[p2p-research] criticizing zeitgeist movement and venus project
Robin
robokow at gmail.com
Sun Jul 25 16:33:25 CEST 2010
On 07/25/2010 03:10 PM, Josef Davies-Coates wrote:
> The Zeitgeist/ Venus Project stuff is the subject of a recent blog
> post by Mark "Moneyless Man" Boyle.
>
> http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/blog-3120~my-verdict-on-zeitgeist-and-the-venus-project
> <http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/blog-3120%7Emy-verdict-on-zeitgeist-and-the-venus-project>
>
> From my perspective, what is good about the Zeitgeist movement is that
> it has made lots more people aware of the insane banking system.
Interesting observation. You can argue the same about Hitler. Remember
he got into power by blaming the (international) banking system for the
problems in German Society? And in fact, you could even see all the
"followers" of Zeitgeist (many people in my own networks) as people who
say "We didn't know", while all information about the fallacies and
fascist tendencies of the Venus Project are clearly on their website.
But who read "Mein Kampf" anyway? A clear exaggeration but an
interesting parallel at the least...
In other words, your blog-post reads: "What the first movie does, is
make the viewer question all that is around him/her, and that seems to
be its only objective". That's exactly the purpose of the movie! To
confuse your reality, to let you know that there is no truth and then,
when you've reached a state where your whole world-view has fallen
apart, to replace it with something that is even more insane. This is
mass-manipulation at its best, not even to mention the use of all the
propagandist material, the manipulation tools and the amazingly high
amount of lies in the first 3 movies.
And what are Fresco's ideas behind it? Engineers to look after "social
evolution" (sic!), destroying all current cities and replace them with
his own designs and to have engineers and artificial intelligence look
after our social well-being. Apart from that he proposes to restore
traditional family values and thinks that humans are uncapable of making
decisions. In addition, he thinks we should all wait for the world to
collapse and then for Venus to take over. In other words: to make all
people zombies. You can't do anything about it at the moment... all you
can do is build up the movement, and wait. If any of this information
was in the movie, no-one would take it seriously...
In addition, you also argue in your blog-post that Fresco is beyond his
time. I think he got stuck somewhere in the 50's. For me Fresco is
repeating and reproducing the very same logic and paradigm that holds us
back today: a deep lack of democracy and freedom; a deep lack of trust
in people themselves. If you think also that people are generally
stupid, that's o.k. to think. But if you think you are better capable of
making decisions for them and we can better have engineers to look after
them, than you're on a dangerous path, highly dangerous. In my analysis,
Fresco is utterly conservative. But we live in confusing times, so many
see him as progressive...
And the whole build up of his Venus ideology resembles so much of a
marxist-leninist approach: first we will take over the state, and then
slowly we move towards our dreamed state of being. No political
scientist would take any of this serious. I personally thought it was a
joke, as if grandpa never read anything about social history and
political science. It is an extremely poor ideology. That or he's simply
senile.
For me, promoting Zeitgeist -the activist and communication arm of the
Venus Project- in any form is a complete denial of humanity, for the
ideas behind it: to reach sustainability by means of a dystopian state.
It is intrinsically designed to be authoritarian and driven by
dictatorship! I think Zeitgeist supporters should become aware of the
dangers of the ideas they are supporting by broadcasting the movie,
spreading the flyers, sending the e-mails, linking to the movie, to the
websites, etc.
However there are interesting debates we could have, such as the role of
artificial intelligence and how to democratically embed any form of a
resource-based economy. Those ideas have nothing to do with the Venus
Project in my opinion. Besides, they are not new.
Read also this e-mail on the open manufacturing list, one of the only
few references I could find on our common lists.
https://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/638fd845033204e0/9365cdc0b50c5cff?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=venus#9365cdc0b50c5cff
Robin.
ps.
this is Fresco's reading list; filled with old books:
https://anticultist.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/tvp-ex-1970-1980s-member-speaks/#comment-884
>
> My take from Nov 2008 is here:
> http://uniteddiversity.com/zeitgeist-addendum/
>
> Josef.
>
>
>
> On 24 July 2010 05:36, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> <mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> thank you Robin,
> Eric Hunting had made a very similar analysis for us some months ago,
> Michel
>
> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 4:13 AM, Robin <robokow at gmail.com
> <mailto:robokow at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I have been researching more about it this week and came to
> the conclusion that the Venus Project must be a joke. It
> actually comes very close to the novel Player Piano
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano) by Kurt Vonnegut.
>
> I wrote a bit about it on Sharewiki.org:
> http://sharewiki.org/en/Venus_Project
>
> Not sure this is worth a blog-post, as previously asked by Michel.
>
> Robin.
>
>
> On 07/21/2010 05:45 PM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>> I have now read the material on the zeitgeist movement, and
>> after reading them, must revise my positive impression,
>> it's actually a cult with many of the negative
>> characteristics associated with it, see
>> http://conspiracyscience.com/articles/the-zeitgeist-movement/
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 10:30 PM, Samuel Rose
>> <samuel.rose at gmail.com <mailto:samuel.rose at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Robin
>> <robokow at gmail.com <mailto:robokow at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> > Dear list-members,
>> >
>> > From time to time I still meet people who advocate the
>> Zeitgeist movement
>> > and the Venus Project. I have criticism towards these
>> projects but never
>> > have had time or interest to dive deeply into it.
>> >
>> > I am however very surprised there is little to be found
>> around the web. Even
>> > in Wikipedia there isn't anything listed:
>> >
>> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Zeitgeist_Movement
>> (see
>> > the talk page for some stuff)
>> >
>> > The only thing I could find is a good critique off the
>> usage of conspiracy
>> > theories by zeitgeist.
>> > http://conspiracyscience.com/articles/zeitgeist/ &
>> > http://conspiracyscience.com/blog/category/zeitgeist/
>> >
>> > My main concerns are:
>> > * Claims of holding "the truth" and "the solution"
>> > * Usage of conspiracy theories & heavy usage of
>> propagandist style/
>> > techniques
>> > * Technical approach to solving problems
>> > * Relying on a statist approach, Top-down structured
>> > * Against free speech; Not thinking for yourself.
>> > * A militant like movement where members become
>> warriors/ evangelists.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> Robin, these are good points. I have a feeling these
>> approaches are
>> used because they are good ways to attract lots of people to
>> affiliate. The problem is that the actual reality of
>> things can be
>> affected by the disinformation about them.
>>
>>
>> > I was wondering if anyone has any good resources that
>> can be used and I
>> > would like to see also where this approach differs from
>> a p2p approach, and
>> > what it shares.
>> >
>> > I remember some discussions on the e-mail list but
>> nothing really coherent.
>> >
>> > Thanks.
>> >
>> > Robin.
>> >
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>>
>>
>> --
>> --
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>> Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
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