Skeptic Project

@aaron thats for your valuable contribution.

yea, you're still living in the old age. its not about winning or losing.

dude that last little "patient" "client" thing was really hilarious though. might be my favorite part.

I always find it amusing when a nurse calls a patient a client, it sounds so seedy!

Nanos, find web developers who are interested in green technology and tell them about zeitgeist. its pretty simple. we have all the time in the world. no rush.

what if living off the grid saves you money each year, then is it sensible?

> find web developers who are interested in green technology

Found those!

Trouble is, they tend to earn tons of money and don't care about the rest of the world..

There are lots of people who want to be web developers though, don't have money and lack the skills..

I think perhaps training those folk up is a good solution, and making sure some of the money they earn goes towards buiding something. (Something like a 50% income tax seems fair..)

> and tell them about zeitgeist.

Ah well..

If I tell them, using the scientific process to improve the world, why they love that!

But once they see the hatchet job done with TVP/TZM, they think its a joke.

If TZM could be more, well, practical, then they would take it seriously.

> we have all the time in the world. no rush.

Well, you might as you have a job!

The rest of us, well, we are trying to avoid being homeless, poor, victims of crime..

Thats one of the things I notice with TZM members who have jobs, or live at home with parents, or have a rich husband.. for them, there is no rush..

For the poorer members, they want a job and home today!

And if we worked together, I'm pretty sure we could help them too..

@Nanos this is not the case.

They bought the land together, and kept up all payments on it. Jacque & Roxanne then sold it because they had their eyes on another piece of land outside of miami, the venus project land.

They then bought that and it was so far out that the people who were the original investors could not be there due to them all having lives in miami, therefore after time they all had to go.

Jacque and Roxanne set up the new company venus project inc for themselves dissallowing any of the previous investors and might I add continuing investors any say in the new company, including how their money was spent.

Any person who had been ripped off and then told they could not have any say in the things they had invested in is not some lazy person, they are a person who has been conned and are right to stop paying and move on.

Jacque and Roxanne conned them out of their money, you may want to defend him but the evidence says otherwise.

> What exactly would you gain from doing so other than a feeling of freedom?

Lower cost.

Feeling of freedom doesn't interest me so much as cost does!

(Eg. I can quite imagine the first home I build, will be off grid for electric, but ongrid for water, as its cheap to connect to water, and rather expensive to collect/store/treat it yourself, so would leave that later on.)

There is also the issue in the UK at least, that we are running out of generating capacity, so I wish to avoid power cuts!

Also, if we produce our own electricity, we can sell it to the locals cheaply and gain favour with them..

> I wish I had that article about the realities of living off the grid. It isn't
> nearly as romantic as people make it out to be.

That would be interesting, but I'm sure your right, its not easy.

I'm also aware that the grid is an efficient solution to everyone producing their own power, and it irks me a little to see the idea of micro-power generation for everyone. As I reckon it would be a better idea to go for local power generation, with a mini-local grid. (There is also here in the UK, the issue of a waiting list (years!) to get connected to the grid.. so building your own power generation is a sensible option in many cases.)

It also provides some degree of security, if civilisation falls, you can still operate equipment. (Or riots..)

> Any person who had been ripped off and then told they could not
> have any say in the things they had invested in is not some
> lazy person, they are a person who has been conned and are right
> to stop paying and move on.

Fair comment.

But I can see how someone like Fresco might see that as not conning.

Not that it excuses it, but I think can help explain it.

(re. my suggestion that we help Fresco get off grid, now my idea there is that if we could setup infarstructure to get lots of people offgrid, and Fresco just happens to be the first, and we keep doing that, that it would be a good thing for people. (Especially those practical folk who want to build things.)

Now, sadly I can quite imagine that if that happened, Fresco might, after getting his free solar panels, say thanks and close the entire project down..

And see nothing wrong with that..

(Though I more imagine PJ would close it down, but thats another argument..)

It took me ages to find some kind of hook to get Fresco interested in doing something practial!

But I can imagine it might not work out as I would like to see it. (Eg. that we help him get off grid, by then having developed TZM members who can help others and keep doing it.)

> i am more motivated to support VP and take action today than i
> was before this thread. thank you all.

I'm glad about that.

But, do remember, you might end up as one of us, as my motivation went up, so did the disagreements about what to do.. (Until eventually, my input was no longer welcomed.)

> I am actually in the process of recording a full video series on
> how to make a website. I will gladly give it away for free to any
> ZM member who wants to learn how to make a website.

Thats very good/useful of you.

> Do you need a web dev job?

I do yes!

Though I'm just a struggling beginner, so would barely fit into the trainee catagory..

> But is the cost really lower?

It can be, its not always though I grant you! (I listen to folk who got themselves wind turbines, and testing them to find out the results are not what they expected..)

> Who pays for equipment maintenance and upgrades?
> Who pays for the initial investment in green power?

That'll be all the job earning folk who live there :-)

Thats one of the reasons I'm keen to start with solar, as its cheap to get started, and you can expand capacity fairly easily, though its not particularly cheap.

Later on, I reckon we might go with CHP, burning locally grown wood say (Or maybe peat if they let us..) and finally geothermal once the population was high enough to afford it. (Though the UK government has offered million pound grants in the past for people to build plants, so maybe it won't be so expensive!)

> Since I live in the US, it is my genuine opinion that people
> who choose to live off the grid do so because of ideological
> reasons, not economic ones.

Yes, thats mainly the reason here too I would say.

Organic farms are also popular. (And sadly don't last that long once folk find out their harvests are rather poor..)

As such, you see little groups, off grid, but against things like making money, or industrialisation, so always remain small and ineffective beyond providing for a few mouths.

I'm thinking more large scale solutions, small towns worth off grid..

So the electric really is far cheaper than off the grid, with the profit part taken out so to speak.. (Or at least spent on building up the town, and not going towards shareholders holiday in Spain..)

"(Don't you just love how productive chat can be sometimes, oh why can't we do this on the TZM forums!)"

Because while I don't agree with you very much, you don't come across as a crazy asshole.

so you think Jacques is a liar and actually doesnt care about sustainability?

You would think Fresco would have all kinds of amazing inventions in his home, but outside a few little dome buildings, what working prototypes does he have?

None.

Its all for show. He doesn't even have mainstream commercial renewable energy technologies.

They claim this is because they have no money, so why wont Jacque design something and make money to fund such things? The guy has been doing this for over half a century, Im sure he could take a few years and sell some designs, maybe get some research grants. But no, he has done nothing except some lectures, make models, draw hypothetical technologies.

There is absolutely no reason IF he is a great designer that we are told he is for them not to have more than enough money to have all this stuff.

In other words, if they are not lying they are incredibly incompetent no matter how you look at it.

@Nanos:

"My vague understanding is that he has tried in the past, and got bitten, several times."

I don't believe that. I looked long and hard for actual contributions that Fresco has made. Aside from a patent regarding cameras, there's absolutely nothing.

@Nanos:

"There is much in the world that isn't documented, so its entirely possible there isn't much evidence to back up this argument."

That is a pretty awful way to decide where to invest your money.

Why does Fresco deserve this suspension of disbelief that he expects from others? Because it feels good? I honestly don't understand how people can turn an extremely critical eye to anything involving the status quo but then just believe whatever Fresco has to say. It makes no sense.

It would seem to me that Fresco suffers from the same problem so many of his adherents do: The inability to differentiate between questioning authority and rejecting authority.

@Nanos:

Are you trying to bring Fresco down to your level or bring yourself up to Fresco's?

Because I don't understand the point you're making.