Skeptic Project

Since TeeZeedem is consistently wrong on science and history, he's had to resort to platitudes to defend his cult with.

I that the best you got? I expect that from Matt, but Muertos you are the academic.

Meh, you're just rehashing Merola's talking points now.

Knee-jerk sloganizing is one hallmark of an organization that discourages critical thinking.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.

Why do crazies always say this as if its some kind of law?

Sometimes you're ignored because no one cares about people who believe such crazy things
Sometimes you're ridiculed because you're just fucking nuts.

Example: Scientology, David Icke, Westboro Baptist Church etc

Sometimes they fight you:

Example: KKK, etc

Ie. Sometimes you're mocked because you deserve to be mocked because you're just wrong. Writing what you did above makes me think you just think the more you are mocked the more you are right.

I agree with some of their views on charity - it doesn't work. Take a look at Africa, billions dumped over there and still no improvement. Look at Egypt, that's what happens when foreign 'benefactors' pull back. People don't need charity or subsidies or whatever you wanna call it - what they need is something no government or human can provide: incentive.

That said, I am not saying it is wrong helping starving and sick people - it is wrong feeding them for a while then watch them procreate, then pull back and watch them kill whithey like in Zimbabwe.

Wolf Bird, can you link to the suggestion about sending DVDs to Haiti? That would be a classic illustration of their attitude toward charity.

One of the things that truly makes me rage about TZM is their views on charity. They really do regard it as pointless, but they pretend that's not their position by saying "oh, but it's okay, I don't condemn it." The "band-aid on a knife wound" line is easily the sickest and most callous of their talking points.

And people accuse me of cherry picking? One post in a ten page thread? I have blinders? This is a perfect example of picking the pieces you need to fit your narrative. In your own way you are just as single minded as you accuse some of our members of being.

It was like the guy from PCI on Z-Radio said no matter what you say, someone will find a way to twist it to fit their own ends.

@ Ed

That is an interesting observation. When you go to 911 Truther sites and they mock you, does that make you feel more right?

To be honest, being here makes me feel like shit. So no I don't feel more right being here or being mocked. Quite the opposite.

I won't deny it...I did engage in some confirmation bias. That said, I looked at a fair portion of that thread...the first 4 or 5 pages. I saw way too many posts talking about using the tragedy to 'spread the word' instead of actually doing anything to help the Haitians, though certainly one did stand out above the rest as being entirely cold-hearted. Take note that the thread is titled 'Tragedy or Opportunity?'. I think that is a bit telling about how the Haiti earthquake was viewed by many members of TZM, and many posts in the thread show this. Yes, one post definitely stood out to me as being overtly anti-charity, but to claim only one post was advocating spreading TZM's message over helping the ailing Haitians is naive. However, note that I did disclaim my previous post, by saying that some members certainly are and will be charitable and for that, I'm glad and I honestly to believe that.

However, you fail to address most of my criticisms or provide any substantial reason to support TZM/RBE. You do point out one logical flaw in my argument and I did not deny engaging in said flaw, as noted above. But otherwise, my criticisms and points are unaddressed.

^Love the mention of riots. Once again, TZM frequently claims to be about about peace. Since when are riots peaceful?

But yeah, good point. Spread the word, raise awareness, get to critical mass. I do not get this. Why not help the single mothers, homeless people, drug addicts, etc. now, along with spreading the word? Why does critical mass need to be reached first before TZM can do anything useful besides raising awareness? That's what a lot of charities do...they take direct action, AND raise awareness of whatever problem they're addressing. Why won't TZM, as a whole, do this in some form, like what the Real Roxette suggested about Something Awful?

Let's venture out into the realm of "The Hazard Circular", unattributable qoutes, and distorted percentage's. Let's cut out specific parts of any speech that fits our mood and frankenstein it back together into self promoting drivel! Do the Zeitgeist!

TeeZee, several of us support the idea of the venus project, and several of us really love the idea of a technocratic society, I think most of our critique is derived from the misrepresentation of figures in the various movies, and a general discontent with PJ's representation of the movement and the "options" he provides for supporting it. I obviously don't speak for nearly all of us, but the movies being recognized as the "birth" of the movement is why we start there. TZM also being the activist arm of the movement, I see little actual action, or movement. With continual movie releases and nothing much else, it does not come off as "no-profit", at least from a third party point of view. It comes off as profiteering propaganda, and I for one have never gone to the site to flame people, or be an ass. You make good points in your previous post, i'll give ya that though. Now im getting some zzzz's.

Thank you, TeeZee, for addressing some of my points this time. TC and Anticultists already made points on some of them, and I won't rehash. I'm not much of a debater either and I may just stop suddenly...hell, I'm still pretty new at this in general, and instead of just going into a circular debate about a lot of things, I'm going to focus on a few things:

First, I'm glad you personally engage in charity, donate money, etc. That's why I disclaimed my first post with the 'individual members do charity' line, because I knew it to be the case. Would you happen to know of any local chapters that engage in charity as a group, like volunteering with non-profits on weekends or something? And I'm glad you're advocating for that, That said, though, anticultist pointed to statements made by top folks in TZM regarding charity. It's a bit telling about the movement as a whole coming from the leadership, and I find it saddening some members (glad you're not one) take this to the extreme and reject charity completely, saying education and spreading the word is the only thing worth the effort.

Second: Violence/rioting. I hope you're not insinuating that what's happening in Egypt has anything to do with TZM and an RBE. From what I can tell, the people are rioting against a regime that's been in place for 30 or so years. This doesn't seem to be against the money system, it's against Mubarek's regime. Same thing with Tunisia, and I'm fairly sure someone posted a thread where TZM was taking credit for what happened in Tunisia - once again, I doubt wanting an RBE had anything to do with it, and had everything to do with a despotic regime. Anyway, I remember a quote from Merola someone put on this forum, it goes something like this:

There will be a war of ideologies, and it will not be pretty.

Maybe it's because I'm a strict pacifist and I do not think any ideology trumps someone's life, but that puts a bit of a chill down my spine. And you wrote this -"We don't advocate violence. And it won't be us that initiates it" - again, hearing quotes like this are chilling to me. It comes off as preparing to engage in violence. I don't care who starts it, violence is violence, and engaging in it is engaging in it, no matter your reason. If you engage in violence, you are harming and possibly taking the lives of fellow human beings. Period. Maybe someone has oppressed me somehow, but I guess I believe my rights are not more valuable than another human's life, even one that is harming me. I think that, too, is compassionate. About the only time I will debate how right violence is is when there's a clear and present danger to one's own life or the life of another person, not to fight some unspecified group of oppressors that I'm not even convinced are truly oppressing me in any way. I say this as an American, and an acknowledge that oppression certainly exists in many places in the world. I guess I also believe that the only part of the world you can really change is your own corner, your own community. That's where what you do really matters.

Third thing: money and an RBE. Here are my questions for you -

1. How is money oppression, which you seem to imply in your post and other TZM members have implied?
2. In an RBE, without money, how will people exchange goods and services?
3. How will an RBE address problems of hoarding?
4. How will a moneyless RBE suddenly make all resources abundant as I've seen many claim?
5. If there is no government in an RBE society, what is going to stop people from committing all sorts of crimes?
6. Money has been around, in some form, for a very, very long time - someone posted on this forum about when it originated, and right now, I don't care to go find it. Political systems have risen and collapsed, etc., but money is still around. Why will it collapse this time, which you imply to be a certainty?
7. Do you, personally, wish to see the monetary system just suddenly collapse? I have seen some members who basically seem to want a collapse, just to be right with an 'I told you so attitude', and seem to think even education is not worth it. Basically, it's a 'adopt my viewpoint or I don't care about you' attitude I see from some members.

I'll leave it at those questions for now. Again, many of the criticisms of the the RBE system have been made on this forum - scattered everywhere, again, but I find those criticisms convincing, as they address basic problems and in some cases, point to historical examples, and it's from these that those questions arise. CSers have also pointed out plenty of incorrect history that TZM ideology is founded on. I could spend a lot of time finding these, but I don't want to, at least right now.

Money's a flawed system, I acknowledge that. But I have yet to be convinced TZM offers a viable alternative given current world conditions. That's why I pose those questions.

Money is the means for corruption. Take away money, and they will find other means.

Well I cannot vouch for who you are talking to, but PJ has expressed that he indeed does comprehend the amount of suffering that would result from a collapse. What you don't seem to realize is educating people gives them a choice, by forewarning them and giving them an option to change course. Knowledge is power, and a simple idea can galvanize. Look at what is happening in Egypt. That is a demonstration of the power of numbers. The Egyptians are united in a cause and when motivated the masses are unstoppable. Would it be fair to say all the people at CS deride PJ insistence on the focus on education and reaching critical mass? What is being accomplished in Egypt, however it plays out, will be real lasting change. And all it took was a week.

Although I agree with the Egyptians and they should of done this a long time ago I have to say teezedumb that it was WITH the help of the Egyptian military. If the Egyptian military did not support such a thing their would be no protest. Isn't the military what your cult leader Peter Joseph Merola is against? Calling people in the military killers, murders and things of that nature.

I Doubt anybody in the military would support your cult. If TZM/TVP ever reaches critical mass and tries to take hold of the U.S. government (which will never happen) I will reenlist into the U.S. army to help stop such a thing from happening. I don't want a bunch of communist, uneducated, jobless, conspiracy theorists retards in power basically which is what TZM/TVP is made up of and based off of.

Thank you, TeeZee, for addressing some of my points this time. TC and Anticultists already made points on some of them, and I won't rehash. I'm not much of a debater either and I may just stop suddenly...hell, I'm still pretty new at this in general, and instead of just going into a circular debate about a lot of things, I'm going to focus on a few things:

First, I'm glad you personally engage in charity, donate money, etc. That's why I disclaimed my first post with the 'individual members do charity' line, because I knew it to be the case. Would you happen to know of any local chapters that engage in charity as a group, like volunteering with non-profits on weekends or something? And I'm glad you're advocating for that, That said, though, anticultist pointed to statements made by top folks in TZM regarding charity. It's a bit telling about the movement as a whole coming from the leadership, and I find it saddening some members (glad you're not one) take this to the extreme and reject charity completely, saying education and spreading the word is the only thing worth the effort.

That is a good and legitimate question. My local chapter hasn’t gone much above putting on lectures, setting up a booth downtown every weekend, partaking in larger socially conscious events, and hosting the movie. Let’s qualify what PJ said, charity being patchwork. If charity worked then it would fix the problems that causes the chronic poverty and malnutrition. Emergency aid in times of disaster is perfectly understandable and necessary, but chronic charity to stem chronic poverty tells me that charity does not offer a long-term solution. Find me a charity that is building hydroponics vertical farms (or similar) or desalination plants then you have my attention.

Like these guys:

http://www.watercharity.org/</p>

This is a charity interested in permanent solutions.

The problem with most non-profits is that they cannot engage in extensive capital projects. It is relatively inexpensive to send foodstuffs and water and has a far more immediate effect. These actions are more appropriate for emergency situations not for long-term aid. More costly is permanent infrastructure and education which has tremendous benefit in the long-term but take much time to get up and running.
But let’s see what other chapters have done if anything. I have posted a new thread asking that very question, you can view the replies, if any, here. I will acknowledge as a global movement we haven’t doesn’t much on this front but I’m hoping on a local level we are more likely to practice what we preach.

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=99999&func=view&catid=233&id=316266

Second: Violence/rioting. I hope you're not insinuating that what's happening in Egypt has anything to do with TZM and an RBE. From what I can tell, the people are rioting against a regime that's been in place for 30 or so years. This doesn't seem to be against the money system, it's against Mubarek's regime. Same thing with Tunisia, and I'm fairly sure someone posted a thread where TZM was taking credit for what happened in Tunisia - once again, I doubt wanting an RBE had anything to do with it, and had everything to do with a despotic regime. Anyway, I remember a quote from Merola someone put on this forum, it goes something like this:

There will be a war of ideologies, and it will not be pretty.

What is happening in Egypt has nothing to do with TZM. The Egyptians are fighting to oust Murbarek and most likely want to transition to something resembling a democracy. It would be sheer hubris for TZM to take any credit for anything that is happening in either of those places, because I realistically doubt any significant number of Tunisians or Egyptians have heard of TZM/TVP or an RBE. Certain individuals like Gerald Celente had made certain predictions of riots in 2010 (albeit in the US) and I think PJ may have echoed those sentiments, but that is the extent of it.

Maybe it's because I'm a strict pacifist and I do not think any ideology trumps someone's life, but that puts a bit of a chill down my spine. And you wrote this -"We don't advocate violence. And it won't be us that initiates it" - again, hearing quotes like this are chilling to me. It comes off as preparing to engage in violence. I don't care who starts it, violence is violence, and engaging in it is engaging in it, no matter your reason. If you engage in violence, you are harming and possibly taking the lives of fellow human beings. Period. Maybe someone has oppressed me somehow, but I guess I believe my rights are not more valuable than another human's life, even one that is harming me. I think that, too, is compassionate. About the only time I will debate how right violence is is when there's a clear and present danger to one's own life or the life of another person, not to fight some unspecified group of oppressors that I'm not even convinced are truly oppressing me in any way. I say this as an American, and an acknowledge that oppression certainly exists in many places in the world. I guess I also believe that the only part of the world you can really change is your own corner, your own community. That's where what you do really matters.

I am not a “strict” anything, it would be naïve of me to say that I would stand idly by if my family was threatened. I do not like violence, and I would never advocate it, but it would be foolish of me to say I could never be pushed into it. You see the issue as black and white and I can respect that but currently I do not possess the knowledge or the experience to see it as anything other than grey. And you are right about the only part of the world you can change is your own corner. I have always held the view that an RBE would grow from the bottom up not top down. Transition towns, for example, are perfect hosts for the idea of an emergent RBE.

Third thing: money and an RBE. Here are my questions for you -

1. The short answer is we are required to submit to the system by selling our labour for money. The economy only has a limited number of spots and a limited number of uses for various skills. We compete with each other for these spots and are forced to develop the skills that the economy requires of us. It is the rare number of us who actually are in a position to pursue there passion and derive a living from it. Another oppression of money, but on a larger scale, is the disproportionate affect it can have on society when accumulated in large amounts. Money on a small scale is just an efficient means of exchange. On a large scale it translates into power to change society’s values and laws. Money confers a powerful differential advantage, this incentive alone is enough to colour everyone’s thinking, for example, looking at most interactions in terms of “cost”.

2. Here is a common misconception, are we speaking of a mature RBE or are we speaking of an emergent RBE? I understand you want a clear cut answer on this as most people look for that attribute in any ideology they consider. Unfortunately the answer is not clear cut because of the complexity of the question you have asked. I stated in an earlier thread that I would resume a debate with Billl in a few months because I literally had to stop because someone brought something to my attention that I was unaware of, so I have to read the book and consider its implications. Since I joined TZM I have been reading texts on politics, economics, sociology, psychology, philosophy, history, science, technology and I still feel I do not know enough to grasp the entire situation, but that is the key to understanding an RBE and how it works, most people don’t like to hear that because that involves a lot of work.

Back to your question, in an emergent RBE, we still use money for exchange, but instead of letting the profits of increased productivity accrue to shareholders and upper management we share them out. This could mean deflation sets in and everything costs less, but you are also working less so your standard of living remains the same. The end result is you have more time for your own pursuits. Productivity would be focused on providing the basics for as low of cost as possible, for example food, until such as time that we achieve production of scale in which food is produced for pennies, basically free. When people have more free time and do not have to worry about feeding themselves they can then devote their time to other more productive pursuits. When information is no longer considered proprietary, collaboration will happen more freely. It is established that machines are more productive than people in terms of sheer horsepower so eventually most jobs that require physically human labour will be replaced by machine labour because once the tipping point is reached, machine labour in terms of productivity, will be cheaper than human labour. This is a controversial assertion on my part but reading the history of human labour vs. machine labour in agriculture for example shows the trend of increasing reliance on machines. This trend is already playing itself out in manufacturing and is starting to impact the service sector. Currently only knowledge workers are safe from this trend, for now. I would suggest Jeremy Rifkin’s “The End of Work” and anything by Ray Kurzweil for further reading. I have described part of the process that will eventually lead to an emergent RBE, what a mature RBE will look like I can only speculate, but essentially goods and services will be free, with machines providing the basic necessities and humans filling in where machines currently cannot. And this is not an arduous proposition as one might think considering the labour pool available; any jobs remaining would be like doing chores. A couple of hours a week at most. People today work fulltime jobs and volunteer more time than that.

3. This leads into the discussion of our current conceptions of what is property and what is the intrinsic value of that property. Also we must consider the reasons why hoarding happens today and what, if anything, could we do to curb this behaviour.

Today there is real incentive to hoard as hoarding guards against times of scarcity, this is a deeply ingrained habit, but in our JIT (Just-In-Time) production model of society we are, even now, curbing that behaviour. Most people do not stock up on food because in their immediate history food has always been available at the grocery store. Most people shop for enough food to cover a week and many Europeans shop daily. Also the financial advantage of hoarding loses its appeal when there is not a ready market to liquidate your holdings. For example, let’s say in a mature RBE you took it into your head to hoard the community’s cups, what are you going to trade those cups for that you could not otherwise get? The community would need those cups, but they have nothing to trade to you in exchange for them because there is nothing you want that you cannot get yourself. In an emergent RBE, we would just continue down the road we are already on, using money to prevent excessive hoarding and work on the reliability of the supply system to further encourage the curbing of people’s propensity to hoard in response to scarcity. Notice my discussion doesn’t address more malignant types of hoarding, because no system is designed for such extremes it is designed for the everyday. If you want to advance that argument my reply would be that such behaviour would result in something similar to what you are seeing in Egypt just on a local scale and there is nothing remarkable about that statement.

Lastly our views on private property would begin to change. If you look at the reasons why private property became so important it would be when we began the shift from a nomadic style of living to an agrarian style of living. Property had a very different connotation to hunter/gatherers which involved owning that which you could carry (but even that was a grey area), the concept of individuals owning land was foreign to them. When a person or tribes ability to survive became tied to a particular plot of land and that is when ownership of land becomes important. From there is where the ideas of private property began to blossom. An important distinction to consider is the idea of private property is not so much in your ability to have access to the land, but your right to restrict that access to others. That is the important power of private property laws.

Currently, my ability to survive in the current society is not tied to my land. I derive no nourishment or livelihood from my land, I only receive shelter. Yet our laws are still based on notions of property that stem from agrarian times and this notion has created a burden on us, the burden of ownership. To own a house requires you to remain rooted in the area, thus you get a job in the area. Picking up and leaving is an enormously costly proposition in terms of effort, even if you do nothing but rent, because you have to transport all your “property”. This has never been more obvious to me than right now when I am in the midst of moving. Currently about half of my stuff is in storage and I am living well without it, so do I need it at all? All you need is access to property when you need it and you would never know the difference and you would never feel burdened.

Have you heard of the 100 things challenge? I would give that a shot if I were you, it is liberating to shed your excess stuff.

So in an emergent RBE, emphasis on physical ownership would lessen and in a mature RBE being tied down with a massive amount of property in a society that is highly mobile would be consider an anachronism.

4. That is the key word “suddenly”. As I discuss above in my example of an emergent RBE, nothing happens “suddenly” it is a gradually progression. And it could be, as I’ve entertained before on this site, that we never totally leave behind money, for items or services that we cannot successfully automate to the point where the cost is negligible we may need money to act as the limiting arbiter. I would be fine with this as long as we can make the basics available without thought of cost. Any who claim that abundance is just a flick of the switch away has not thought this through enough and needs to read more.

5. This discussion would lead us to consider why people commit crimes. Most crimes are motivated by scarcity and inequality. Property related crimes, like theft, fraud, armed robbery can be linked back to not having enough and a perceived injustice that allows for individuals to take that step of depriving others of their property and feel justified in doing so. In a society where we are bombarded with images of success being equal to large amounts of money and the purchase of status symbols (fast cars, large houses, bling, small toy poodles) it is very easy for people to pick out who is successful and who is not and resentment will inevitably follow. In societies where people are more equal, there is less resentment. Work on rectifying inequality and providing for the basics and you will address most crime. And again to consider if we are speaking of an emergent RBE, government will exist but in an increasingly smaller role over time as people adjust as the RBE matures. Take this for example; do we really need a law that says murder is wrong? No matter what our education level we are on some basic level know that murder, even killing in war, is wrong. We don’t need a law to tell us that. Less clear is the scenario where a person steals food from another person because he is starving and the other person has a surplus. To allow another human being to starve is wrong especially when you have a surplus to give, but in our society private property laws trumps this, making “stealing” the greater offense. You have to ask yourself in a society in which law puts you in conflict with other immoral acts, where does the problem lie? With the law? Currently we say it lies with the individual who steals. Good communities negate this issue by not allowing people to starve to begin with, in governments we try the same thing through the offering of welfare, and this only addresses the basic scarcity question, not the inequality question.

6. The conditions that made money a useful tool is it is an excellent low tech way to distribute scarce resources and this condition of scarcity has existed for much of human history. Productivity was profoundly limited when relying on human labour; you reach a saturation point very quickly with human labour (too many cooks in the kitchen). With technology, mechanically driven labour can surpass this limits many times over, so paradoxically we can produce more of anything than in any other time in history but without continued growth of markets this blunts the profit incentive. You cannot have infinite growth in a finite system. GDP cannot grow indefinitely. So money in combination with the profit motive was excellent in times of true scarcity and market growth. How will this continue to work when we hit the saturation point in market growth and we no longer experience true scarcity? And when I speak of scarcity I am talking about what we need to live, food water, shelter, transportation, not diamond encrusted cars as those are just status symbols.

7. Fiat currencies have collapsed many times in history and are usually quickly replaced by other currencies. Some of our members who don’t have a solid grasp of history think that a collapse will propel people to seek an alternative. This is not how meme’s work. People tend to go with what they know over the new and untried so most likely in a global collapse of the monetary system the World Bank will introduce a new currency and people will accept it because it is familiar. What we are trying to do is offer an alternative. Some of our members do agitate for collapse, I would be quick to correct them that in a collapse it leaves a vacuum and nature abhors a vacuum. There is no guarantee what systems you will get in the event of a collapse. I would strive for gradual change now while the infrastructure is still functional. I think it is irresponsible to wait for a collapse before doing something. I do, however, consider education doing something. You need to know what your options are if you are to make a choice. I fear though, that there is not enough time for any of this.