Skeptic Project

Even a political party wouldn't have the power to change society as much as TZM plans to.

I'm a bit surprised nobody of them has turned evil genius yet and joined some semisecret crime syndicate. Stock market fraud for RBE! Hey, they could even speed up the "collapse".

The reviews are in! Our friend Three unloads on me with every grain of powder he can pack into the chamber:

http://on.fb.me/cURavF (Facebook link)

priceless

Did anyone get a screenshot of that topic?

I have posted a new blog (on my personal blog) which is a response to Roan's criticism:

http://muertos.blog.com/2010/10/30/seeing-like-a-state-take-2-responding-to-the-zeitgeist-movements-latest-broadside/

I would say that I think a unified globe is possible, but it's not going to arise instantly out of some 'collapse' that will probably never happen in the way ZM seems to think it will. Of course, I would grant that they don't need to be correct on HOW a theoretical social collapse might happen - it's just important to be right about whether it actually will happen or not.

The quotes from the book Muertos references makes me think of the recent documentary The Soviet Story, in which the creator alleges that the reason why the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were both murderous dictatorships is because they were based on the same ideology - in other words, Germany was National Socialism while the Soviet Union was International Socialism but still pretty much the same thing. Because they were based on very similar ideologies - one woman in the film says 'one was based on false biology, while the other on false sociology' - they led to the same 'high modernism' results...

I think you spelled the Spanish word "Cojones" wrong, Muertos.

Better correct it before the Zeitgeisters rip you for it.

(I could be wrong though)

With the UN, we've basically already got it.

We've already had this discussion on unified-Earth on an other thread. It came down to a resounding "No."

Btw, I'm half way through the book - not really finding much time for it right now. Was expecting a bit of "capitalist realism" in form of "well, what we have is natural so don't bother" and was positively surprised that he attacks these forms of pseudo-scientific market religion as strongly as their collectivist counterparts.

I'd certainly put this book in a "must read" list for anyone who would be interested in an actual "application of the scientific method for social concern".

edit:

'Authority' comes from 'author' which is the 'source' of an idea or effort. Authority in society comes from the ancient idea that the Godking owns everything and everybody, and is the source of everything that exists. And when the ancient religious belief eroded in the face of experience, men with weapons 'enforced' or used force (still do) to make sure everyone obeyed.

What kind of nonsense is that? "Auctoritas" meant reputation, which was linked to your ability to give advice ("Auctor" - teacher, writer, advisor) and relied upon in politics, when you lacked actual power ("potestas") within the senate.

@Special Ed:

It's easy to cherry pick things from two monstrous dictatorships and say "look, they're the same!" especially when you're from a country (Latvia) which was raped by both. That doesn't make you accurate though, because the USSR and Nazi Germany had many vast incompatible differences, from culture, to economics, to how the state was run.

For one thing, only certain kinds of white people could become Nazis. The communist parties, by contrast, went out of their way to include racially and ethnically diverse members. Hitler would not have accepted someone like Mao into the Nazi Party.

Billl: I didn't block anyone from my blog. Did you or Roan try to post comments and you couldn't? I've got a spam filter but it shouldn't block legitimate comments...I will be happy to post this manually on my blog when I get a chance.

I just responded to Roan Carratu's statements that Billl copied into this topic:

http://muertos.blog.com/2010/10/30/seeing-like-a-state-take-2-responding-to-the-zeitgeist-movements-latest-broadside/#comment-280</p>

Billl, since it seems you can post on that Facebook group, would you please post the link above and make sure Roan and his friends are aware of my response? Thanks.

Yeah, I got a belly laugh out of that one. I wouldn't wipe my ass with anything by Ayn Rand. In my English class they forced us to read "Anthem" in 10th grade and I still feel like that teacher raped me by pouring that shit into my mind.

OK Muetros he replied I'm not sure why he doesn't post on your blog...

Just a FYI on Roan on facebook he was on zradio listen so I decided to listen in. The guy presents himself a lot like Nanos or better yet he sounds like the Forest Gump of the Zeitgeist movement now as his stories seem a bit out there about his life. He's seems to have done everything from traveling around the world at age 8 (family is a military family), to being a loner in high school (because people don't "get it"), teachers though he was stupid until he took the SAT's and scored the highest ever in his state on the test and now his teachers feel silly for labeling him the dumb kid (so he's a self-proclaimed genius now), to working at a speak easy bar where he "over heard" high profile governmental people talk about things that would potential influence the direct of Texas, to joining a type of hippie compound and starting to hippie revolution until it got shutdown by the government.

For anybody interested in listening to that episode you can click the download link below. I decided to upload the roan file episode on a separate website just so the zradio site doesn't get anymore hits from CS.

http://www.2shared.com/audio/beDTo_AZ/show_1380448.html</p>

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Roan Carratu
OK, perhaps I misinterpreted the meaning of the messages Matthew posted. I interact on a lot of forums with people who say the same things but definitely do not have a rational mindset. I could be wrong in this case.

I am not into debating t...his issue. I don't care if what I say convinces anyone. Either the reality of our global situation is real or it's not. Time will tell. Our opinions about it are just opinions. The idea that the ZM is some kind of threat due to the ideas presented in the book and by Mathew on that site is a distortion that comes from comparison to those groups and ideas the book uses, and it is a projection. Mathew says we are like those groups and we will produce the same results in his estimation. I disagree.

So be it. I don't think the Zeitgeist Movement has an 'ideology', I think it comes from the situation in the world and scientific findings presented in scientific publications. He thinks we are just really screwed up and are seeing the world through a particular mistaken binary mindset. And perhaps we are, but it is how we are seeing it. I don't think the ZM, even if wrong, is a major threat to anyone. I fail to see why Matthew sees it that way, if he does. Compared to mass starvation, war, pollution, and other global problems, the ZM cannot be all that dangerous.

And he has not posted any alternatives.

I was going to find and post the data which I had seen that presented the danger Humanity is creating in the ecology, the data that produces the either/or situation. I have not found that data, although I do remember reading it. But the Internet did not exist yet when I saw that data, and while it might be somewhere in the archives of various science publications, I have not found it. One would think that it would be important enough to be presented frequently, but perhaps not. I call upon others to present it if they find it.

I did find this data on a site dedicated to presenting much the same data as I remember reading:

http://www.well.com/~davidu/extinction.html

This site in particular seems relevant:

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html</p>

This is the kinds of data I was talking about. The Zeitgeist Movement is simply a human social response to this data. Framing the ZMs ideas into a label, as an 'ideology', I do not see as being real. I do not see it as an 'ideology'. The ideas seem concise and logical to me, while discrediting them, if they represent a social response to an actual danger, seems rather self-defeating. If the ZM's framing of the world's situation is false, then it will 'come out in the wash', so to speak.

There is no monolithic control mechanism in the ZM, no violence enforced hierarchy that can impose some control system upon those who join it. It is completely voluntary and anyone who decides not to participate can do so anytime. Nobody is asked to donate money, so any donations are also completely voluntary and more than once, even those donations have been turned down to make sure no misunderstanding results.

The projection of evil intentions upon the ZM seems to be a fear response without evidence, much of it coming from the first Zeitgeist video, which was not produced by the Zeitgeist Movement. It was an art piece by Peter before the movement existed. He did not even know Jacque Fresco when he produced it. I would not have supported the Movement if that video was a basic of the Movement.

Zeitgeist Addendum is the first real ZM video produced, and Peter has rescinded most of the first video, saying publicly those parts, parts one and two, the anti-religious and 9/11 parts, of that video are irrelevant.

There is no 'canon' of approved ideas in the ZM. It is common knowledge in the ZM that much of what we thought has to be altered by new information. It is why we use the word 'emergent' so often. We claim it is a 'paradigm shift'. If it is not, it will simply not show in the results of the movement's efforts and the Movement will adapt or fad away. If it is a fantasy, then clinging to it would be irrational.

The movement rejects coercion as an action and concept which does not result in anything workable, as proven by history. This is one of the most basic ideas of the Movement. If this is so, how can anyone see the ZM as 'dangerous'?

I do not feel the need to argue about the Movement with anyone. I answer as a courtesy, nothing more. If the ZM's data and conclusions from that data is true, then it will become more and more obvious in the daily lives of the Human species on an individual level. If the Zm's data and conclusions are erroneous, then that will also become obvious over time.

I apologize if anything I said was felt to be a personal attack. I do run across a lot of twits who jump to totally fearful conclusions based upon no information whatsoever. A TWIT is an old term from the early days of the Net meaning 'shallow uninformed person who loudly asserts their fears without reason.'

I will attack ideas without remorse, but I do not devalue other people because of what they believe. (or at least that is my intention) The projection of fear that the ZM is a horrible mistake requires response when posted in public. A writer's opinion, supported by past group's efforts and results defined by and concluded in a book, cannot be rationally projected upon a new group as if it is some 'universal' truth and any future group effort has to produce an evil result. That is what it appeared to me that the original post was saying and to which I responded.

We can agree to disagree and let time show the results.

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