2011-02-17, 15:40 | Link #81 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Unless they managed to homogenize themselves before the atomic age (or early in said age) so that they have only one culture with strict rules and control over the society. Or they discovered a planetary destruction possibility soon enough to crash course the required technology for interplanetary travel and kept their failing, just moved them to interplanetary conflicts. At which point they might have destroyed elements of the civilization but the remainder might just spread out in search of resources...or perhaps a new home. Then it becomes advance or die.
There is also the idea they a society might be altruistic to their own species, but not so much to any other species. Maybe they managed to make it past our era of technology, but did so by favoring their species over all others on their planet. If an animal did not serve their needs, it was exterminated and those that were not were controlled or breed to serve some need. The externimated species now no longer use up resources for the remaining species. What does this species do when it finds another inhabited world? If it thinks the resources are easy to gather due to the hospitible nature of the planet...they weigh the cost of either enslaving (one way or another) or exterminating the other forms of life if they do not serve their own needs. The Species first...everything else is inferior or just an animal to exploit.
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2011-02-17, 15:49 | Link #82 |
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
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This was an example. A silly one as I mentioned. Actually the whole matter is more complex. And if I had the time, I'ld try to explain it... lets just say, that a society at a certain level is not destroying diversity but encouraging diversity. In short (and therefore more confusing than convincing) In evolution, diversity is the only thing that prevents a society from ending up in a dead end. On your way to master evolution, you will master diversity. When mastering diversity you will master altruism.
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2011-02-17, 18:19 | Link #83 | |
Dictadere~!
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: On the front lines, fighting for inderpendence.
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Our conventional ideas on other species upon a different planet is based completely on speculation that evolution generally plays out exactly the same way, everywhere.
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2011-02-17, 19:17 | Link #84 | ||
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
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On that note that humankind is too violent to ever be part of something like a synergy club... it is not unthinkable that more advanced species parent less advanced species for future gains in synergies. This parenting could be done in a way that the less advanced specie does not even notice it. Just speak for yourself.
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2011-02-17, 19:47 | Link #85 |
Dictadere~!
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: On the front lines, fighting for inderpendence.
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Wait.. Says who? You? You keep assuming things like they're a standard. Again, not every species has the same thought process as us. It can be drastically different. So different that we might not even comprehend it. Yet it is truth to them, and reality is based on perception. Our ideas are not universal law, no matter how bad it seems to kill a person for no reason.
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2011-02-17, 19:58 | Link #86 | ||
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
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For example you cannot agree with me. Do I have your thought process? Certainly not. But I accept your stance on the matter. I just think it is the evolutionary dead end (possibility-wise). Quote:
Your deduction of universal law => kill a person... really speaks volumes about your thought process though. ^^'
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2011-02-17, 20:10 | Link #87 | |||
Dictadere~!
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: On the front lines, fighting for inderpendence.
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Or is it?
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2011-02-17, 20:26 | Link #88 | |||||||||||||
In scientific terms only.
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I can't say it was worth it, but that's really a moot point. Is it worth it now? The basic necessities of every human on the planet can be met right now, even exceeded, but the reality of the current economic system means that the majority of resources are funneled to the world's top economies and the populace that can afford them. To illustrate, why has progress in ending malnutrition and hunger barely inched forward when "world agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase" (scroll to article 11 of the resolution)? It's not a matter of food production, but a matter of economic competition. Quote:
Before we go further, we need to separate biological competition from social competition. The two, while related, are separate things and should not be conflated. Biological competition merely describes the basic instinct to survive and is forced upon organisms as an outgrowth of their environment. Competition necessarily exists because resources--or, rather, resource potential, being what resources an organism can realistically get and use, and varies for every individual organism--are necessarily scarce. Hypothetically speaking, if resources (in terms of everything from land to whatever else) were virtually infinite, then biological competition would not exist. Social competition, too, exists as an outgrowth of one's environment, but it is far removed from any basic instinct. The accumulation of capital property (that being the means of production, being resources, labor power, etc.) must be a conscious action, as property is by definition a social construct, a thoroughly human invention. Property does not exist in nature. The concept of property was invented to justify the accumulation of power into the hands of individuals; more benignly, property was a way to protect a person's rights to things they claimed ownership over. Property can exist only within the state, another thoroughly human invention; owned things, protected only by force and not by the state (and law), are nothing more than resources as found in nature. Unlike biological competition, social competition exists independent of the availability of resources; even a post-scarcity society would fall to social competition if the means belonged to a small elite.* *I use "property" here as shorthand for capital property, which excludes things that are not part of the means of production (i.e. homes, clothing, etc.) Under this definition of property and social competition, which is debatable, it holds that, yes, capitalism is the system that currently causes the fierce competition the ZG movement argues against. ZG's advocacy of cooperation is intended to increase the aggregate resource potential of humanity to overcome scarcity (for needs, not for luxury items like natural gems, which are scarce by nature). Quote:
I'm okay with that! I have no pressing need to be Shirou right now. The lack of Rin will be saddening, though. Quote:
Even so, while it's true that the USSR--which I'd have to describe as state-capitalist rather than socialist, being that the Party bureaucracy ended any vestiges of proletarian dictatorship and simply maintained the aspects of capitalism under state control--eventually failed, it accomplished rather great things (good and bad) over its lifetime. This is all rather off-topic to ZG, though, so we can continue this little strand of discussion over PM or something. Quote:
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And call me "Wassup", to all involved. The whole name is a mouthful, a little relic of a 10-year old me plugging into the 'net. Quote:
Sugetsu, as I've seen, has consistently argued that it is the environment that creates social competition. This sounds like it's largely in agreement with that argument. |
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2011-02-17, 20:49 | Link #89 | |
Dictadere~!
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: On the front lines, fighting for inderpendence.
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It'd all be fine and dandy if we were a hive system. Without capitalism, we lose a key position in the world order. Without outside sources, we'd have little back up to fall upon when the going gets tough with our own production. Relying on our own cooperation (which is a joke, by the way) to fit the needs of millions on a single continent that can't realistically produce everything we want or like isn't viable in my opinion. "Property is by definition a social construct" We fight over land even without elites. Or a social order for that matter. Property is a very biological idea, not social. Go outside and fight a bear for his territory, see how it is. "Even a post-scarcity society would fall to social competition if the means belonged to a small elite." And you think a small elite wouldn't rise up in your ZG society? You keep forgetting a core principle of every creatures natural intention; power. When there's no one at the top and no ladder to climb, any man with ambition and a bunch of burly followers can revert civilization back to its old habits.
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2011-02-17, 21:33 | Link #90 |
blinded by blood
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The massive amounts of dissent in this thread pretty much confirm the fact that Zeitgeist will never happen, or will require massive piles of corpses in order to achieve.
I'll freely admit that I'd rather eat a bullet than live in such a society. I enjoy being myself, a unique individual, a free-thinking entity. I'd rather die than be a (beige) cog in the (beige) machine. You may argue that I am already a cog in the machine, but I beg to differ. I have choice, even if you will not acknowledge that. I can choose my career. I can choose what to learn. I can choose who to like, who to hate. We have choice, but the ZM proponents want us to believe we don't have choice, because they wish for a world in which nobody has choices, where all our choices are made for us by an overseer computer. A lot of people think the fact that choices have consequences mean that we don't have choices. That's utter bull.
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2011-02-18, 00:20 | Link #91 | |
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Join Date: Feb 2011
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2011-02-18, 00:22 | Link #92 | ||||||||
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: classified
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Indeed!
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His doctrine clearly states this.: Quote:
Remember, Lenin succeeded in creating an actual proletarian dictatorship, which Lenin believed required a dictator to function properly. In the same vein we find that Zeitgeist has its Lenin (Peter Joseph) who is preaching a Utopian vision of communal ownership (resource based economy), and redistribution through a technocracy (via machine), but does not as of yet indicate who the secretariat class will be (since all societies require a managerial group). Here in lies the danger of the Zeitgeist movement. It, like Lenin's Soviet Union, proposes a system that will absolutely have to have a centralized controlling body (be it technicians for the machines or an actual Soviet Council). That body (whatever it is) would have absolute power over the other strata of such a society either via direct control or through the machines. Lenin's Russia operated along a similar vein, but only for a very short period of time. Lenin's Russia essentially lasted until his policy of War Communism caused the famine of 1921-23. After the death of more than 7.5 million Russians from starvation and disease, Lenin was forced by the economic realty before him to institute the NEP. The NEP is where the Russian State-Capitalism (also known as Corporatism) first took root. Now, if the Resource Based Economy flops, and I believe it will, then what would be the obvious result? If the land is being used only to produce enough food for what the current population requires in order to preserve the land, then any unexpected event, a failure of crops, or mass civil unrest/war, would certainly result in starvation of the populous. That's exactly what happened under Lenin's War Communism policy and most certainly what would happen under a Resource Based non-Economy. This is precisely why when Stalin came to power he chose to move the Soviet Union from a Marxian Socialist system to a State-Capitalist one. The Chinese have done the same thing, as have many formerly socialist systems. What is State-Capitalism? Well, it's not really Capitalism in the classic sense of the term (a la Adam Smith or John Locke). Wilhelm Liebknecht coined the term in 1896 when he said: "Nobody has combatted State Socialism more than we German Socialists; nobody has shown more distinctively than I, that State Socialism is really State capitalism!" That's where Zeitgeist will almost certainly lead. From a collectivized system of Utopian Socialism into a despotic form of State-Capitalism which is probably better described as Monopolistic-Corporatism since the government becomes the primary corporation that gives license to smaller corporations that control the various industries. Quote:
I think it best to agree to disagree on this point and move on, since we both agree that competition does play some role in natural selection. Quote:
Which is why we all must strive to weed out any ideology or movement that will increase the blood on the hands of humanity, and why I see Zeitgeist as a danger. Quote:
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My propositions are these: (1) technology, more than any other outside force, shapes warfare; and, conversely, war (not warfare) shapes technology. Quote:
While I find the Marxian view distasteful, I do think the Zeitgeist Resource-Based-Economy follows a "gift economic" plan which again is more akin to Rouvroy and Utopian Socialism. Unfortunately individuals who do not conform to most collectivist systems are not shunned, they're killed. Quote:
However, allow me to retort. When one looks at the history and development of mankind what does one see? Answer, a series of continuing wars that lead to greater and greater development in both technology, and civilization. This is not to say that war or warfare is the only force that drives us to push our nature to its limits, but it is a major (if not the major) force. That is why I say, "we are what we are, and we must accept it."
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2011-02-18, 02:35 | Link #93 | |
Kurumada's lost child
Join Date: Nov 2003
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So far I have determined that the biggest criticism coming from this forum is: 1: It is an Utopian dream. 2: It is another form of communism. 3: It goes against human nature. To which I have already given the following answers: 1: It might seem like an utopia if you simply transfer the current average individual and place him in the futurist society of the Venus Project, because a change in the conditioning of the individual is required in order for such a society to work. It is the same as placing a caveman in wall street. The idea of Utopia is also incoherent because perfection is impossible to achieve. 2: This society doesn't have laws, it doesn't have law enforcement, it doesn't have any political structure and it doesn't use money. 3: Humans are the reflection of their environment and their behavioral traits are defined by 3 factors: Nature, biology and nurture. |
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2011-02-18, 12:11 | Link #96 | |
Wiggle Your Big Toe
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Milwaukee
Age: 33
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2. Lots of ways for instability to arise. 3. Those are the big 3, but changing one's envionrment isn't a full proof answer (nor do I believe it will be as effective as you think); people tend to "break away" or explore different teachigns, methods, and ideas apart from the normal social structures at points in their life. Something is always gonna come back to bite you in the butt when it comes to humans. This will never change. The world the Venus Project would create seems like quite the boring place. I don't mean to sound like a prick but our shitty world excites me with all it's troubles and beauties. Erasing all "strife" in the world creates an ugly world in my viewpoint. Now by essentially saying such things I tend to hear excuses like, "put yourselves in these peoples shoes" or "you think starving people or those inflicted by war think the same thing". No, I'm not those people. If I ever came into a situation as those people I don't know how I'd react, but I like to be prepared (reading comes in handy). Those with troubled lives have choices just like everyone else. There're ways they can overcome their hardships, just like everyone else. Only difference is that they have a harder road to climb, but in many ways this betters themselves if they achieve it or not. Wow I've kind of gone off on a different topic here so I'll stop. I bet if I was "conditioned" I wouldn't think such things. (you can just disregard this last line as playful banter)
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2011-02-18, 14:57 | Link #97 | |
blinded by blood
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The Venus Project has taken in a loooot of donation funds, but they haven't done a goddamned thing with them. Where's the promised test city? Oh, and you still never answered my question. How does your beige future handle a person walking into your resource warehouse and clearing the fucking place out? With no laws and no police, and supposedly (according to you) no rationing or otherwise threats of force to prevent people from taking too much... How does it work? You tell me. You're the one with all the answers, right?
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2011-02-18, 17:08 | Link #98 | |||||
Kurumada's lost child
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Of course, people will think in many different ways as they have always done but they will remain conditioned by the system until it is discovered that it can be changed for the better, it would be the same as we are now, no matter our religion, culture and nationality we still believe that money is important. Quote:
I personally think I would be quite liberating to live in world without commercials, politics, social laws and boundaries. To be free of slave labor and the subtle influences of the mass media. To be able to do what I want and not worry about a roof to live under or food to feed myself. Regardless of our difference of opinion, such a society won't be possible in our life time and may think a few generations to reach. But there can be immediate benefits from a transitory point of view by getting most countries in the world to eliminate Usury, debt, declaring earth's resources a right of all humanity, and work towards eliminating world hunger through the application of science without seeking profit. These of course very difficult goals to accomplish. I posted a lot of info in regards to transition questions here, you should check it out. Quote:
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2011-02-18, 17:29 | Link #99 |
blinded by blood
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Sorry, Sugetsu, but the "happiness in slavery" and "ignorance is bliss" cards aren't the best things in the world you can use to support your views.
Do you want to lose your sense of self? Or are you, like most of the ZM zealots, believing that by being in on the "ground floor" of the project, that you'll be the ones propping yourself up as the rulers? I like my freedom and I don't like your slavery. And I'd appreciate it greatly if you'd actually respond to my utter destruction of your points, rather than just pointing at the propaganda film. Rather than spending all of our efforts on your happy-koombaya-techno-hippie fantasy wank, we should be trying to fix real problems, like how to apply Sammy Hagar logic to the speed limit of the universe. Your solution isn't a solution. It won't save humanity from extinction. Nothing will, short of spreading out among the stars.
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2011-02-18, 18:00 | Link #100 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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I find something funny in this round of discussion. The Zeitgeist Movement seems to be a form of Non-conformist's ideal of what the future could be like and that we can all be happy, provided for, and at peace. The irony is that it creates a conformist society. What would be today conformist thinkers would be the non-conformists and be causing trouble in one way or another. Counter-culture movements in Project Venus would be interesting to see. Even the ones that reject the idea that a computer should have to tell them what they need...that they should be able to tell what they need on their own. Or the ones that would live an alternate live style regardless of the social, political, or cultural background they are in.
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