The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project
A couple of days ago I watched Zeitgeist: Addendum, which is far better than the first one and leads to more serious projects. Those projects are The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project.
I won’t focus too much on the movie itself, it’s just a means to an end. There could be factual errors in it, but the overall message is what’s important. Also, there certainly is quite a bit of manipulation, including in directions that I don’t agree with, but that doesn’t make it less worthy of attention. This is an attempt to herd sheep the other way, which is a necessary (though far from sufficient) step towards creating any significant change in the world. Intelligent people will figure out the relevant information and pick sides according to it no matter what you do, but in order to sway the rest you need to be persuasive, and in that case you might as well make use of the methods employed by those who desire to preserve the current status quo, at least they are proven to work.
What needs to be said is that he has balls! And you need quite a big pair in order to do something like this… He also seems to have the brains to back them up with, but those brains are certainly not his alone and might even not be his at all. This partnership with The Venus Project gives some clues in that direction, though it might be just that, a partnership.
The Zeitgeist Movement’s site has just launched today and, from what I can see, the project (or “movement”) itself doesn’t have a clear plan of action. It is only an attempt to gather like-minded people and herd enough sheep in hopes of eventually reaching a critical mass and being able to actually do something concrete. This does seem to be the only realistic approach, if an attempt to completely change society can ever be called in any way realistic, and the determination is certainly commendable.
The problem is that… It can’t work. Not that you can’t change the world, history has proven that it can be changed, but that, even if it will become reality, such a society as the one advocated by this movement will not last. They correctly say that those who preserve the current state of affairs are only a symptom of the problem and the cause is the structure, the very foundation of our society, which creates such positions. They also correctly say that we can’t “fix” society as it is now, the only thing that would work would be a complete change. But then their reasoning fails because they don’t plan to put something in its place, or at least not something strong enough to preserve that new society, relying on education and their belief that informed people living in abundance would make the correct choices on their own.
History is showing us that many people will not make the correct choices, regardless of circumstances. Even if scarcity would be eliminated and all would live in relative abundance, some people would insist on defining their abundance as meaning having more than most others. Yes, completely changing the status quo so that would no longer be the norm and attempting to educate all people in this new spirit would put all the sheep on the “nice” side of the fence and would also make others who can be influenced by such things behave accordingly as long as they can see advantages for doing so, but there will always be people who won’t give in.
The very fact that such a movement exists is proof enough that education and society’s norms don’t work on all people. I don’t agree with their statement that a Gandhi baby is no different from a Hitler baby, that we all start with a clean slate. Some people do think for themselves and try to do what they consider to be right, and “right” might not be right for the world, but just right for themselves. (Plus that the issue of souls and past lives could be thrown into the mix and complicate matters further.) Since some people try to change the world now, it is only logical to say that some will try the same thing in the future. And having this prediction of the future, we must look to the past to determine the most likely direction of that change, and the past reveals a long list of actions determined by greed, violence, malice, competitiveness, desire to wield power over others or, often, plain stupidity. This leads me to conclude that any society which relies on the fact that all people are inherently intelligent and “good” is doomed to failure.
I also can’t be excited about a project that considers the idea of reducing population as “scary” and claims that, with the help of technological developments and intelligent resource management, the Earth can easily provide for a far larger number of people than currently exist. That’s simply false, because you also have to take the other species we share this planet with into account, plus that the one thing you can’t create more of is space. If more people are to live in far better conditions than they presently enjoy, you’ll need far more space, but the planet’s not getting any bigger!
Still, I think this is a great idea, because it is a solid challenge to the current world order and has the potential to gather noticeable support. The most important thing for now is agreeing that the current society needs to go and a new one needs to be created from scratch. And, if we are to dream that they could one day become reality, the goals themselves aren’t bad. If that new society will have care for the environment, sustainability, fairness and freedom among its fundamental principles, it will be much better than this one. And if it will also encourage creativity and expression, it will have the ability to evolve into an even better one, allowing the reformists of the future to take care of the loopholes and inconsistencies, and also ensure that adequate safeguards will be set in place in order to avoid a return to worse habits.
The Venus Project appears to be a rather carefully thought-out concept of the future. However, it should only be taken as a starting point, because it misses some key issues. For one, it (obviously) shares the flaws of The Zeitgeist Movement, but it’s also scary in a way.
What makes it scary is mainly the total disregard for the environment. Yes, you read that right. Despite the claims and the pretty pictures, it does not have an environmentalist foundation. It only cares for the environment in the sense that it should be exploited in such a way as to be able to continue offering benefits to humans. That does require sustainability and clean technology, but it does not require actual conservation or animal rights, which means that they are not part of the plan. It also advocates a certain degree of uniformity and the development of areas I wouldn’t be comfortable living in. That makes it a project I can’t support in its current form, but it is a decent starting point for other plans.
The problem with it is that, unlike The Zeitgeist Movement, which focuses mainly on social changes, if The Venus Project would be applied on a large scale we would not be able to go back to a previous state. (Of course, these two projects are connected and one seems to imply the other, but I’m trying to separate them according to which area each of them focuses on the most.) You can change the way things are done as needed, but once you change a part of nature there’s no going back. And once you change the entire infrastructure it is not feasible to go back. That makes this project as dangerous as it is interesting and useful.
It should be analyzed carefully and with an open mind, because it does offer a lot of good ideas, but this should be done while it’s still in the planning phase. Once this would be implemented in the current form, even if only locally, the damage would already have been done. Turning something like this into reality makes me think of primitive humans trying to bring fire into their caves for the first time during winter. We desperately need to do it, but we need to do it just right. One mistake and the damage could be tremendous.
This would be a brief overview of my thoughts regarding these two projects. Mainly the negative thoughts, of course, as we should eliminate the flaws before we think of improvements and there is not much to say about the things that are good just the way they are. I plan to write a post containing some of the changes and improvements I’d make, and the way to implement them, but that will take some time. Not to mention that I’ll need to convince myself to do it first…
I read your piece with interest after having watched Zeitgeist Addendum last night and just looked over the Venus Project website. Although I agree with much of the impetus behind the Venus Project, I was concerned to see that their civic planning would rely upon the building of completely new cities. Apart from the environmental and resource costs involved in this, I am naturally wary of movements which wish to ‘wipe the slate clean’. After all, hypothetically, children in the era of the Venus Project would surely be allowed access to pre-Venus Project history – first and foremost, I would have thought, the right to experience their cultural history through the cities that the past has produced. We have to learn from both our previous mistakes and our previous strengths. I don’t believe it is possible for the minds of one or two civic planners or engineers to supplant the worth of thousands of years of history, regardless of the faults inherent in that past.
October 13, 2008 @ 6:27 PM
Well, as I said, I do agree with the fact that you can’t “fix” things, they’re too badly “damaged” now, so you do need to start over, but you should start carefully and initially only destroy what is already in ruins (and I’m not talking about ancient ruins, preserve those!).
One thing I keep wondering is, since people keep moving from rural areas towards cities, why aren’t those villages and small towns turned into cities themselves? You could take a godforsaken village with only a few old people left in it and no (or hardly any) modern conveniences and turn that into a small-scale model of a “city of the future”. It’s already “dead” from a human point of view, but there are all the buildings left over and areas exploited so just letting it completely die on its own won’t mean it’ll be returned to nature anytime soon, so you might as well make the most of it. Same goes for small industrial towns, especially after the mine or factory they were built around has shut down (or is in the process of doing so). Once you do that, people will start wanting to move back to those small towns, since life there will be better than in the large ones they’ve been flocking to until then, until eventually you could have large towns with reduced populations which could then be redesigned step by step in order to be more efficient.
You do need to start over, but you can do it step by step. What really bothered me about The Venus Project was this “larger than life” scale of everything. For example those pictures with construction machines. My first thought when seeing them was “how do you move those things?”. Such wide roads would mean a huge amount of space taken needlessly from nature, and trying to move them without roads would cause a lot of destruction anyway.
But I said I’ll write another post with these things, not put it in a comment, sorry, I’ll shut up now…
October 13, 2008 @ 6:56 PM
I’ve seen the movie and believe that if we start all over again for sure we will end in the same point as today. Throughout our history was proven that always that the flock will need a leader and once this will be in place will appear the corruption, social classes, etc. The theoretical part is fantastic as such but the application and methodology will be manipulated as always in order to satisfy the needs of only few. Look exactly what happen with all this movie/documentary and the Venus Project itself, sound for me and apologies if I’m wrong like a communist propaganda. On the very first beginning of the human life when were just a few there was no need for control and was possible to leave in harmony with the environment, which to be honest with you we do not either belong to the evolution chain, we are just tolerated here on this planet. For years we do just destruction, pollution and damage. A bee doesn’t do any damage, a bird doesn’t do any damage, and a fish doesn’t do any damage, but us we do a lot. We coordinate, control and arrange everything according to our personal needs. As humans we are designed to act and react as well as think as individuals with some of us with fear of expressing our thoughts and feelings and when we meet a person with courage which expresses the same opinion we chose him as a leader. The main change should not be sought into the society we are leaving in; the change is within us, in our mentality and behavior. No matter what, we will need as every leaving creature on earth the basic elements, food, water, warmth and shelter. I learn that one way to eradicate a creature is to remove one of the basic needed elements (food, water, warmth and shelter) or by competition in increase population, and this is actually what is happening to us now. We leaving in continuous competition.
November 19, 2008 @ 12:40 PM
“It can’t work” ; “It’s too extreme” – these are the things society told men like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. We have wrecked our world and earth so terribly that the only option for salvation is of an extreme nature. The Venus Project is not perfect (neither is democracy…) but it is a start and a good one at that. All great movements are initially undermined until they are proven to be successful. I believe that some form of these ideas could ultimately be the future of mankind- a harmonious balance between humans, nature, and technology. I would rather try to institute something like the Venus Project and fail than to continue feeding a cannibalistic system to which there is no end in sight. The basic agreement here is yes, we need to change, we need to do it quickly, yet carefully.
One point though- you say that the VP is scary because of a total lack of regard for environmental conservation. Are you suggesting that the methods detailed in the VP would be WORSE than the currently accepted ones? The current situation is one of no regard for conservation, resources, or environment. Furthermore, when will the “conservationists” be satisfied? When the entire world ceases mass industrial farming and fishing and the like until the population dwindles to a point that we can survive on only what is provided to us and nothing more? Human population is roughly 6 billion- it is impossible for us not to exploit resources. Not trying to make waves, just playing devil’s advocate.
December 4, 2008 @ 9:27 AM
Of course the only solution is of an extreme nature, but it has to be done right and have plans which would actually keep it working in the future as well, unlike ZM. (Don’t get me started on democracy…) We don’t have time for “starts”, and if we are to leap we need to land on the exact best spot, otherwise we’re not getting anywhere.
And looking at VP and analyzing fully, I’m not that sure it’d be clearly better, actually. And I couldn’t say when would the conservationists be happy, but yeah, that’d be about where I would be happy, if you also add repairing the damage we have already done. And the population is actually almost 7 billion and that’s just the point, it needs to drop drastically if we are to have any chance at anything.
December 4, 2008 @ 3:46 PM
And that’s less creepy?
February 25, 2009 @ 4:07 AM
Machines might be better at running things, truth be told. (How much worse could they be anyway?) The real problem is that humans would build them.
Yeah, the problem with changing landscapes is major, as I said. But I doubt any more people would be lazy if they didn’t have to do anything than there are now. The difference would be that they wouldn’t need to do things they hate doing and cause damages due to lack of attention (or downright malice) and spread their bitterness to everyone they have to come in contact with.
February 25, 2009 @ 4:18 AM
Nothing’s perfect… That doesn’t mean we must never do anything… I’ll just leave it at that.
February 25, 2009 @ 4:47 AM
Venus Project is creeeeeeepy. Better idea: Wait for global epidemic. Population is rolled way back. Go back to hunting animals for food. Money not necessary. Success depends on pure strength and survival skills.
February 25, 2009 @ 4:04 AM
Maybe not, but we’ll still have natural landscapes…
February 25, 2009 @ 4:08 AM
Seriously, though, the idea of machines running everything (Venus project) is no less scary than the idea of people being implanted with Verichips (as stated in Zeitgeist film). As far as I can tell from the ideas that the Venus project (vaguely) proposes, instead of having a few fat lazy rich guys running everything, the entire human race will be fat and lazy and money just won’t be as much of an issue.
February 25, 2009 @ 4:12 AM
It reminds me of that poem, Machines of Loving Grace. A world where people don’t have to do anything and can exist harmoniously with machines as well as nature. It sounds good, but then there is always the lurking idea of Terminator!!! When people have to build the machines to begin with, and those people are still set in the ways of the current society, their inattention, boredom, anger, possibly malice, etc., will seep into the programming of those machines and will inevitably result in consequences for that virtually “perfect” future society.
February 25, 2009 @ 4:30 AM
Actually, living in fear is quite a natual state of things, doubt many animals ever feel safe. Fear of oppression, yeah, that’s different. However, we are what we do from now on, don’t use the past to justify the mistakes of the present. And otherwise your point is hardly relevant to the issue…
The idea is that The Venus Project still puts humans first, our needs, our desires… Even the idea of an economy… Certainly true that we should preserve the environment, but that’s just it. If you look at it carefully this project is more greenwash than green.
We need a huge change, but it must be the right one. Otherwise, the world is always changing, but hardly ever truly for the better… We can’t afford bad changes anymore.
March 29, 2009 @ 6:38 PM
I read your thoughts……I’m disappointed to read that the psychology of civilization has not been addressed….
A large percentage of the world’s population were enslaved first by the Romans and then the Imperialist nations–at what point since then has society not taught their children and subsequent generations about fears and suffering of this traumatic age….?? Have we recovered from this trauma in 2000 years psychologically as a civilization?? You would be fooling yourself if you believe we’ve recovered. Why? Because the mass population still lives in FEAR of their Governments. And a life lived in fear of oppression is not a natural state of existence.
After all, it’s only been roughly 100 years that we’ve had access to education as slaves to our Rulers……..Our Rulers–religious and secular–have been educating themselves for at least 2000 years. Is the mass population really that ignorant to not realize the impact of this alone that still affects our civilization today ?? In my opinion, having access to education for hundred years or so does not compare to having education for 2000 years. (Every time a civilization is conquered, their teachings, libraries, education is confiscated and destroyed by the “Victor”.
The Zeitgeist movement offers an alternative lifestyle–via their Venus Project–that would create innovative technology of mass creation instead of mass destruction. They propose a Resource-based Economy , rather than the current Monetary-based Economy–which we all can see has serious flaws.
It is estimated that over 90% of the world’s economic wealth is currently in the hands of less than 3% of the world’s population.
Lets take our land back to live on, for the earth created us, why do we accept otherwise…No one owns the sun, the stars, or the earth..we are here to preserve our environment,
March 29, 2009 @ 6:14 PM
“I don’t agree with their statement that a Gandhi baby is no different from a Hitler baby”
So, you don’t agree, maybe you know something we don’t? Please share with us your knowledge before someone smells a little racism in your words. Do you really believe that if we clone Hitler he will have a personality like Hitler, regardless of the environment?
In a corporate world, a psychopath has best chances of success. Watch “The Corporation”. I wonder what would a psychopath do in a VP world?
April 18, 2009 @ 2:34 AM
Not an identical one, but DNA does play an important part. Nature might actually be more important than nurture, the environment only serving to unlock various parts of a person’s personality. There are people who simply refuse to be educated by anyone but themselves (I should know, I’m one of them). That said, you can smell whatever you want in my words…
As long as people’s interests still come first, said psychopath would do the exact same thing…
April 18, 2009 @ 4:20 PM
Well , the plan is really good , but we must make sure that every step we take does not do us any harm , with improvement in machines they could be able to do many things , but still there are many they cant , once money is removed , there will be loss of many entertaining , but , we have to sacrifice for the betterment of the whole world as one , not as diffrent nations ,
This can be totaly implented though with the support from the whole population ,which can only be possible when the monetary system fails big time , and I think which will be a lot difficult , as a conclusion i say
“If we never try then we will never know” . we must implement it though with carefull measures
May 15, 2009 @ 6:45 PM
I’m far more interested in the world (think environment and all the other creatures we share it with) than in humankind…
May 15, 2009 @ 6:47 PM