceived by Merola and the CTs who hijacked his movement. Fresco is 94 years old. I don't think he knows what the hell is going on. He may be a warmed over creepy New Age 1960s guru, but he's pretty much done for these days. I don't think he has the slightest clue who Merola is or what his conspiracy theories mean. I'm willing to cut Fresco a little slack. I honestly don't think he has any clue what's going on.

"I understand Ed feels the need to defend the ZM when he feels they are being treated unfairly, but I am just not going to put a little disclaimer on every one of my posts saying "this does not include the very small percentage of Zeitgeisters who are not CTs." Why are Zeitgeisters some sacred cow that can't be generalized and mocked like Alex Jones fans or any other cult?"

That is not, and never was my position. As you recall I wrote a blog in the last 36 hours which was basically a fire hose of derision against the Zeitgeisters. All I'm saying is, I think Ed is right that not every single ZM member can be painted with the same brush. That doesn't mean that their movement as a whole isn't total conspiracy bullshit--clearly it is--but at least there is the possibility of somebody coming out of the ZM with some measure of understanding of how badly off the rails their movement was from the beginning, and how they might rectify those mistakes in the future. That's all I'm saying.

"As far as I can tell, the movement wants CTs speaking for them. Moderators on that forum post all kinds of stupid conspiracy crap."

100% agreed. Zeitgeist is a conspiracy driven movement, no question about it.

"The best way for someone who is in the movement to really do something positive for the world is to simply stop being a part of it and go do something else."

Agreed.

"It seems this mostly started because of my Jew haters comment."

Anti-semitism in the CT movement is an explosive issue no matter how you slice it. Clearly there are anti-Semites in the Zeitgeist movement. Clearly there are some who are not. Equally clearly, there are people who advance anti-Semitic viewpoints who are not aware that they are doing so and would be shocked if they actually dug deep enough into their beliefs to understand that their viewpoints are code words for anti-semitism. I think you and I both agree that this is the true danger of the conspiracy movement, that people push code words and cloaks for anti-semitic conspiracy theories are generally not aware that they're doing so. I know several people who honestly believe in David Icke reptilians. Those people would be shocked if they understood that David Icke reptilians is a facile substitute for Jews, a fact which you and I see as self-evident; they, however, probably would be offended if we called them anti-Semites. I think all of this is bound up in how dangerous and seductive the conspiracy movement is, which is why we are here and why we admire what Edward has been trying to do.

Matt, of anybody who's a regular on this board you and I probably agree more often than do any other two regular posters here. I'm just pointing out that we do disagree sometimes, and for valid reasons.

Muertos wrote:

Anti-semitism in the CT movement is an explosive issue no matter how you slice it. Clearly there are anti-Semites in the Zeitgeist movement. Clearly there are some who are not. Equally clearly, there are people who advance anti-Semitic viewpoints who are not aware that they are doing so and would be shocked if they actually dug deep enough into their beliefs to understand that their viewpoints are code words for anti-semitism. I think you and I both agree that this is the true danger of the conspiracy movement, that people push code words and cloaks for anti-semitic conspiracy theories are generally not aware that they're doing so. I know several people who honestly believe in David Icke reptilians. Those people would be shocked if they understood that David Icke reptilians is a facile substitute for Jews, a fact which you and I see as self-evident; they, however, probably would be offended if we called them anti-Semites. I think all of this is bound up in how dangerous and seductive the conspiracy movement is, which is why we are here and why we admire what Edward has been trying to do.

I would add here that when grand conspiracy ideologists are not explicitly vilifying Jews, they substitute other religious (or nonreligious) minorities for Jews, such as Pagans, occultists, Satanists, and sometimes atheists -- with the Rothschilds somehow managing to be members of the "Illuminati" no matter what its religion is alleged to be. In any case, the vilification of other religious minorities is a danger in itself as well, in addition to the revival of classic Judeophobic myths.