Skeptic Project

I've followed the recent comments on this board, on VTV's radio show and on the ZM forums about CON SCI (haha, I love that acronym) and found myself thinking about how they view us. (Word of caution: don't equate my thinking about how they see us with necessarily CARING about how they see us). Maybe this topic is pointless but I thought I'd write down my thoughts.

Obviously you can't paint all Zeitgeisters with the same brush, but it appears a large number of them are suburban white males in their 20s or 30s, and we know from Merola's own admission that more of them joined the movement as a result of seeing Zeitgeist I than from any other recruiting tool.

Most of the comments about us from Zeitgeist supporters tend to fall into a couple of categories:
~ We are intransigent naysayers who just want to tear down the Venus Project or are otherwise "full of hate."
~ We are trolls who enjoy negativity and stirring up controversy. (Seems to be VTV's characterization).
~ We are unfair or (depending on the critic) totally mistaken in our characterization of the ZM as a conspiracy movement. (This was Brenton's tack before he began to drift away from the movement).

Speaking for myself only, I really don't care much about Jacque Fresco or the Venus Project. He's an old guy making models in his garage. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the VP will work, nor do I think such a system would be desirable even if it was workable. But I wouldn't care or probably even know about the Venus Project if not for Zeitgeist (which is true of most people, pro- or anti-ZM). My bone to pick with them is not that I disagree with the goals or methods of the Venus Project, but because they promote conspiracy theories. I venture that others on this forum probably agree.

I think this is what Zeitgeisters miss about us. And putting myself in their shoes, it's understandable why they miss it. Most of the people who post here believe that the Zeitgeist movies (at least the first one) is fundamentally wrong on a factual and conceptual level. There is a set of objective facts about 9/11 and how it happened, and Peter Merola got those facts wrong, whether carelessly or willfully, leading to a wrong conclusion (i.e., that it was a conspiracy). It's harder to prove the historical existence of Jesus Christ, but Merola's facts in the religion section are also demonstrably wrong, also leading to a wrong conclusion (that Christianity is a conspiracy). So too his characterization of the money system.

What I've heard from ex-Zeitgeisters, Ed among them, is how surprised they are to realize exactly how much of the movie IS incorrect--that it's not a few details here and there, but the vast majority of so-called factual information, with errors and deceptions extending to the basic conceptual level of the film. Therefore, when Zeitgeisters who haven't investigated the films hear us harp on the conspiracy aspects, they either (1) assume that we are "nit-picking" small details, because, as learned and authoritative as Merola sounds in the film, he can't really be THAT wrong; or (2) they actually believe these conspiracy theories to be literal truth, in which case they view OUR factual analysis as faulty.

Once a Zeitgeister reaches either one of those two conclusions, the understanding of why we criticize the ZM is immediately lost. From there it's easy to impute that our motives in criticising Zeitgeist are either (1) ideological, meaning we have a substantive beef with the Venus Project itself which is the primary basis of our rejection of it--thus we're there to "tear it down," or (2) infantile, because we're just negative people. These views are reinforced because they hear us asking the hard questions about the substance of the VP, such as what Jacque Fresco has actually done or how effective it's been, that are unnecessary and rude to ask in their movement because the supposed genius and benevolence of Jacque Fresco (and Peter Merola) are self-evident to them.

I believe most Zeitgeisters are conspiracy theorists on some level. That's not to say they're all hard core 9/11 Truthers (though many such as VTV and Merola obviously are). But when I debate Zeitgeisters and bring up the conspiracy aspects I often hear arguments from them to the effect that the events of 9/11 are legitimately open to interpretation, as if it's an unsolved mystery or an open question, and whether Merola's account of what happened is literally true isn't the point because his view is at least as worthy of consideration as the "official story." Even those who don't believe Merola's accounts of 9/11 are literally true don't seem to be bothered by the possibility that they are not--which can only be because (1) that person deep down believes that 9/11 COULD have been a conspiracy; or (2) the conspiracy theorizing that Merola does is a legitimate example of the kind of "healthy" questioning of events that reasonable people (such as those reasonable enough to get behind the VP) should do. From that standpoint, we come across as Nazis trying to force people to believe an official line about 9/11.

The smarter and/or craftier Zeitgeisters--and I do put VTV in this category even though he's an open Truther--know that conspiracy theories tend to put off some people, and so must be downplayed, at least officially, in favor of talking up a supposedly neutral benefit (the Venus Project) that doesn't ostensibly require buy-in to Merola's conspiracist worldview in order to accept. This is where you get the repeated refrains of "the movies aren't the movement" or "we don't spend much time on conspiracy theories." I still believe strongly that the ZM is primarily a conspiracy movement and will always be, but again I understand the process that Zeitgeisters engage in to rationalize the conspiracy theorizing, especially if it's successful (as it undoubtedly is) in getting people to at least surf onto their forums.

Sorry for the long rambling post but I'm just curious what people have to say about this, if anything.

here is mighty vtv troll hunter =P

Loser with no job with one kid he can't support and is funded by surgar momma money which comes from Burger king to support his hero imaginary zietgeist mentality habit, by night still a Loser with no job with one kid he can't support and is funded by surgar momma money which comes from Burger King to support his imaginary knight fantasies.

Now who needs the Venus Utopia Project when you got the vtv Utopia Project 2.0 already up and going. So far it's a success vtv Utopia Project has achieved the state of fat, with no job, and dumb! These are the people who abuse welfare...

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/30/l_42515b753cbb4305b268b09705cc62c4.jpg

yes sir, instead of the truth comnig out Ill will keep the truth within -_-

I agree with Sky. I intended this post as a reasoned analysis of how Zeitgeisters think about those who disagree with them. Calling VTV names defeats that purpose. Considering there are plenty of other threads on this forum where that's been done ad nauseam, I respectfully request we keep the attacks and jokes out of this particular topic.

I feel so young here.

I feel so young here.

How old are you?

I've had this site up for about 2 1/2 years and most Zeitgeisters who take the time to email me seem to think I "have the wrong idea" about the movie -- that somehow the movie is supposed to "open your mind". I always point out that there are better ways to open someone's mind than to blatantly lie to them.

I think most people in TZM never read my site, I know that some assume that I'm a Christian or Conservative, or that I *love* the current system -- I get a lot of emails like that or see forum posts like that, which proves to me they didn't read a damn thing on my site.

I also *never* claim to be an expert in anything (other than computer programming) but the die-hard Acharya S fans love to say "OMFG HE CLAIMS HE'S AN EXPERT ON HER WORK, BLAHBLAHBLAH." She's a fucking liar, end of story, it doesn't matter in the end if Sun and Son are the same in Greek, she lies her ass off more than Alex Jones. She's been doing this for years and even after Zeitgeist, most people have never heard of her and most people never will, she's that unimportant.

My review of the movie wasn't even primarily about her, but the movie. I don't care about Acharya S any more than I do about some guy ringing a bell screaming "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!" She means dick to me, just like she means dick to the world.

This isn't to say I hold myself in high regard, I get a fraction of the web site views that AJ, PJ, and so forth do. I always mention that I'm just some crappy blog that took the time to look up things people were saying to see if they were true. They project their fears on to me and pretend as if having 3,000 hits a day makes you this unstoppable bull dozer out to destroy their precious movements, clubs, and circle jerks.

I don't care what Zeitgeisters think, or anyone else really, they just annoy the crap out of me when they email me.

Sky your first reply had me laughing loads.

The ZM club just project whatever they want onto people like us, it doesnt matter if we speak fact or fiction to them, we are going to be seen as upstarts to their precious.

We will never change their minds until they are ready, but we can still have fun in the time its takes for them to come around to reality. Thats the thing they miss out on, they take themselves so seriously that they miss how ridiculous they look acting like world saviours.

end of...

Yeah I dont want to change their minds really, I just want to be real about matters.

They would rather sit in dreamland hovering somewhere between insanity and science fiction. But each to their own.

Pointing out an obvious flaw to this crew is simply pointless on their forum, but now they have the arrogance to think pointing it out anywhere else is outrageous. Simply put how the zeitgeisters see us is this:

We are not even human beings and we certainly have no right to criticise their insanity.
Somehow they have managed to elevate themselves above other human beings in their short existance as a movement, and the madness of it is the majority of them are kids/students/no hopers/jobless outcasts of society.

I say fuck them on all levels, I hope they see us as a threat because we haven't even started yet.

>> They're harmless really. The shit isn't going to go anywhere.

I agree, I still stand behind my prediction of the movement imploding within the next couple of years, and I don't think the third film will resurrect the movement to any great degree. PJ thinks it'll gain them *millions* of members, but two films failed to do half a million thus-far.

Lest we forget a fully dedicated TZM forum member and a news letter subscriber are the same thing in PJ's mind.

@Sil,

Yeah, it seems the average age of CTs is around 15 - 25, but the average age of debunkers, skeptics, and so forth is 30+

@Sil I'm 22 myself, so you don't have to feel young amongst these old farts ;-)

@anticultist,

That wasn't meant to be taken literally.

Sort of like nerd rage. I nerd rage all the time, but I don't literally rage.

There was a time when my plate was full of nerd crusades. I just don't care as much anymore.

I concur with Diane's post, more or less. I've noticed that those that are primarily recruited into conspiracy thinking not directly related to political ideology tend to be young, white males, at least here in the United States.

But I agree, I've known about this conspiracy stuff since the mid-1980s, and saw it talked about vaguely on the Internet until after 9/11 when countless jumped on the bandwagon. I also see a rise in anti-semitism as well.

I think it could be related to the uncertain times we're in, much like Europe after the first world war, conspiracy theories got huge, and tended to be ethnic conspiracy theories or communist conspiracy theories -- or a mix of both.

In any case, I find it odd when I see a Finnish teenager yelling about the American Federal Reserve System.

"I found a whole community of people discussing the "fact" that the WMD Bush was after in Iraq was actually the original Stargate the aliens used to teleport here and back with. There apparently has been a fight between Russia, the US, Britain, and other countries to find and take possession of this device."

Oh my.

"Still, I suspect that the popularity of grand conspiracy ideology, and CT's in general, may vary with locale. Where do you live? "

Southern California.