As You Were

I’ve been prodding myself back into addressing something that I kind of dropped back in January. Since I’m not sure what to say today… I’ll just start writing stuff down and try to hammer out something somewhat cohesive; hopefully I’ll come up with something useful.

Some Precursors:

I have had an eye on The Venus Project (TVP) and Zeitgeist Movement (ZM) since about the time I discovered the evolution debate on Youtube (2007). To give a brief description of these groups The Venus Project is the brain child of Jacque Fresco who has been brainstorming the last 40+ years about getting society out of the greed and corruption of a monetary based economy. The Zeitgeist Movement today is toted as the activist arm of TVP, but the origin is independent. As I understand it, ZM started as a people’s response to Peter Joseph’s documentary (Zeitgeist: The Movie 2007); the film uses three parts to put together a case for the corruption in society that lead to the 9/11 attacks. Peter Joseph has since come out with another Zeitgeist film (Zeitgeist: Addendum 2008) with a third set to come out in October.

That’s just a surface look; they address many aspects of society, history, and future that I could only begin to explain. They make a case for what’s been wrong up to what’s wrong now. Jacque is an architect and engineer who has made it his life’s work to keep his finger on the pulse of technology and think of how that could be applied in a future without money. What the third film hopes to address is the lacking middle ground… what we do now and how do we progress to this future of theirs. Without it their movement has no legs, it’s not going to do anything. We’ll see if they get rubber on the road, but this is the most dangerous part. Whether they confirm the cultist myths or give people something substantial to get behind.

A second point of view I would like to talk about is a group I’ve dubbed as the Ishtube Group. They’re a group I ran into while commenting on Zeitgeist related Youtube videos on Youtube. They have taken Daniel Quinn’s novel Ishmael to heart. They don’t really have an organized structure, that I can tell; but their general goal is to work as individuals encourage society to reach a point of being sustainable with the Earth we came from. That’s basically it, it sounds like different people in the group have different ideas as to what that literally means… but they generally admire societies that are able to live off the land without excess.

The Current Situation:
Commenting on the Youtube videos of a Zeitgeist member a couple people from this Ishtube Group gave their ideas of protest saying that it’s no different than what we have. Our consumption in society may be different, but what does it matter if we’re still consuming earthly resources?

I’ve been thinking about it since then… these two groups both have something going for them on paper and philosophically. Obviously there’s something there because people are attracted to them, and so am I in a passive sense. But, at the same time I see flaws in both when applying what they say to the real world. The question is where go with the conversation from here? Is there anywhere to go in this land of hypothetical solutions?

I’ll try continuing tomorrow.

Hilarious: New Never Seen Yoga Poses
Funny: Smoking Smells Different to Non-Smokers
Funny: Toy Story 3, Woody’s Roundup
Funny: Pooh vs Hobbs
Funny: Colbert helping Castas mount a moose
Funny: Colbert using speed skating blade to spread and cut sandwich
Funny: Jesus of the Bible vs Modern Day Jesus
Funny: What it’s like Debating a Creationist ala Luke and Vader
Funny: You’ve heard of tiny URL
Silly: Robots in Disguise
Awesome: Mario Turtle Guitar
Awesome: 23 minute Star Craft 2 Beta gameplay
Cool: Pluto
Cool: Nintendo Games remade in Flash
Cool: Civiballs Game
Cool: NASA to start using composites in space
Interesting: Record grooves under an electron microscope
Interesting: Evolution of Morality 1/5
Interesting: Evolution of Morality 2/5
Interesting: Evolution of Morality 3/5
Interesting: Evolution of Morality 4/5
Interesting: Evolution of Morality 5/5
Interesting: Shroud of Turin = Fake