Skeptic Project

Thanks for your response Ed. I'll try and thresh out my points of view on your comments, briefly. Please be clear that I'm just giving my point of view, not some sort of infallible statement as to what would be the 'right' thing to do.

You said "I would also like to support a proper movement with all the good sensible stuff taken from Fresco but without the silliness and conspiracies its promoting." I've personally come to think that referencing Fresco in a sort of movement that would actually work is absolutely unnecessary. And, adding to that - so is advocating any political doctrine.

As soon as you start telling people that they're 'limited in their perspective by their culture' and going on the anti-capitalism, anti-government, anti-politics, anti-institution, anti-religion [insert other antis here] you divide people.
It's interesting that Jacque talks about how having "black studies, gay studies, womens studies, etc," you "divide people" but he doesn't see on the same page that being anti-this-and-that actually has pretty much the same effect - and that's what we've seen.

In my mind an effective movement would get people involved regardless of political doctrines, religious beliefs, and other cultural aspects. In other words, getting people involved in 'common issues' without regard to who they are as a person. Not that the element of the individual is anywhere near unimportant, but rather that the individual should feel comfortable to freely express themselves and abide by whatever points of view they like.

In my mind, rather than advocating a specific social system an effective movement would work in the practical realm of creating sustainable initiatives in their local communities - that's one thing the ZM chapters should be looking toward doing, but they're not.

I think a global movement that could interest just about anyone would be based explicitly in making communities more resilient and self-reliant. For example, an economic depression isn't such a problem if a community is resilient: this would mean that there are publicly used community gardens, as well as a good amount of people who produce food on their own property (meaning, vegetable garden) - no one's going to starve if money 'dries up' then. That's obviously just one example. A truly altruistic movement would also think outside it's own bounds and work continuously with various charities and organizations to ease suffering abroad.

You don't have to be anti-war, just pro-peace and pro conflict resolution via other means. Human society seems to have the 'habit of crisis', so it would seem appropriate that the method of solving that crisis just needs to be altered.

You don't have to be anti-capitalism, just pro-sustainable development, etc,.

Obviously these are just my thoughts and I'd love to hear your end of the rope on these thoughts.

I agree Matt. I think a truly appealing group should make where that group wants to go so appealing (without whitewashing), that people will want to be involved, as opposed to feeling some sort of 'duty'.

Community gardens are a great idea. We have some here in Portland and they work pretty well. This is the kind of idea that can cut across political or economic ideas and doesn't require buying into any ideology of any stripe. All you need is a desire for fresh vegetables and willingness to put a little elbow grease to make it happen.

I'd much rather eat a potato that I personally grew than look at Jacque Fresco's drawings about future cities or whatever. And in my opinion, my potato is going to exist in the real world a lot sooner than Jacque's bubble cities.

"Muertos, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people will see Jacque's city as some sort of an unnecessary extravagance in the face of (for example) extreme poverty. That's assuming it'll -ever- happen."

I already see it this way.

Fresco has what, twenty five acres of land? How much time does he spend jet setting around the globe?

How can he possibly relate to problems like affording food or healthcare? How can he relate to my problems as a father? What can he tell me, a working American and parent, that I could possibly relate to? I don't need Fresco's help with gardening, I am a gardening badass. Probably better than he is.

I'll put my begonias up against Fresco's any day!

If many of you are really interested in attempting to approach social concern in a unified [yet undogmatic] and practical way - please voice that intent here.

I'll set a simple website and forum up and we can begin to discuss how we might begin to approach this, and go beyond being a 'movement with a forum' and (in my experience) pretty stagnant chapters., etc, etc,.

Thanks for posting that article Edward, that's the one I was talking about.

Well, I'm interested, in fact I've wanted to create such an organization for some time:

http://conspiracyscience.com/forums/forum/the-mars-project</p>

The name being both a play on the venus project (a bunch of "hot air", get it?) and also on terraforming (again, a play on 'changing the world'). It was just a project name, but the motto was going to be something like "Cooperation, science, technology, and humanitarianism without restraint".

I'm not sure how any movement would be undogmatic, even if you start it with that intent, people will start to value words of either leadership or those considered elders (this happens even in the anarchist movement) as dogma, and saying "well, X isn't a part of the movement, that's an art project" obviously won't cut it.

@Matt,

I don't think so either, sociopaths don't need money, nor do assholes.

I think when I say undogmatic, I feel that it means we wouldn't say something like "a resource-based economy IS the path" - people could hold whatever political allegiance they want, for the most part.

But obviously if someone is against sustainable development or helping those in poverty - it's hard to appeal to them. No group can appeal to absolutely everyone.

Well, to a certain extent that's what I'm getting at. Of course, since we're talking about forming something off the ground all this is open to discussion and it must be done very carefully.

To follow Edward's thought, the RBE line is going to pretty much guarantee that you are going to get crazies.

Do everything possible to avoid getting the hardcore far left wingers.

Not because I am one of those OMG EVIL SOCIALISM! people. But just because they are just incapable of idealogical compromise and you will waste all of your time cleaning up their messes and drama.

You also have to lose the hostility towards religion.

I know some folks like to pretend that doesn't exist on the left, but it does. And it kills you.

Needless to say, I think Dawkins is an egomaniacal dickface.

How can he possibly relate to problems like affording food or healthcare? How can he relate to my problems as a father? What can he tell me, a working American and parent, that I could possibly relate to? I don't need Fresco's help with gardening, I am a gardening badass. Probably better than he is.

If TZM is supposed to be about science and technology I don't see why they listen to Jacque Fresco at all. The idea for a world without money is not that original, most people have probably thought of this on their own, but thought it wasn't practical. Fresco's ideas and inventions often sound impractical. Like for example in that Future by Design video he shows off the model of his future city and points out that city services like food, shopping, and education will be located at the center of the city, while people live on the outskirts. The reason they don't build cities like that in real life is because everyone would have to travel long distances to do anything and traffic would be terrible. It is more practical to have schools, shopping districts, ect dispersed throughout the city. Not to mention if this future Resource Based Economy™ ever came about, by that time people would have invented even better stuff. It is just silly to think that all of the city planner, industrial designer, and so on have been doing it wrong for years, and Jacque Fresco is some great genius.

@Sky,

My Mars Project idea was to put science first and try to create projects that go out and directly help people, starting as soon as possible. I think if you basically setup your goals as practical and showed people they were, more people would jump on board. You don't have to talk about step 9,000 when you're not even on step 1 -- something common to TZM, TVP, Communist Party, Anarchists, Technocrats, everyone revolutionary really.

Do you all think there's a difference between hostile to religion, and plain honesty?

Is Dawkins hostile to religion, or is he just necessarily honest? Something I'd like to hear on.

Yeah, "never" is the best time to talk about religion.

If someone is a fundamentalist whackamole chances are you're not going to be a in a position where you're going to have to deal with them internally in the first place. They're pretty xenophobic and stick to their own.