Skeptic Project

Yo bkyle,

Might want to correct the misinformation on TZM about how people will get banned if they post here.

Because clearly, you ain't banned and neither has any Zeitgeister who has posted here.

Certainly you care about accuracy as much as we do, right?

"When he does return, bkyle should also look at this article:
http://conspiracyscience.com/blog/2010/06/19/zeitgeisters-greatest-hits-confronting-canned-responses-to-criticisms-of-the-zeitgeist-movement/" -Muertos.

Muertos, I read the article. It was a very complete dissection of common arguments made by supports of TZM. I have many comments to make, but I've already spent enough time here today and have to get back to work. I'll be back.

In the meantime, can you point me at some links to detailed criticism of Zeitgeist Addendum? Your article mentioned that the points mentioned in movies like Addendum are easily refuted. I haven't seen such a detailed breakdown of what's wrong with Addendum.

bkyle, have you been banned yet? I just wanted to check because Voice of Reason said you'd be banned by the end of yesterday.

http://conspiracyscience.com/forums/topic/voice-of-reason-lies-about-conspiracy-science-hahahaha</p>

There you go, broseph.

There are many university educated supporters of The Venus Project. Are you implying they all don't understand science?

Yes. The vast majority do not. The fact that blank slate theory is widely accepted among ZM members is indicative of this. Also, the fact that they readily accept conspiracy theories is another indication of lack of critical thinking skills, which are a prerequisite for understanding science. Not to mention most of them do not understand what a scientific theory actually is.

@bkyle

Honestly, until TZM/TVP abandons the tabula rasa crap there is absolutely no reason for anyone here, or anywhere else, to take it seriously.

I'm not really all that interested in going through each of your points individually when the basic foundation is so very, very wrong. That one little wrinkle renders everything else after it completely irrelevant. Why should I sit and explain why buildings need doors and plumbing when the basic foundations of this thing are absolute garbage?

The blank slate theory is outdated and its wrong. Why should a group of people promoting such nonsense even deserve serious consideration?

Real change is not easy. The scope for TVP is immense. A project of such scale has never been tried before. Does that mean we shouldn't try because it's too large of a challenge?

Don't you think that you should examine the ideals of TZM/TVP before subscribing to it?

Just that the current system has some major problems doesn't say anything about the feasibility of TVP and its goals - it's not a simple "either" "or" decision.

Sure, some of the points of TZM (consumption, waste, long-term blindness) seem valid to me, and I'd add others that've made me become critical of capitalism and political theory in general.

But that doesn't mean that I have to work on TVP just to make myself feel like I'm doing something productive. And the combination of TZM and TVP has a lot of holes:

- The faulty plan of becoming somehow so popular politics/business actually cared, while the numbers suggest that the movement will rather grow on a linear rate

- The idea that capitalism would somehow "collapse" and that that would be a good thing, vs. forcing us to live in early 20th century standards, maybe worse.

- The total lack of a transition plan, i.e. how resources and the workforce are organized in the (probably never ending) transition, in which scarcity still exists and thus some form of restriction and regulation is needed

When you take into account that neocommunists have spent decades trying to come up with a practical plan for a moneyless society, while TZM usually just posts awe-inspiring videos that don't lend themselves to any judgment about the practical usability of the technologies described, don't you think that TZM is more interested in having the comforting illusion of "This is how a RBE might work" instead of actually being "activists" or (god forbid) scientists?

Isn't that always the way it works? A scientist has an idea, then creates a theory from the idea, then tests that theory looking for evidence to prove the theory is true or not. Evidence is found in the results of the test.

Generally no thats what inventors do. Scientists tend to observe something occurring and try to explain it by replicating it in the laboratory with repeated tests and taking notes on every single test. Then re applying it with peers until they have proven why their observation occurs with a reasonable and verifiable experiment.

Simply saying something is so out of thin air, for example "the financial system is responsible for every problem on earth", then giving thin vague reasoning and providing no verifiable data or repeatable experiments to prove it so... is not science.
For a man with 15 years in a scientific field and Bachelors of Science you sure are missing the point and being led astray very easily.

Oh and while were discussing TVP/TZM and the scientific method have a butchers of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoZOOFuPhec

Conclusion: TZM/TVP = Scientific method FAIL

"The problem is your belief in the world getting worse is flawed (or at least the reasoning is flawed, leading you to blame the wrong parties - also, societal collapse is not imminent, despite what the movement believes) and your solution is flawed (unscientific and untested). If you'll notice, global poverty and economic inequality has been decreasing over time [1], as well as violence [2]. I don't see a good reason for a massive shift if things are currently headed in the right direction anyway." -domokato.

Why do we need to change our ways and perform a massive switch to a world-encompassing system like The Venus Project? I hear this question a lot. Many people are comfortable in their ways and don't see a need.

Here are some moral arguments why we "should" change…

(1) We have the medicine so that no one has to die from preventable diseases.
(2) We have the capability to produce food in such abundance that no one on the planet should be hungry.
(3) We have the technology to give every person on the planet clean drinking water.
(4) We have the technology so that no one should have to work in dangerous conditions.
(5) We have the resources to provide a sturdy home for every person on the planet so no one has to sleep on the street or die from extreme weather (including hurricanes, tornados, floods, etc).
(6) We have the understanding to fix social problems so that instead of throwing people in jail and forgetting about them for committing crimes, we can fix the deplorable conditions many people live in that negatively shape their lives leading them to commit these crimes.

Those are all fine goals, but not compelling enough for many people. If we don't go ahead with any of the above, the lives of many people living in relative comfort will be unaffected. Worse even, they often oppose such changes out of fear of giving up some aspect of that comfort they're accustomed to (this includes fear of increasing taxes).

What people really need to hear is why we "MUST" change…

(i) Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction
As long as we have scarcity, greed, and inequality, there will always be war and terrorist acts. Our weapons have such destructive capacity that we're always a switch away from vaporizing cities and leaving that land and the surrounding area unusable for generations. This threat may not get the headlines it used to, but it should be one of the planet's greatest worries. Now that humanity has opened the box and learned how to make these weapons, there's no going back. The threat will always be there. The only was to diffuse it is to remove the motivation: Equality for all and abundance for everyone's needs.

(ii) Resource Depletion
Humanity has been lucky to live on such a plentiful planet. For thousands of years we've been taking resources with very little thought about the sustainability of those resources. The problem is our advancing technology is allowing us to harvest and use those resources at an exponential rate. For example, 25% of all oil mined ever on the planet has been consumed in the last 10 years. The Amazon Rainforest, where a lot of the air we breath comes from, is being deforested at a rate of 8 NFL football fields a day. We need resources, but we need to switch to focussing on renewable and sustainable resources. Humanity has never faced the complete depletion of a resource we truly require. With our exponential resource consumption, that new experience is inevitably going to happen, and it won't be far off.

(iii) Air Pollution, Water Pollution
Basic necessities of life. We need air to breath and water to drink. We're filling our air with pollution like never before. There's a good chance we don't even understand the repercussions of our polluting ways. For example, where does our drinking water come from? Rain and snow that falls from the sky. Yes, that same sky we're filling daily with our pollution. Yes, that's the same water the plants we eat get the water they need from. Yes, those are the same plants that are eaten by animals that we eat.
This is all on top of the destruction of our salt-water oceans by chemicals, plastics, and the decimation of sea life from irresponsibly large corporation fishing.

(iv) Landfills, Incineration, and The Lack of Recycling
Our reckless consumption is leading to reckless waste. It's reckless because very little thought is given to what happens to all the waste we produce. Think of all the one-time-use we use on a daily basis: coffee cups, plastic forks, yogurt containers, styrene (styrofoam) containers, etc. It all goes in the garbage without a thought as to where the garbage goes. First, we're going to run out of the resources that we're currently using to make all this stuff. Second, we're filling up our landfills with all this stuff, much of which does not biodegrade and will sit in the dump for 500 years. Meanwhile, chemicals from that garbage slowly seep the land. To combat our overflowing landfills, we should be working on intelligent re-use and re-cycling. Instead, we're moving to incinerators. Now we're burning our garbage and sending this chemicals up into the air we breath (see above), which turns into the water we use (again, see above).
Watch this video, called "The Story of Stuff":
http://www.storyofstuff.com/</p>

(v) Greenhouse Gases, Glaciers and the Arctic Melting, Widening Deserts and everything else related to Global Warming/Climate Change.
Care to debate whether anything should be done about global warming? Start by watching these two shorts videos, aptly titled "The Most Terrifying Videos You'll Ever See" :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&feature=channel /> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE6Kdo1AQmY&feature=channel

(vi) Technological Unemployment
Technology is advancing exponentially. Each new discovery/invention is used to make more discoveries/inventions. Humanity is getting really good at this now that information is shared globally in virtually "no time" like never before. These new advancements are being used by corporations to put people out of work. Look around at where you live and you likely already see it: automated manufacturing, bank machines, self-checkout, automated telephone systems, automatic latte machines, etc. These all used to be jobs for many people. What are those people doing for work now? Corporations are always going to be looking to be more efficient and profitable. Replacing humans with machines is the solution corporations are looking for. And they must, because if they don't automate, then the competition will, and their marketshare and profits will suffer. Now think through this problem of increasing unemployment. Unemployed people don't have money to make purchases from corporations. Corporations have to make layoffs. As unemployment increases, the economy suffers and more people become unemployed. See the cyclical feedback loop? Once unemployment levels reach a "tipping point" and the cycle feeds on itself, how does it stop? No one's means of making a living is safe.

@bkyle,

Abundance of resources will not change human nature.

No long and tedious posts from you will change that. Your posts will not change the work of genetic scientists.

Also, no, the end goal is not "good." Its a technocratic authoritarian nightmare. But you're probably blind to the power structure and the subsequent abuses of it in your own movement. I'm not.

I find it amazing that a TVP evangelical doesn't understand his own dogma.

What's worse is that when asked "what if..." regarding sociopaths and so forth in the TVP world they either say "that simply wouldn't happen" or "we'd study them and educate them." Both are incredibly naive and stupid replies.

It reminds me of the "there are no what-if questions" when speaking to Evangelical Christians about issues regarding their beliefs. It really shows TZM's lack of actual scientific application, and really faith-based reasoning.

To be nitpicky, you're fucking wrong.

You cannot rehabilitate a conscience that does not exist.

Come into where I work sometime.

Hurr durr no.