TZM Regional Townhall Meeting Q&A Session 2011, June 21 in LA, CA

Machine versus humanity, the resources; you have all spoken about human resource versus machine resource. That the machine productivity... - The machine is a human resource. The machine is an adaptation and extension of us. Unless, I misinterpret you... - No, you're right, you said that. Which has now taken over the capacity of human production. - Ah, right. Therefore, there is a gap there. And then you spoke about the fact that we need to develop the look at the possibilities in the two areas that you mentioned that two quotes from Facebook are just that, so bringing those two areas and the fact that I am a socialist and I am an atheist. Talk about that. [Everybody laughs] I listened to what you stated, I am not quite sure my brain isn't quite completely wrapped around the question that you asked. So, as far as human resources, the machines as far as socialism, as far as atheism... I think you put it all together, it's... We're human beings with tremendous technical capability coming from... tremendous ingenuity, excuse me coming from a long evolution of trying to figure out what we are where we are, what we're doing. I don't call myself an atheist because that's actually the reaction to the beliefs of others. You know what I mean? That's a response. So, if I was someone to believe that there was Seventeen gods and they had some name and a bunch of people believe this then I would supposed to be 'anti' - whatever their title is supposed to be See, I don't recognize it or think that way. I'm also not a socialist because socialism is a historical notion. So, it limits when you try to communicate. So, we're dealing with communication issues. So atheism as a communication tool, I stay away from that unless, I have to. Unless, it's just a type of thing where I'm pushed in the corner and usually it's when I end the conversation I'll say something like that. You know what I mean? Unfortunately, it's a static notion of association we have in communication, it's... And I actually like David Bohm, famous quantum physicist thinker, mathematician. He talked about how we should learn language and speak in verbs and there is no more nouns anymore it should be transitional always, I don't know how that would work Jacque Fresco talked about the need to transcend current old language I mean, we still say "up" and "down" when it's obviously "out" and "in". All that kind of stuff permeates our awareness so much. But so that's what I would say to your question because I didn't quite... understand where you were going with it. But I hope that helps. Thank you! Thank you! - Hi, I'm Henriette which now got 40% of industrial corrosion control it's a corrosion inhibitor, it stops the corrosion process. And one of our clients, big name client, "John Deere" Water. We're at the point now in 2025 we won't have any clean drinking water. - I think it's roughly 2.3 billion people don't have access to essentially clean water right now. - In America? - Well, across the world, billion people. - But America kind of scares me because of this "fracking"... - Oh, sure - Water is the next high commodity second to energy. - Exactly! A friend of mine has been fighting for five years to buy 569 acres of water. OK? Because the super rich, the super humans are buying up all the water and the pump companies, and anything to do with water. And then other dealers... I'm in high-end sales. Some... lot of this stuff is buffalo. I have heard of buffalo, Lamont buffalo is one-third of the buffalo meat in the United States. Buffaloes are suppressed and oppressed in this country because Osama bin Laden and Bush owned the beef trust. Buffaloes are not subsidized. If they subsidized buffalo meat the way they subsidize pork, chicken and the rest of it... People don't understand buffalo is the original red meat and when people eat buffalo, there's no cancer there's no diabetes, there's no obesity - OK. Well, that's that's... I wanna comment on this... I appreciate everything you're saying but since we have a short amount of time... If you have a question? - The question is water, water, 2025... It's not just the meat, the meat is being the red meat is shooting carbon dioxide into - Sure. Well, I talk about that in my prior film and I show other lectures where I talk about the scarcity of water. And it's, it's a very verifiable issue and it's extremely serious. Even there are other, other academics out there that have noticed that a lot of water wars, possibly, are to be expected. There's a lot of rhetoric around that. And it's just one more example of this fragile state that (Woman: One more thing. . .) we are in. . . .the bee colony collapse. My brother is a farmer in Bixby, Oklahoma, right? And I'm from Bixby, Oklahoma. He's calling me: "Have you seen any bees? Have you seen any bees? I haven't seen any bees." - That's another, another one, and that's a... No, believe me, I'm well aware... - just to ask please try to phrase what you'd like to say to a question, so we can actually participate. We only have to have a hard stop in about probably roughly 15 minutes, so we try to get to as many people as possible. - So, yeah. Thank you! - My question is probably something that you have been addressed with before but I'll ask it again, anyway. How do we deal with the fear of this flood of information? Because, evidently, most of the people here are socially conscious people. But then we have this group of people who... they're so attached to the media and they just cannot handle the reality of the situation. I mean, I guess ignorance is bliss, and also some of the stuff that was being talked about before about a film being made that maybe might be more, I would say to be less insulting, 'on their level'. So they can understand and absorb this information. Because it's incredibly important. The people are just completely... They just, like, they either get extremely upset or they'll fight you tooth-and-nail and they don't even bother to listen to what is being said. Information is very... very valuable, obviously. How... what's the best way to deal with that? Because you wanna be able to talk to your friends you wanna talk to your family, you wanna talk to everybody! But you've got people who are just like "Ugh!" They, they don't want to... - Excuse me! - You know what I mean? What I can suggest that you can do is join our chapter what you'll find out is that you'll get an opportunity actually to talk to people that will actually listen to you, ok? I know it's really challenging to family, friends, co-workers when all of a sudden you have this change of part or mind and it's very challenging for them and it's just kind of written off as not something worth listening to but we've stood on street corners and we've talked to complete strangers and you'd be amazed there are people out there that will actually listen to what you're saying and I think that's what you're asking for, and in time, it's only in time I have the same issues with family members and little by little they'll start asking questions. So, be patient, in the meantime speak to those who are listening. You already mentioned that the media is very powerful and we can also create media now. So, everybody in this audience can make media out there so do it anyway you can, use your talents and spread the message in a way that you can to your audience and that's the way that, right now, we're products of our culture so let's change the culture little bit by creating new media. And I'll just conclude by one comment that in an interpersonal type of environment you try to find something strategically that you have in common initially. So if I was to speak to someone who was devoutly religious I would pull out my arsenal of Christian sayings, egalitarian Christian sayings because in effect what we advocate is the most Christian thing in theory that you can possibly come up with if they're actually interested in that type of element and that's not trying to be manipulative, this is what you are associated with and then in other time as a general rule sometimes I get into situations numerous times where you realize you can't go any farther. So don't make your life hard on yourself there's plenty of people out there that we have to get to so if we reach one of those hostile points and you can just see that block that wall go up, don't make a challenge out of it. Just kind of move on, because eventually when mass appeal emerges there'll be higher probability those that are so hard into radical nature what we talk about that they'll begin to identify because people unfortunately do follow the herd And if we can create the herd, well, we'd be in very good fortune Hello, I'm from San Diego chapter, I have a question about organization. Since the split between the Zeitgeist and the Venus Project I've observed a certain frustration among volunteers One of them has thought of maybe just promoting the idea of Resource-Based Economy whether it's delineated by TVP or Zeitgeist or even other groups like Atlas or other alternative economists and I'm wondering what do you think of this? Is this something we should discourage, encourage? Will it confused their mission, does it matter? I mean, if they are propagating ideas out there does it matter if it's within the structure of the organization or... what do you think? I'll let others speak about this, but let me just say really fast that I've had numerous contacts with many other organizations the Zeitgeist Movement was an initiatior and then there were many many organizations that spawned out and they... when I first thought of this just as the general basis of what it meant to really have an effect it's like critical mass has to come unto heading of something very general that's why the Zeitgeist Movement and my hope will be an umbrella not to say that everything that's part of it has to... it's really very simple what we are doing it's not like a whole lot of hardcore specific stuff that's there there's lot of flexibility in the thought process of what defines this type of train of thought but the beauty is it is a train of thought and I had numerous interactions of people that tend to get on a little bit of an ego pedestal and they have really clinical views, or very despairing views and they have a userper type of tendency and I get to a point where if it's not pleasant because there's so many of these organizations now which in general I support, but I say: 'Listen, why are you trying to fight us? Why can't you come in? It's not like we're going to try to redefine you in some way. There's an ego association that comes up. I guess someone could argue that with the movement itself but the movement is the strongest that I know of so why re-invent the wheel? I invite anybody to, I mean... The Venus Project is a little bit of a different institution, they always were. They were never an activist institution. They never collected people they never had chapters, so those are different kind of nature to what they were doing and they worked and they are in fact our data set we still advocate Resource-Based Economy whatever name but it's really not some static institution of a Resource-Based Economy it's an ongoing train of thought of what it means to do what's right in society for the well-being of everyone and the main ecological balance. And if we get people to understand that and build upon that as opposed to identifying with the static notion or even identifying with 'just the Venus Project'. This is really important, and that's the definition of all intellectual evolution in the course of time. Problem is we tend to lock in institutions, and that's dangerous. There are no institutions, even if the Zeitgeist Movement didn't exist in any type of technical sense but everyone had that value which we hope to that will flourish of doing what's right and maintain that balance then I'd love to see a nameless acceptance of a basic ideology which we hope would come to fruition anyway. I mean, if people can't understand the train of thought they are not being able to live in a type of society that we advocate The difference between the society today is that no one really even understands how it works. They don't understand the feudalistic nature of its evolution, the top-down hierarchy in control and the sort of peasant-king relationships that are echoes of very ancient structures. If they realize what our structure was, they wouldn't stand for it. Majority people just don't understand where we come from. I would definitely, that's along the same lines as I was going to say there really is no such thing as the 'Zeitgeist Movement' or 'The Venus Project' it is just a logic and a reasoning to let the national progression towards a global, sustainable culture emerge and it's like Peter said the other day I think he said "There are those who get it, and those who don't." Call yourself whatever you want, we are all going towards that direction I think it's going to happen through many movements So, it's not like worth saying, the Zeitgeist Movement is the only movement that can make this happen; no, really, we're one approach but I think what's unique about our Movement is that we have a very solid set of ideas that work on a global scale that actually encompass a systems theory approach and a lot of other organizations are focusing on a patchwork effort so I always encourage people who have interest in any particular other organization to do both. Because I think it's important for us to keep the bigger picture all the time so that we all realize that we're all connected and it has to be a systems theory approach. Everyone hear us ok up there at the back? I've just wasn't sure, okay and I'm just realizing - sorry for the heat AC's as cranked as high as it will go, and I see some people. Okay, so I had a question for Peter. I wanted to ask you but something that I've come across when I talk to people about the Zeitgeist Movement and the Resource-Based Economic model. Obviously, we know that if we implemented this kind of advanced system. . .uh, the world, it would be significant reduction in crime because as you were saying there will be a huge reduction in crime because most crimes are related to the monetary system which is absolutely correct. But then what people ask me about what about the crimes that aren't related to money itself. What about crimes of passion? Things like paedophilia, things like rape, things that aren't necessarily about that but it's more dealing with mental illness So let's that we have this Resource-Based Economy a much more advanced society, much more looking after the welfare of human beings, how would we deal with those people that just slip through the cracks and have these deficiencies how would we handle that basically? Well, my mother is a retired social worker and she dealt with the creme de la creme in the South of people that would trade their family for pick-up trucks, generations and generations of child abuse, levels of distortion that were so magnificent. (To put it a bizarre way) But you know what I mean, it's a very interesting question. The first thing I would say is that with remind people that this isn't a utopia. So there's a train of thought here where you're moving in a direction of sanity, doesn't necessarily mean sanity as a static state for civilization. I do believe that if the logic that surrounds the basic ideas that we talk about, the sustainability issues, what it means to live together as opposed to fighting each other that there's another level of that that permeates and develops where people begin to treat each other differently in many different ways, first of all the type of deprivation that a lot of people that have severe social distortion practices not necessarily paedophilia but definitely abuse I mean, these are difficult things to diagnose if you read Dr. James Gilligan, whom I interviewed in my last film. He's got many unique angles on this because of all the analysis he's done and almost all of the people he's dealth with - serial rapists serial murderers, they all come from very very dark backgrounds. There's very few exceptions, very few exceptions. And if you can create an environment economically where the basic fear of development, the parental stress from in utero and all of these things that can happen to effect somebody and make them unbalanced even straight out of utero, through their childhood, infancy childhood, again, which was talked about at length in the film if you can create that environment I have a feeling and I think logic supports it that great majority of those social distortions you talked of will resolve themselves. Will resolve of everything? No, but I think it's on the same path of finding the root which is really in many ways economic one way or another. Think about a stress of a father who. . . . . .parents even more specifically who can't afford to have children but something happens and they get pregnant and their religious beliefs, which can be often very irrational, don't allow them to do anything about it so they have multiple children in a very haphazard way and the stress of that financially is so severe the man has to work, 3 jobs and he breaks, and he starts to beat his children you can really begin to see how the financial causality and the stress of living can begin to permeate. Is it a direct fixed? But no, at least if those things resolved you get real social scientists together to talk to these people If I was somebody in the criminal justice system if you will just as James Gilligan so adamantly and accurately points out you don't put these people in prison, you actually analyze them you figure out what the hell happen when you hear about serial killer, that's an amazing anomaly of society you want to know what happened to that person, you don't just throw them in a jail. You want to study them, put them in a nice environment put them in an area where.. cause they're sick obviously they are really sick, they are just like sick like they have a lung disease or something there are severe problems there and you study them and figure it out and then you build an education and you put them in a system by whatever means you can You see my rationale? - Oh yeah, yeah... Peter, just interesting, just real quick on that one quick thing cause like my dad is a psychiatrist and I've met a lot of people and they're successful people and they're family people and all of a sudden you find they have this "side of them". There didn't seem to be any particular reason for them to have this problem or disorder. There is a reason though. There invariably there has to be reason. There's nothing that any of us in this room think, believe, or act upon that doesn't come from somewhere and it just has to come from somewhere. Everything, every word coming out of my mouth comes from somewhere all my values, all the shit I talk about that comes from somewhere I didn't magically come up with that. [Audience applause] There is no such thing really as originality, there is only the kind of combination of our life experience. I'm not denying genetics and biochemical influence as they are there but they don't hold a candle to the influences that come from the social environment especially with our behavior and how we treat each other But great question, thank you! Can you see me up here? I'm on my knees here. It seems like being raised in a monetary system, all of us we're all experiencing some level of disorder. Psychological and it goes down to that.. through the every realm of our lives my question is, it seems the first feat is to change our thoughts and how think about things, how we perceive the world but then how would you help people to actually become the type of person to live in a Resource Based Economy, the type of person who would actually not just think along these lines but actually get out and do even with limited resources, getting out and becoming the type of person that lives on these things. I'll let others answer this as well but I'll just say off the cuff that the movement itself is probably the best value-shifter we have right now. People that engage and see like-minded identification that actually feel normal around people as opposed to the general distortion that we see. Again, I don't... People do what they need to to survive and I'm amazed at the development that's happened because all of us should be out in theory trying to find ways to make money and survive but we choose to take our time because we see larger order problem at hand that far exceeds this just a selfish narrowness that this system likes to claim as divinity, if you will. The movement itself, it is just wonderful to see the communication I certainly feel more normal in my day-to-day lives just to know that there're people who identify with. Anybody else like to add something? Yeah, definitely. What I've discovered from myself personally is that it's an uncovering and it's an ongoing process If you're thinking in terms of what can be shared with someone else and to help them or facilitate them to becoming a person that can live in Resource Based Economy just put yourself in that position and the whole concept as Peter reiterates about the static notion like 'Oh, I get it'; what you're going to find out as you progress that you're going to get on another level, you're going to get glimpses and that should tell you right there as you progress the conversations that you're going to have and the people that you're around and who you communicate with, they will progress as well if not fall by the side and additional people come in So what I think I'm saying is don't be overly concerned if they are getting it pay attention to your own because we are no different from each other in that sense you will in time discover and uncover that it is not static you will continue to get these great glimpses of what can really be and just enjoy that and enjoy the company of others who share that as well. Kind I just finish up with that last one real quick? Since we don't live in the Resource Based Economy yet it might be extremely painful to act like you are living in a Resource Based Economy cause we're still on this very painful system, so... Just look at the root understanding of your behavior that's extremely fraying to look underneath and really look back and.. .. it'll make you feel better and study, read, learn about science. and meet like-minded people, so you have other people to reflect the values you trying to take on back at you and it'll make a difference. One more thing... A lot of you have probably seen that Star Trek episode when the two humans have been frozen and they wake up in the future and the captain tells them they are going to drop them at Earth but everything's changed and there's no trace of your money or your office or your belongings and man is very concern saying 'What am I going to do?' and the captain says: "We've evolved beyond an economic reality, you don't have to worry about that." And then he goes, "What's the challenge?" And captain says "personal development" wharever you want to excel yourself. So I think it's such a... Just like death and taxes we all get conditioned to think that it's inevitable, you have to... so just beginning to think differently that there is another way and hopefully before the collapse so that we can begin transitioning but usually it takes things to get so bad before humans change but I think we're already in that. Personally I wish I was born in the future and we're already there but then I realize we're part of the transition however that's is going to lead.... I want to thank, take the opportunity to thank everybody who's part of this movement and the chapter heads for doing the work and for putting it together and bringing it forward to us It's interesting the Star Trek point - big fan here but it seems like, from one perspective civilization has been many different cultures brought to their highest point of civilization and then being overun at that point by hungry, other cultures that were not as civilized When we talk about this leap of civilization that you guys are proposing I understand, we are living in different age now but you can see on the map there mostly we are in northern hemisphere and western civilization Resources and just behavior and cultural impact may have... There may be some barbarians waiting at the gate for the ones who are able to make the leap mentally to work in a Resource Economy.... It sort of indicates a fracturing of governmental structures protectionary military and those things... So I'm just curious if... I'm sure you've thought about it what the next step would be at that point when things became more fractured and certain parts of the world were able to make some of these advances How does it hold together and not fall backwards... - Do you mean in a transitional process or you mean after it in statement of the society, if you will, or both? I think, there has to be a transitional... Frankly, it's going to be always transitional there's always going to be transitional developments Before I forget those, Summer, these people over here that have had their hand up for a while in the sidelines just I feel guilty for them, cause they are so far away The barbarians at the gate are in mass and .. This is, I hate to say it, but... we all know what's happened to other societies that have attempted to do something different. This is what makes our job so much more difficult and why this is while on one side this is one of the most improbable types of adventures you can come up with but yet the most important given where we are and where we have to go which is why I come back to critical mass the thing that fails all social movements or any organization is fracturing of the movements that exist. So if you can get that integrity on the global scale across all borders across all social systems, and get that harmony there where it's holographic as we point out that's just not a fundamental idea that's because we need it to be holographic we can't have people in certain positions that if they are removed or what have you, it can't have an effect So in higher state of this movement it's really operating as an invisible entity of mass where it's literally unstoppable because there's no heads it can't be fractured because the ideology is so engrained. Doesn't matter where people are, it's a motion, it's a singular human motion and there's no government or army or anything that could possibly stop... Anything like that has never happened in the history of human kind but it's going to have to people have to get down on the basic level of survival and understand that, and develop their values, and the social approach based on that simple referent which we've been so decoupled from. And I think inevitably it's going to happen, I have no idea how much suffer and turmoil might emerge before something like that occurs but just to quickly reanswer your question I really believe the critical mass issue that's why people say: "Well, let's try start Resource Based Economy in Mexico or Venezuela Do you realize what the corporatocracy would do if somebody attempted that? "They are communists", they would go ape shit with propaganda in any country just as they do - all the coups and overthrows of any leader that attempts to do anything social on a grand scale. This system has, as John McMurtry calls it it has built-in, cancerous, defense system. It's not just leaders and the governments, it's actually people. The 'self-appointed guardians of the status-quo' really want to believe that what they're involved in, even if they are poor and living at 'the corner of bedlam and squalor', they really want to believe that their system is for them. Because that's how strongly they identify with it. So there is a tremendous barrier but again, the bio-psycho-social pressures are there they will continue to inhibit, we continue our work of education and eventually critical mass emerges then all it takes is one big global action to show the strength of this movement basically a civil disobedience kind of way. The example I'd like to use which I don't advocate Imagine if 50% of the people in America just refuse to pay their federal income tax there's nothing the US government would ever do. [Applause] But people are terrified to do that in mass because they don't know mass could be there. That's what we have to overcome and then once that happens, it's over. There's nothing any power establishment could do there aren't enough people; the military run away with their tail between their legs. if they had type of global mass that we advocate. A Honda Civic and a Camry is blocking other people All right, all the automobiles are in order. Let's assume for a moment that critical mass has been reached. What now? What's to stop us from building a first city of the Venus Project somewhere? I know, I saw your film, I saw you speak, you said it's a financial issue to getting all the resources together, it's very expensive - cultural issue though, even if you build the first city it can only be used as an example, people couldn't really live there because of what the common digest made even if a country attempted to do this they would have to have some massive security measures to stop what John Perkins appropriately calls the corporatocracy of the miliatary-industrial complex We can't keep fooling ourselves about what the military is and has always been, it's there to maintain territorial balance and to preserve certain economic modes that benefit those that can control things, hence the West has always done East India Company Britain... the age old empires, imperialism continues its rotation and this is why building a singular city unless it is a test city unless it works in a certain way to educate which is what Jacque was advocating, that's why he always says 'We can't just build a city and expect you to live there' there's too many factors that can come into play not to mention the cause you really utilize resources to do it but in the end it's really a cultural transition As much as we talk about technology all of this is really a value system transition more than anything else. It also wouldn't be a global system and that's important to understand that what we're advocating is a global system. It would be a close community and we have a lot of people that are involved in the Movement that like to... that are interested in... 'I want something that's close to this so I can get right now and maybe we should build a commune and we should start growing our food" or... That's very different than what we're talking about but go do that and talk about this I say, if your passion is to be with a community that shares the values and live in some sense that's outside of the normal way we're getting resources than please go do that, but keep in mind that we can't achieve what we're talking about until it's a global system and we're off of money and we have those high-tech resources versus low-tech because we really are trying to honor... We aren't adding to human labor and human stress but reducing and there have been people that have gone onto this project who have had very different experience and thought 'This isn't for me' but that's not what we advocate. I encourage people like if you want to get involved with something like that, cause we hear that a lot, to do that but keep in mind that we're thinking bigger and we need mass awareness and people doing mass awareness activism to achieve what we're really talking about. I want to add that if you were able to build successfully the Resource Based city let's just say within the greater system you're going to run in a lot of problems: Resources that are necessary are scattered all over the Earth, not knowing what's available inhibits the ability to perpetuate yourself on your own self-efficiency Also in time if there was ever, and you probably would understand this any sort of decay of the societies surrounding you you're going to have to really defend yourself because 'when the grass is greener inside, you're invaded' it's a global system because we're accounting for all the resources of the planet and all the people of the planet, not just a select few. And once there's a fully realized awareness throughout the whole entire world one of the things that we'd do first is the whole planet would just kinda declare everything is the "common heritage," as we put it; common to everyone and when that happens there's really nothing we can't do. Did we answer your question? - Yeah, yeah well done. And also, just to point it out, there's a lot of things that haven't been talked about as far as resource management and the systems approach that we have in a lot of our other materials. There's a whole slew of technical stuff that we talk about that can initiate a lot of things that resolve perhaps some of the the conflicts that you might imagine; I just want to I throw that out there because there's a completely different approach that can be taken far outside of the arcane political system that we know today with the appointed dictatorships that we seem to all marvel in and/or convinced actually provide some type of equitable balance of social contribution, if you will. - So one more quick thing - in dealing with the system as it is today where is the Zeitgeist Movement stand on being sovereign, being sovereign citizen? There is only the Earth, everything else is contrived. There's nowhere to hide anymore, there is no reason to block yourself off anymore unless you're on a perpetual war The tribalism had its place. It evolved, we had to do tribalism we didn't understand science and technology we didn't understand what was possible advancing, extremely efficient technology resource management understanding molecules what actually comprises our ability to create; The new realization is that we can provide for everyone given the necessities of life available, ease the stress of society reduce crime, stop war IF we can grow but enough to realize if we just share our resources and apply a systems approach which is what the Earth demands if you want to sustain ourselves. If we can just follow that train of thought and get people to understand and identify with it, sovereignty is an echo of a tribalist notion of separatism and warfare. I even know a lot of people who hate that. There's so many patriots out there that attack me they don't understand what they are talking about they don't understand how racist it is to be patriotic they don't understand the biasness it's racism with a flag, when you hold up your flag and it's just people have to get beyond that and eventually they will. You're refering to a lot of things that people do accords to kinda be sovereign... - Sovereign men stuff, right. That's something... that's the best way you think you can make an impact on the system and try to escape out of something if that's the thing you're into, that's fine but I mean there's such an overarching approach that we're into we don't really hone in one area and there's a lot of trouble that you could... There's so many... They often just change the rules on you in the mix of it. I really don't know too much about that Nothing is fixed in the legal system. Nothing. - I would just add, when I think of those things... I've been interested in that sort of movement and learned something about it but I always think it's always contingent upon persons having guns believing you or understanding you so there is an element of force that you would have to contend with if that doesn't work because that's just a whole... It's all fiction anyway and so it's always been rewritten anyway. I feel like... you know... Our focus is more of the root causes and we'll get where we want to go. One final thing is that we are not about patchwork even though there's things that we do - the charity things that we have on horizon the Zeitgeist Media Festival via global food drive for all the sympathetic events that do it; We're trying to bridge, they really do help things in temporal sense but that isn't the solution as much as we want to get people to help and as much as we might identify with certain things within the system people that go out and build sustainable communities and low-fi centers that's all great in transition, we have to be self-preserving on some level but the Zeitgeist Movement is just about the absolute final goal and someone has to start it, somebody has to get a movement like that together we can't keep pulling back and try to pretend that the little games we play will have final resolution when they won't. That's why if you read through all of our materials the highlights of what we talk about: Global unification, a world resource management, all of these things have a solid train of thought of what it means to actually manage ourselves on this finite planet that we share, the habitat that we evolve into. The train of thought's there there. We are not messing around with patchwork even though it's there but that's not our focus, so... I had a question about... It's kind of a 2 part question. - Could you guys give me a summary of these globally unified values that Movement is trying to represent? The second part is: How do we balance the power? This in itself is a structure being created and we are looking for a mass, a mass to represent these ideas so how do we balance that and not let it consume us and not let it become the structure we're trying to recreate and destruct? In regards of the first part of your question - summary of some of the values that we're trying to express and we use these words and not everyone maybe have an understanding referent to what value we're talking about. No money, no property, Starting as... the carrying capacity of the Earth as a starting point for resource management, a 'systems-theory approach'. . . (which is something you can actually look up, it has a three-sentence definition) . . .to how you'd actually manage the system. Understanding that the Earth is a holistic system in so you would have. . . . . .principles of dynamic equilibrium! If you cut the trees down faster than they grow back you are going to run in a problem, you end up creating scarcity you are damaging the environment so things like that, I mean I'm just throwing out just a few of them I don't have all of them quickly to throw out and hit you like that. That's just an example of some of these global values, if you will that we're talking about I've just forgot second part of your question As I was listening to everyone answer questions, ask questions it seems like we already kind of have an elitist view of these ideas, we are better than those that do not follow and we push them aside instead, so how do we do that? I would say that there is a qualifier of something being better and idea being better if it has a referent to something that can be supported that's why I bring up in my presentation subject of scientific causality so it's not just whimsical thing where we say 'well, we can share the Earth', we are not talking about poetry We're talking about the fact that our social sustainability is dependent on these things based on what history has shown us We're not talking about dynamic equilibrium and the need to preserve the rain forrest and everything else just because it's a poetic notion or that 'we think we're better', or pretentious cause we want to save things it's because we have to because it's a part of our ecosystem; it's that delicate My response to your first question is that basically we have to extrapolate our values not from what we've been taught traditionally but what we've learned from our environment hence scientific investigation. As cold as it seems, everyone gives science a bad rap. Science is the warmest thing you can have it's telling you what's real, what true actually is so we listen to what's happening, we look at research we try to stop ourselves from building upon traditional notions that might come from echoes of bad analysis from centuries before. People put me down for my criticism of religion. people can believe whatever they want, it doesn't mean that it's right. It doesn't mean it's going to provide sustenance for them and their family. It doesn't mean it's going to actually sustain our society. So, the elitist thing (a little bit of projection), I don't think any of us are trying to be elitist at all, we're trying to say well we know one plus one is two; if someone think one plus one is three we have a debate there and I guarantee 'the guys with 1+1=3' is going to have big, pretty hard time navigating their life if they continue that type of viewpoint. Quick thing... As far as second part of your question regarding power, the thing is that since everything that we involved out of in this tribalism has been based upon the conquering of power it's been based upon the assumption that some are deserving the right to life, some deserve to die, it's based upon assumption that not everyone can have everything, it's based on scarcity we have these values that are engrained in us and that's basically just not true anymore because of our ingenuity through technology, our ability to read, create substitutes, there are so many levels to it now So power will be... the neurosis of power, the need for people to want more and control that will have no feedback, reward mechanism anymore. In a new society, where the whole system is unified, where everyone's working to provide... working to basically make sure the system's working, in other words they're not blindly contributing labor for self-interest, they contribute to the system just as everyone else does and what they gain back is so rewarding and knowing... even on a different level, nothing tangible If you look back on your life most of things that you'll find that you like or not are not how much money you made, how many people you have sex with, all the values that are engrained in this culture that materialism that's there it will be "what you did to service?" it will be like the guy you helped to cross the street or when you helped your mother do this or... this type of stuff I think is very much in our human condition and that I think will be fully blossomed where people will be racing ahead of each other trying resolve problems just think of what I'm amazed that we volunteer fire department across this country these are very dangerous acts and there's people doing this even in this sick society, where most people won't do anything without narrow, monetary reward and self-interest. so I hope that helps, I mean once it's turned around I think it will flourish in a completely different direction and it'll only be in your betterment to preserve the system and if anything does go awry, then you have elements of redundancy within the system I'm much more concerned about errors in this system than I am someone of using it. One of the ways that I sum up people who have a fear about the power and being abused in the system I say, if you look at the design the actual design of what we're proposing would remove the reward for exploitation so the need to exploit someone would go away and that's why such a great thing to advocate because why would you want to steal from someone if you have access to the same things they have. So it starts to shift everyone's behavior in a way that you're not thinking about 'Oh, I need to overpower this person to get something' in this model that we're proposing that would not be applicable. - I've talked to the leaders of two small, but long running poet documentary series in Los Angeles and both of them would love to show the movie however they both refused the movie [Zeitgeist] Moving Forward that is, they would love to show but they refused because of its length 2 hours seems to be something like the magic number cut-off point after which something like this doesn't get shown in these formats - I've considered making a shorter version for those that don't have... Yeah, I've considered it to do, I've had a time... the reason is so long is I really just want to drill it in and I just like "fuck it", let's make it 5 hours. [Audience laughs] It easily could be. I cut so much out of it but I agree with you, I know I get that all the time. Film festivals are like: 'We like it, but it's way too long' I'm working on that. Just so the viewer doesn't get "left out", what could we put here? - nomada timeshifting Because we do live in a finite world with finite resources my question is, because it takes so much time to gain critical mass what are we going to do if it takes too much time and we run out of resources so we can't do the original idea proposed by the Moving Forward movie where we start with the world with plentiful resources. What if we use that up before and we go to the point of no return? What do we do then? I say there's no better motivator then to search for a solution when there are no more resources and talk about exponential growth. I think you can take advantage of when you hear news stories that are just showing how bad it is to say 'ok, what more evidence do you need that we need to start talking about a different approach.' and then have a way in and I think as things decline, unfortunately, not that something we think is a great thing (suffering) but it's a motivator so I think that you understand that's also a factor at play. If human society ends up as an evolutionary cul-de-sac well, at least we tried. I wrote this down so hopefully it'll fly by really quick. Seems that part of what has the human race in the quandry of enslavement that it's currently in is that a small group of elite individuals have erroneously thought that they have a sense of superiority over the rest of us. That in part is what is caused the heinous atrocities that have taken place on this planet, this erroneous sense of superiority of one human being over the other. How will it be possible for the Zeitgeist Movement to enact and manifest goals that seem to depend upon global equality when the reality on this planet is that the levels of erroneous superiority which we humans have over one another absolutely pale in comparison with the levels of superiority which we humans on a whole and as a species have over all other non-human animals on this planet. In other words, the Zeitgeist Movement ends seem to depend upon a level of psychological if not spiritual development that we as species seem to currently be far from. How can we address that? Well, I would say first of all that we have to get down to the lowest common denominator of where those behaviors come from cause I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've said. But we can't forget that the values that are dominant whether it's the values of... when people look at, say, George H. W. Bush, lots of speculation on that guy, who... Is he stupid? Is he a satanist? Is he just mean? Is he evil? He's doing frankly what he thinks is right. George Bush was raised in an elitest family, skull and bones, he was put into an elite world and his values are explicitly elite and the beauty of the elite in their mind is they actually believe that what they're doing is right. And even if it's sacrificing thousands, millions of people, they still have, not in our narcisistic way per se they still believe it's in some larger context for the greater good. So you got to put that focus; the people... But I would say in contradiction that, maybe it's not but I think that people that do have a wanting a need to be balanced to want to see identify and to find that equality far outnumber those that have the severe distortion that are in power. Well, that is a chicken and egg thing too, isn't it? Because what you have is the more that comes in the more... for them to even be in that position is really a form of distortion. If you really think about those that are in positions of great wealth and power, for them to even get to that point requires some severe personal integrity compromises to put it nicely. And what it comes down to is that we want to eliminate the power system itself and the global critical mass we talk about I mean, none of these figures stand a chance no matter how many bodyguards or bank accounts they... It doesn't pale to what a mass movement could do to basically scare those individuals into oblivion and then maybe, even, hopefully convert them. And they realize that they would live better, be happier, much more fullfilled to maintain a true social connection as opposed to the way most of them behave today. I want to add that I know we have supporters that are not as vocal but sort of an underground sense in the military and in the police forces and these are people who understand that... unfortunately their job is supporting a structure that they no longer wish to support but they are a support structure for when we're ready to turn this around. So if you think about it... the elites are only as powerful as the human mass tools that they have at their disposal and as long as people are contributing to that then yes, they have power. We're supporting their values right now as a general society but as soon as things... people start realizing ok? resources are being depleted and I don't have the quality of life that I was promised, I think you are going to see things turned and that includes people who contribute to the power if that make sense. Just a filenote, that's little bit aside, is that State of the Union address by Barack Obama when the economic collapse has been lingering for quite a while and continues to its slow... all the money injection started to fade now and it's beginning to arc down and gain acceleration again What did he say? He said "We need to compete more." and I was falling off my chair when I heard him saying that because that is PRECISELY that type of elitest concept that is causing distortion to begin with. But that is what the system is. So it's like if they throw gasoline on the fire thinking that it's water that's all they know, which is unfortunate otherwise it's socialism [Audience laughs, man from audience adds:] or communism Communism is just a step to socialism and then fascism has always there and echoes and waiting in the sidelines First I had a short silly answer for what he was asking about the hypothetical prototype although I don't necessarily agree with the Venus Project's solutions to things being practical I've got other ideas but... since you couldn't actually build a real prototype you can build a TV show version or in my ?? of the world I'd build like a Mr. Roger's Neiborhood or Muppet show version to introduce it to the people, to show how things would work you could punt it off on them, on characters or whatever... and also at the same time have them represent the different stereotypes of the world as they try to go through these different mechanisms. 'cause if the technology is there, it can work but you just have the pretend version and watch them try and go through the trials and tribulations of that - That's great! Then I've just got 3 short quick questions and actually are all for Peter. 1. Where are you based out of? 2. Is there a Zeitgeist 4 in the work shift? 3. If so, just hypothetically if I were some diabolical mastermind who's been working on solutions to this stuff for last 5 years including like an embedded project within the American media and my own zoo project which is like an alternative solution to the Venus Project that uses a re-using model of all the buildings and things that already exist, we just basically re-educate the population by tricking them into learning via the power of the entertainment industry and whatnot.. because trust me, I've been working on this. How would I get in touch with you to unload all these notebooks and volumes and volumes and volumes of ideas just for your perusal? - Well, basically I probably shouldn't say this but there is an e-mail you can e-mail me, which I do check it's just very simply peter@zeitgeistmovement.com and I currently reside in southern California and yes, "Zeitgeist: Beyond the Pale" which people need to remember that Zeitgeist film series is not necessarily a representation of the Movement because I might just get really angry and do something very strange that is not going to be very positive for the Movement but it is coming out in late 2012. Zeitgeist Beyond the Pale which will be very simply a commentary work on the social staples of society in a very very direct way kind of in the same style of my first film in a shotgun narrative. [man in the audience without a microphone] But strategy of communication is what we're all here for. That's why the film series is what it is, I take different angles of each approach and one way or another my films, or anything I do in artistic sense always supports the values of all of this at some level but it isn't necessarily representative of it. But I agree, good point, I mean that's strategy of communication. We are at time. You can conclude. - It seems we are at our conclusion and if you... for those of you who didn't get the chance to pick up some of the literature that was downstairs, there is a statement card there that has a zeitgeistmovement dot com address on them and there are also some registration cards if you're interested in feature events coming on of Los Angeles whether it's participatory or you just want to show up either way. Thank you. [Applause] [Relaxing music playing]