Skeptic Project

^ Hey Vasper85, what do you have to say about this?

^ I had donated to VTV because he had children. I understand that people have rough spots in their life where they need some help to get by but I honestly thought what VTV was doing would be nothing more than two maybe three months of help until he got back on his feet but it's been years now and it's honestly become a thing he needs to live by now. I guess that's why they say never feed wild animals they'll only know how to beg for food rather than get it/make it for themselves.

I do agree that VTV could put the money to better use to be self-sustainable but he has not. VTV has proven on multiple levels that he is incapable of telling the truth do to his mental disability in my opinion so if he claimed to be doing research to be sustainable using donation money I wouldn't take his word on that let alone anything else he says. I think the best thing a person can do for VTV is to not donate to him so he comes to the realization that begging for money on the internet is not a very sustainable way to live and that finding a JOB is the best solution to take care of himself and his kids.

If RBE concepts result in a higher standard of living, and I believe they do even applied on a micro scale, then this should be the aim. To eventually get him off living on donations and demonstrating the workability of the concepts at the same time.

You keep talking about a RBE and how it can work but I see ZERO evidence as well as progress of it working. Why don't you make something that makes a RBE work rather then say it works with no proof it actually works... This type of belief you promote is dogma the very thing you said is the reason you left TZM. You still believe in all of the TZM ideologies that are not based on science.

Instead of VTV testing to see of a RBE works why don't you stop passing the buck off on other people and start doing the research yourself. Until you can prove a RBE can work I wouldn't attempt to pass off such a ideology as fact until tested.

If RBE concepts result in a higher standard of living, and I believe they do even applied on a micro scale, then this should be the aim.

Reminded me of xkcd.com/808/ :

If TVP's methodology would work, people WOULD be making a killing by changing the social order of local communities. People would pay like crazy to visit "futuristic" societies and get small insights in energy-, money- and resource-saving inventions.

That's not to say I'm vehemently opposed to all of their message; basing the entirety of economic actions on the pursuit of profit for oneself does, I would argue, lead to distortive and corruptive effects in the long term.
There simply are better and worse ways for a civilization to use its productivity and resources and ignoring the obvious (and in my opinion, interesting) questions that can be raised about this topic and putting all faith in something as detached from long-term thinking, social responsibility and stability as the market just seems ridiculous to me.

Still, TZM/TVP manages to discover a field as interesting as medicine and turns it into something as dull and unscientific as "alternative" medicine. They don't try to improve the real sciences (economics, politics, sociology), but try to frame them as fraudulent and useless and offer instead an unrealistic, unscientific, unproven and maybe unprovable replacement.

I can see why the few intellectuals who might be attracted to the topic per se and would have some money to spend aren't going to be joining this kind of movement.

I'm not even going to comment on the purpose of those donations.

@2012 CT/Billl I am in that process right now. I have sold my townhome, invested the proceeds and rented a house locally(mostly to try to dodge the inevitable real estate correction that is coming here). The future plan is to build up enough of an investment and move out of the city onto Salt Spring Island and buy a couple of acres, grow most of our own produce and produce most of our own power. As we get better at doing it we will give excess power and produce to our neighbours for free. At worst, we'll be generous neighbours, at best we will encourage similar behaviour. Salt Spring is already predisposed to this kind of close knit community living, many of their houses are built to be more sustainable, indeed they even have eco-tours of their houses, and they offer courses on permaculture, as well as they have experimented with a local currency that can be spent on the Island.

@CJ It is kind of self-defeating when your philosophy is based on building the best by using the best, but your members are generally students, poor, or undergoing severe austerity measures. Unfortunately you want to build the best by using the best, you are initially going to have to pay the most. The adage that you have to spend money to make money, would also apply here with a twist, you have to spend money now, strategically and wisely, to save money in the future.

So I am taking a more pragmatic approach, I am spending money that will generate savings for myself in the future and taking the difference saved and investing it in other money generating ventures, the excess of that I can use to help fund the growth and innovation of technologies that add to overall productivity. Ray Kurzweil had an interesting view of the future of money, he thinks we will all basically be quite wealthy as technology fuels tremendous deflation in the cost of products, so while we will have less overall cash, our cash will be worth much more in real terms.

"Ray Kurzweil had an interesting view of the future of money, he thinks we will all basically be quite wealthy as technology fuels tremendous deflation in the cost of products, so while we will have less overall cash, our cash will be worth much more in real terms."

Truth.

Ray Kurzweil is a stupid crank.

"Ray Kurzweil is a stupid crank."

He's made some spot on predictions in the past which gave him plenty of room to make far fetched and failed ones too. Regardless, technology and innovations do drive down costs of goods.

He was nice to me the other day, so if he lets me join his forum (I cannot seem to currently for some unknown reason, he said technical issue, would look into it.., I’ll post about how he can solve his finanical situation with a legal job. (Amusingly it was already posted on TZM forums, but I guess he and many others missed it!)

Spoken by Nanos. I'll just let the irony sit here for a bit.

VTV will never get a job, he thinks he's too good for such things.