Skeptic Project

@TeeZeeDem - Stop defending TVP/TZM.The fact is they have no science and they have no evidence to back up their anecdotal claims with regards to economis,science,psychology etc has led to stop and let the cult destroy itself rather than take it down ourselves.Had Jacque and Roxanne made any effort in the past 30 years we at the independant groups would have not to do it now.Most of us at them are completley and utterly embarresed to have had anything to do with TZM(were even considering of dropping the term RBE completely and the name RBEF).As Ive said before further attempts at their so perceived growth in popularity should be stopped not out of the drive for ego etc but because they are the only ones who destroying the one chance for a money less society because putting the future of humanity in the hands of politicians may be foolish but leaving it the hands of a CT'r ,a 94 year old man child and his playboy bunny and their sociopathic followers would be retarded.
Sorry if I sound extreme at time but in fairness deluded TZM followers like yourself make those who are keen on making a geniune effort look bad.

I think he's saying that there isn't enough money to pay off the debt.

oreolvrs, obesity could be caused by addiction to dopamine-rushes brought on by eating. In today's US society, people are frequently stressed and look for gratification wherever possible. One way to feel good is to eat a lot (Bulimia).

In a society where food is available for all, there may be less stressors and less of a desire to gratify one's self.

@aaronmhatch I can't go a day without gratifying myself, while eating and playing video games, at least that's my life according to Peter Joseph.

PJ has six screens, so he can watch six documentaries while VTV only watches one and we all masturbate. How are we even supposed to counter that?

Not if the money in question is adjusted with inflation, like minimum wage is supposed to be. At this point retirees need worry more about having to go back to work because of the crumbling Social Security system, rather than the FRS.

I assume your social security is indexed to inflation much like our CPP(Canadian Pension Plan) and OAP (old age pension, subject to claw back depending on your retirement income). I also assume that even though it is indexed that if you rely only on that to live, you’ll be eating dog food in no time. In Canada we have self-funded pension programs called RRSP that are supposed to supplement our retirement (or is CPP supplementing our RRSP’s?), it is tax sheltered up till retirement, then we cash them out, pay tax on them then draw them down in our golden years. Commonly to preserve the wealth your “invest” them in fixed income (GIC’s mostly). These are not indexed to inflation, so inflation has a real impact on most senior’s standard of living.

Why do I feel like I'm speaking to the mouth piece of the Ayn Rand Institute rather than an RBE believer?

What can I say, I like to read.

The debt is more complicated than the Federal Reserve, and would exist without it, that's really my point here. If we equate all debt to the Federal Reserve, like most conspiracy theorists do, then the whole argument of why we're in debt, how it's paid off, etc. is completely lost on people.

Debt is not complicated at all, every debt-backed dollar in existence (either physical or on deposit) was loaned out so has some sort of interest attached to it. The Federal Reserve is just another layer that helps perpetuate a system that is going to bankrupt the entire USA. 18T remember? Who is going to pay the interest on that? That’s not including the unfunded liability for the Medicare and Social Security.

I think we'd have fragmentation of the US government before that will happen.

So why wait till that happens? If we agree on anything, we should agree that this debt generation should be stopped and the Federal Reserve is the first institution that needs to be toppled. Look what happened to Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed. It was emasculated. Congress fought hard to keep their credit card.

Well, I agree that we need some protectionism here and with it we could easily lower the income tax rate, however as ironic as it may seem, most conservatives who promote ending the income tax, don't believe in protectionism.

Funny you should mention that, protectionism is what built your country into the wealthy country it was (I would say “is”, but its not anymore). It was referred to as the “American System” and it was getting exported all over the world. Germany before WWI was dropping the “British System” in favour of “American System”. They were becoming quite the economic powerhouse before WWI.

I think that free trade is bullshit; it benefits the corporations at the expense of the regular people trying to get a job. Open up trade globally and capital will chase the lowest cost of labour, which are invariably countries that have the lowest protections and guarantees for their workers. How long before the US and Canada become the next India and Mexico (the way they were before the influx of our old jobs).

Talking and doing are two different things. They talk about it all the time, they do things about it almost never, this is true with pretty much every topic across the board in the US. Here's another example: many Republicans tend to be elected on morals alone (being pro-life is the biggest reason) yet pretty much none have ever done a single thing to end abortion as part of their campaign promises -- yet people keep electing them on these grounds. I don't really think many politicians actually understand how the country functions.

But do you believe there is any real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans? Obama got elected on his “Hope and Change” platform, but what has changed? Has the Patriot Act been repealed yet? Has Gitmo been shut down? Are they still trying civilians under military tribunals? Out of Iraq yet? Leaving Afghanistan yet? Obama did deliver Universal Health Care, which turns out to benefit private insurance companies as they get millions of mandatory customers. What happened to the public option? He did repeal that moratorium on stem cell research but don’t you ever get the feeling the new boss is much like the old boss?

I agree, but this doesn't explain poverty in the US at all.

That is a much bigger question. Certainly growing government debt contribute to overall impoverishment (i.e. shoddier education like illustrated in docs like The Lottery, or Waiting For Superman, fewer support programs that help people get a leg up, higher taxes and fees), but also outsourcing of jobs to other countries and of course technological unemployment.

-- I suggest you read The Web of Debt by Ellen Brown.
I have.

Then how are we drawing different conclusions, unless you don’t accept her research?

I can't find the George W Bush video in question, but I did find some articles from 2005 talking about the housing bubble popping:

If other people were talking about it, fine. I was mostly offended by the thought that GWB could have predicted anything let alone this.

It was amusing reading those articles as they were getting all bent out of shape about a modest rise from 145K to 183K 2001 to 2004. In Vancouver, our average single family home passed $1 million. Yeah that’s right. Consider also our currency is nearly on par with the US dollar. Do you think we learned anything from the US real estate melt down? Not a thing apparently. Sales figures have been taking a dip ever since June, so it looks like we have passed the peak of the roller coaster ride. Construction starts are down. It’s all down hill from here.

But my point is that the USSR's failure had nothing to do with the IMF and it was the post-Soviet CIS that had all of the related problems. I know that book, I actually own it.

So do I, how do we own and read the same things but arrive at different conclusions? My points were about post-collapse Russia. So I have no trouble accepting your points as to why the USSR failed, because we are talking about different periods of time.

I never said there weren't problems or general stupidity going on.

So what’s being done about it? My option was to support an RBE and gather support for the idea. Admittedly this is harder than I thought. You say you like some of the ideas that TVP puts forth, then instead of railing against TZM we need to work together to get Peter to tone down the 9/11 rhetoric. I don’t care if PJ personally has that view, but he could keep it to himself. TZM has given more publicity to TVP in the past few years than JF has done for himself in 70.

Which is why I think it's good we abandoned any metal standard.

Partially agree, but the next logical step would be to abandon the debt-based fiat, and replace it will government issued, interest free currency, or at least interest that is paid to the government.

Your probably thinking why? After all I stand for a moneyless society. But unless we get rid of this debt-based fiat all countries are going to get squashed. There will be no funds to invest in advancing the technology that will better society for everyone and make a moneyless society possible.

Well, we've got people who believe in complete deregulation of capitalism here, from their perspective our disagreement is minor.

Consider though that I just don’t think we need a boom, bust cycle, I also think that eventually technology will create such efficiency and productivity that we won’t need money either.

At least you can get some kind of care when you get sick, though. That's unrelated to central banking, but it's still a step up.

Well you do to now, sort of. Thanks Obama!

How so? Pretty much all other promoters of moneyless societies believe in either nationalizing all banks, or just destroying banking. The idea you'd give more power to private institutions is something laissez-faire promotes, not anti-capitalism.

In a fully mature RBE, we will not need private enterprise to do anything. And I think you are equating the repealing of most laws as deregulation on “business”. It is more like a deregulation on the individual. This is not anarchy we are proposing, but rather we would be repealing laws in which we could design certain behaviour out of the system. Take for example, speed limits, there is no reason why we have to employ police to “enforce” these when we could design receptors into the cars that, based on a signal received on a particular stretch of road, let the car know its upper limit. Go a step farther we could design cars that drove themselves.

Private enterprise, at least in the form of a corporation, or partnership will not exist. That is not to say there won’t be personal creativity, but innovations couldn’t be sold (no money, no market), they would be shared for the benefit of everyone including the innovator.

...instead of railing against TZM we need to work together to get Peter to tone down the 9/11 rhetoric.

He never will. The release of that ludicrous 200-page "study guide" and his doubling down on conspiracy theories clearly indicates that he has no intention of toning down anything. Conspiracy theories are the #1 recruiting tool for his movement, so toning them down would be like killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

I think you labor under the misconception, TeeZedem, that the Zeitgeist Movement is some sort of altruistic society whose main goal is to change the world. It's not. The Zeitgeist Movement exists primarily for the edification--whether in terms of fame, self-esteem, perceived influence, or maybe (a little) money--of one man, Peter Joseph Merola. The Venus Project may once have been altruistic in conception, but now it exists primarily for the edification and validation of one man, that being Jacque Fresco.

How is it that you can't see these things? That however good (or bad) the idea of a resource based economy is, it's entirely secondary to the real reason these organizations exist?

And it's not just 9/11 either--Merola's ideas on religion, ancient history and (as demonstrated in this topic) economics are equally faulty. He won't budge on those either.

If you want to save the Zeitgeist Movement, you certainly have to fire Merola, and probably Fresco too, and totally change the movement's image and associations. Maybe if that is done you can make some perceptible headway on these economic and social ideas. But as long as you're a conspiracy movement, which is what you are, the lofty goals of changing society and implementing utopia are empty dreams.

@TeeZedem [TZM]

Bottom line is there is not a single impressive person supporting TZM, not a single person worth any respect in the physcology community, economics community, business community, political community, religious community, academic community, media community, engineering community or last but not least scientific community.

All the people involved are nothing but followers with no power or bring anything with actual collateral weight, if it is just numbers of people that impress you then why not goto a large rock festival and knock yourself out in awe.

@Aaronmhatch

I am saying both, there is not enough money to pay off all the debt without doing something drastic like hyper inflation. And that if you pay off all the debt, there would be substantially less money in circulation as only money created from loans to private invdividuals and enterprise would remain.

Suffice to say it would cause a sever recession, as deflation tooks it's time to catch up.

Although Ellen Brown suggested that the US could take it's bonds and swap them for cash and retire the bonds instead of recyling them to the Fed. That would remove an interest generating debt instrument, without inflating the money supply and the same time reducing the debt burden. I don't think you would do this enmasse and you would definitely have to do an end run around the Fed and issue the money directly.

@Muertos

If what you say is true and the movement is not about changing the world, the people who have joined it are about changing the world. If it becomes apparent that I can proceed no further in the movement (i.e. by getting banned), then I will pursue these ideas elsewhere.

I might be a little naïve but I think that PJ and JF are both coming from a good place. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I’d like to point out that if you were paying attention that I am holding my own in the economic discussion. But if you have something that will rock my world, I am always eager to hear it.

"instead of railing against TZM we need to work together to get Peter to tone down the 9/11 rhetoric."
As its been said never going to happen.If Peter cant tone down the CT nonsense himself it shows he has no real intention of carrying out his promises as he knows very well from Charlie Sheen and Van Jones that Conspiracies get you nowhere in the real world.As I said Venux and other members of RBEF believe in CTs to varying degrees,the difference is they dont promote them and use them to recruit people.When they log on they leave their beliefs at the door.

"Bottom line is there is not a single impressive person supporting TZM, not a single person worth any respect in the physcology community, economics community, business community, political community, religious community, academic community, media community, engineering community or last but not least scientific community."

Perhaps if we can deprogramme Douglas the NASA guy and convince him hes a puppet that TZM likes to dangle in front of people for credability as hes a good presenter and he has been keen on projects in the past(though at this point it might be too late for him),then of course EricR who has a decades worth of experience in nuclear physics and has given up on TZM,though thats pretty much it(better get on to Pman about those two).
http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=99999&func=view&catid=231&id=213182&limit=10&limitstart=30

"I might be a little naïve but I think that PJ and JF are both coming from a good place. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt."

With regards to Jacque I can somewhat cut him slack(despite snide remarks on anticultists blog in the past).He dropped out of school due to poverty in a time when people didnt have that many oppertunities outside of it and thus found side jobs and conning as the only means of survival.I can credit him with introducing the concept to a younger generation but for everything else no(the fact that he is possibly senile allows me to ct him some slack)but unfortunatley he sold his soul to VTV,Thunder et al for some last 15 minutes of internet fame.Peter on the other hand has very few(if any)redeeming qualities since he grew up in a period when education was so widely availible and he had more oppertuinities with regard to finances,education etc. and the simple fact that hes hijacked a pseudo-humanitatian group to spread conspiracy theories.Hes a freelance snake oil advertiser(evident in the work he still contiues for Acharya S.) who pathologically lies and manipulates people for his 15 minutes of fame and hides behind Jacque to justify his actions(making nearly as bad as say,Jenny McCarthy).As I said before his days are numbered as without Jacque he has nothing and wont be able to use the excuse that "the movies are not the movement" anymore and he'll have no means of protecting himself from criticism.All CTr leasders are the same they only want power,money and fame.Alex Jones,David Icke,Maxwell Igan are no different than televangelists

"Instead of abandoning TZM/TVP why not try to gather a consensus to get them to change their direction?" - Most at RBEF & RBOSE have given up.Only a few of us keep an eye of the people that are remotley worthy in other words those that are likely to get banned for stepping out of line or have an real skills of note(I hope you guys are listening).All TZM is really doing is separating the wheat from the chaff and hopefully we can be there to pick them right up when they fall(or leave) they can join us for some real progress.Five years from if TZM still exists we can really show that its really quality not quantity that counts and once we are in the spotlight and Peter and his sheeple are still "spreading awareness" they will have no chance but give up unless they publicly embaress themselves even more.

> Instead of abandoning TZM/TVP why not try to gather a consensus to get them to
> change their direction?

Tried that, didn't work..

It might be possible to get them to change by talking directly to people of influence though, like Fresco and VTV.

> he has gathered together an impressive number of people

Well, to be fair, it is more than I have managed, but less than say the BNP.

He is a little good at making it sound like a lot of people though. (I love, almost.. the way they hide actual facts, like how many people are working on project X, as when you dig a little, you find its just one or two people, and not the hundreds it sounded like at first..)

> and is good at spreading the message.

Generally agreed.

> I think that TZM is bent, but not broke and I think it can be fixed.

Agreed on first point, and somewhat agree on the 2nd. (Though I thought this for some years and its certainly not an easy fix..)

> The Venus Project may once have been altruistic in conception, but now it exists
> primarily for the edification and validation of one man, that being Jacque Fresco.

Perhaps. (Though I tend to think maybe its the people surrounding him that are treating him like the goldern goose, and its not necessarly his fault for the outcome we see..)

> If you want to save the Zeitgeist Movement, you certainly have to fire Merola,
> and probably Fresco too,

Agreed on Merola, probably not Fresco though.

> You mean like what I was attempting to do (and what I got banned for)?

Indeed.

You are perhaps our best example of someone who was incredibly civil and in no way could have the finger pointed at them and said they was 'smug and condesending' like me..

It really was the moment when all hope of meaningful discussion faded on the forums, and only perhaps 1 to 1 debate with people higher up having any chance after that.

> I might be a little naïve but I think that PJ and JF are both coming from a good
> place. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'm often giving them the benefit of the doubt, but if its true, it doesn't help if they are too stupid to understand and take notice of others with better ideas.

> Perhaps if we can deprogramme Douglas the NASA guy and convince him hes a puppet
> that TZM likes to dangle in front of people for credability

I'm not entirely sure he needs deprogramming, as I reckon he could well be trying to play it smart, after all, he works for NASA and they are rather well known for playing politics alot. So it wouldn't suprise me that he is trying to get TZM to change from within by being accepted as one of them, and then working his magic to get them to do something practical. (Like I imagine how folk in NASA have to play games to get spaceships built..)

Though for some reason he does remind me of a playful Labrador puppy, so I'm not entirely sure that is his plan..

But I do know others are working along those lines (Watch as PJ goes all paranoid about just who these folk are! :-) ), so perhaps we might see a change. (After all, if PJ gets hit by a bus tomorrow, all this could change overnight..)

But, going on progress in the last 5 years, I wouldn't count on a change any time soon.

I reckon your more likely to change the world by what you personally do, than what TZM's combined efforts can do in the next year.

I can perhaps only advise, that if you want to help fix them, to do so in tiny little steps and not to do anything to draw attention to yourself as a troublemaker. (Eg. don't do what I did..)

In a way, being involved with TZM reminded me of my time working in the government, I was able to action some small changes, but the huge level of stupidity there meant my efforts was constantly being undermined by countless other folk intent on their own empire building and wealth extraction from the system, rather than trying to help the country.

As such, I eventually left when I realised I could do more to help the people working outside, where I could action change much faster, than inside.

Thats not to say inside doesn't have an effect, but you would need a lot of people inside to make an noticable change, and I'm only one man..

You speak of cost-effectiveness, but cost is not the object in an RBE, function and safety are.

I take it you missed my post about cost-effectiveness in an RBE. Like I said, if you're going to do things in an RBE that are functional and safe but are not cost-effective, you will soon find yourself bankrupt (of resources). Capitalism at least has a way of pricing resources according to their scarcity. An RBE has no such proposed mechanism, and I'm still waiting to hear of one.

Like I said, if you're going to do things in an RBE that are functional and safe but are not cost-effective, you will soon find yourself bankrupt (of resources).

Exactly.

Price might not be effective all the time, but at least it saves us from wasting all our resources on the "best" idea now, and then having nothing to work with once somebody comes up with new and better technology.

Then what I'm going to devote myself to is getting that direction changed until I get banned. And then keep on campaigning from the outside. I spent more time deflecting conspiracy accusations than I actually did talking about the merits of an RBE. This is detrimental to the movement.

This is a good tack to take and I wish you luck, but I doubt you'll get far. The Zeitgeist Movement is, first and foremost, about conspiracy theories. As long as Merola is the leader of the movement and the movement continues to be mainly about him, the conspiracy theories will stay.

You'll probably be banned quicker now that you've stated this intention, because now the ZM moderators can add "criticized ZM on third-party websites such as Conspiracy Science" to your list of crimes against Dr. Merola.