Zeitgeist Information
Zeitgeist Movement related posts by Michael Kubler
Beyond Zero Emissions Advocacy Project
This is a repost from the Australian Atrium (Project Management) website and is aimed at Australian ZM members.
This is a proposal regarding the Beyond Zero Emissions renewable energy proposal. Beyond Zero Emissions is a group of engineers and scientists who have created a proposal to convert Australia’s energy supply to 100% renewable energy within 10 years. It is primarily done using a mixture of wind power and concentrated solar thermal.
- You can find out more information on their website – http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/
- Or read their proposal summary – http://media.beyondzeroemissions.org/ZCA2020_Stationary_Energy_Synopsis_…
The Beyond Zero Emissions cause is very much in line with the Zeitgeist Movements aims and principals. We will need their help to prevent humanity from facing environmental and energy crises, whilst they need our help in order for the proposal to get traction.
We are interested in helping promote and champion the BZE emissions scheme.
In order to help us develop new project ideas we are working on a output centric approach.
1. You start off by writing the press release you would like to see.
2. You then write the FAQ.
3. If it’s particularly complex you can even write a help manual. Only after you’ve gone through the above steps do you work backwards to find out what needs to be done/created and how.
Solar Concentrator Array
What Chapters Need to Balance
Zeitgeist Movement chapters need to balance activity in at least 3 main areas, which include Activism, Learning and Relations. These activities can take the form of various types of projects and meetings, and ways in which to allocate time and resources.
Activism – Zeitgeist Movement chapters generally have two forms of activism, helping with the mindset change and physical activism/labour. The mindset activism is usually in the form of handing out DVDs, running film screenings, and town hall meetings. It is also one of the more important processes for gathering new members and affecting the culture and community around the chapter(s). The main mindset change happens when people understand the different values, definition of success and change in the defaults that we want to achieve. Many of the newer ZM members get annoyed at the lack of physical activism. As a movement we are only just starting to reach the point at which creating tangible change is an option. Some great examples would be converting existing people’s lawn area into gardens, creating eco-village style setups which run on renewable energy and are progressively automated to the point they are creating an abundance of produce. An important requirement for the price of zero transition.
Learning – Furthering our understanding of the ZM but also the world around us. From the latest in science, to the history of economics, to current news. It also covers research and analysis, particularly with regard to how to do things more efficiently and effectively or in other ways. Learning is divided into two main sections: personal learning and chapter learning. Personal learning is particularly focused on reaching an understanding of how the world works, the issues with the current system, and the solutions (the RBE). This is usually done through watching movies, being a part of a mailing list, reading articles, creating newsletters, and attending or giving presentations.
Relations – This is about internal chapter relationships and relations with other organisations. A very important motivator for continuous membership is the social aspect of being surrounded by other people who care about and understand them. This sense of community is fostered by holding social meetups, like BBQs, or casually meeting up at a bar. The relations between chapters and with other organisations are also very important. The potential for the Zeitgeist Movement to foster a transition to a Resource Based Economy is facilitated by creating strong ties with other RBE advocating groups and organisations such as Beyond Zero Emissions (in Australia).
A basic outline of the sub-points is below
Activism -> Mindset -> Physical
Learning -> Individual -> Chapter -> Global
Relations -> Chapter members
|-> Other RBE advocating groups
|-> Groups advocating similar ends
As an example, the table below lists of some projects being undertaken or planned in Australian ZM chapters. Some projects are listed twice as they have pronounced secondary effects, which are coloured in grey.
| Activism | Learning | Relations |
|
|
|
| Review and Admin | ||
|---|---|---|
On top of the three different buckets that need to be balanced is the almost constant review and admin work.
The regular review process could for example involve reading your posts, emails, and behaviour for the last week and allow you to both fix up mistakes and give you feedback regarding how to do thing better next time. A group review process should also be on the agenda of the next ZM meetup after an event (e.g Zday, ZMedia Festival).
The admin work involves general organisation work and maintenance. From maintaining mailing lists and websites to doing checks and balances, etc…
Energy Knowledge
I thought I knew a decent amount about energy and renewables, but still learnt a lot from this.
greennet2011 on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free
It’s only 19mins long and well worth watching.
“Survival of the fittest”, Well not quite
IT IS NOT THE STRONGEST SPECIES THAT SURVIVE, NOR THE MOST INTELLIGENT, BUT THE ONES MOST RESPONSIVE TO CHANGE. — Charles Darwin
This is a great video which explains the true meaning of ‘Survival of the Fittest’. It also does a great job of explaining some of the issues between Tournament and Pair Bonding Species.
Endgame (MUST WATCH)
This is a MUST WATCH video of Derrick Jensen talking about the premises of our Civilisation and why it is not sustainable.
In the talk he does a great job of explaining the premises, although if you enjoyed the video, or if you didn’t fully understand it then you should probably read the book. (NB : ZInfo is not associated with Derrick and does not receive any money for any form of advertising, in any way).
Premises :
- Civilisation is not, and can never be sustainable.
- In a city your life must be based on violence (due to the required importation of resources).
- Our way of living-industrial civilisation, is based on, requires and would collapse without persistent and wide spread violence.
- This civilisation is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted, unarticulated hierarchy. Violence is only acceptable from the top down [a very interesting point].
- The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control (make more money) by destroying or taking the lives of those below (this is called production). If those below damage the property of those above then those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below (this is called justice).
- This culture is not redeemable. It won’t undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane, sustainable way of living.
- The longer we wait for the crash of civilisation, or the longer we wait before we bring it down, the messier the crash will be, and the worse it will be for humans and the environment who live during it and for those who come after.
- The needs of the natural world are more important the needs of the economic system.
- Although there will someday be far less humans than at present, there are many ways in which this population reduction could occur. NB : Population is actually a tertiary problem, resource use is the primary problem.
- The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. It’s driven by a death urge and an urge to destroy life.
- From the beginning, this Civilisation has been a civilisation of occupation, and the government is the government of occupation.
- There are no rich people in the world; there are no poor people. There’s just people. Money is just a concept.
- Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of the illusions to the contrary the sooner we can begin to make reasonable decisions about resistance.
- Love does not imply passivism.
There are some points that I think could be debated or slightly tweaked. Especially premise 6. I agree that whilst civilisation won’t go voluntarily, you don’t have to have a Price of Infinity (enviro, energy, economic) collapse. We can guide civilisation through a Price of Zero collapse (using abundance, sustainability, automation and education).
As you’ll see in the next post (about changing the value system), I think that point 8 needs to be pointed out to people. They know it, but don’t realise that the economic system is given priority over nature, life, and human wellbeing. The Sydney, Australia chapter is currently editing some vox-pop/street interviews which show this mentality in action.
Regarding point 9. It’s possible that if we were to be efficient and effective with the natural resources, we would likely be able to keep similar numbers of people or even raise the population whilst maintaining a stable equilibrium with the environment. But we would need to be net positive not net destructive to the environment. Humanity would also expand in numbers as we colonise other planets. But would shouldn’t and likely won’t do such a thing under the current culture and system. If we did it wouldn’t be pretty for anything that got in our way.
Transition Ideas Team
This is a quick announcement of the creation of the Transition Ideas Team (TIT) a new ZM team that Scott Wrampler and Michael Kubler are currently helping kick start.
For those who are interested here’s a recent Blog Talk Radio show regarding the team which talks about the organisational structure and some of the initial teams. It’s only 30mins long.
Listen to internet radio with IZM Radio on Blog Talk Radio
The team will be split into 3 main groups :
- Admin
- Transition Proposals
- Proposal Analysts
The Admin staff will be a small group who run the website, organise the tools and help co-ordinate the other two groups.
The Transition Proposals group will be a collection of people who, working alone or together, come up with various transition models then propose them.
The Proposal Analysts are those who are knowledgeable within their field and as a group can analyse the proposal and undertake useful critical analysis and highlight potential issues and also make suggestions or reccomendations.
The process of submitting, analysing and refining a proposal will itself need to be developed and refined over time. One of the hardest parts of the process will be removing human bias, especially those which are predictable. An example may be that proposals are to be made anonymous before being presented to the proposal analysts. Once the analysts have provided feedback and the proposal refined the proposal can then be presented on the website for further analysis and discussions with the wider public.
It’s possible that the team may itself change from being about transition ideas, to be a Transition Implementation team (or more likely, a group of teams).
If you have any transition ideas or suggestions then feel free to comment or email transition@zeitgeist-info.com
Thank you
Changing the Definition of Success
The change from the current monetary system to a Resource Based Economy requires changes to what we value, what the cultural and personal definition of success is, and the defaults.
The Definition of Success
According to Western media plus the types of people the average person would say has ‘made it’ or aspire to be, the current definition of success is how much financial wealth, power, control and fame a person has acquired.
What we would like to see is people valuing themselves according to their contributions to humanity and the environment.
Only then can a real change be made to the way humanity is going. When we value ourselves because of how much we’ve helped other people, our culture will no longer tolerate those who are greed driven nor corporations priority of profit above all else. We will enjoy working with nature, animals, trees and the environment, instead of destroying it to power our outdated fossil fuel powered trucks.
Contributions can be a wide range of things. Everything from helping someone up the stairs with their bags to curing cancer, planting 10,000 trees or organising a mission to the bottom of the oceans.
What values do you use to determine how successful you are in life?
Advocates of an RBE
As part of my previous post regarding the Constellation Model, I put out a call to find the various groups and organisations advocating a Resource Based Economy. Either directly or indirectly.
Having done so I no longer classify myself as a Zeitgeist Movement member, but an advocate for the RBE.
Here is the primary list which is still being actively updated (if you have a great description or know where to find a logo, do or don’t think an org should be listed then please comment at the bottom or email contact@zeitgeist-info.com). Thank you.
Here is the current list :
- The Venus Project
- The Zeitgeist Movement
- Resource Based Economy Foundation
- Free world charter
- Tromsite
- Technate
- European Organization for Sustainability (EOS)
- Atlas Initiative Group
- We World Technologies
- RBOSE
- Planetary Skin
A detailed explanation of the organisations is below.
Read more
Welcome : Introduction to a Resource-Based Economy
The Zeitgeist-Info (shortened to ZInfo), website is a resource of useful Zeitgeist Movement related posts, aimed at existing Zeitgeist Movement members. It was created to inform ZM members of advanced concepts and useful news and information.
New to the Zeitgeist Movement or don’t even know what it is?
The term Zeitgeist refers to the intellectual, cultural and moral Spirit of the Times and we want to change that for the betterment of all humanity. Currently people define success by how much financial wealth, power, control or fame they have acquired. However we want to change it so we value people by how much they’ve contributed to humanity and the environment.
Check out the TEDx talk below for a quick introduction, or watch Zeitgeist Moving Forward, the 2.5 hour documentary/movie.
An Introduction to a Resource-Based Economy [ TEDx – Peter Joseph ]
Once you have watched the TED talk or Zeitgeist Moving Forward then find and join your local ZM chapter.
Don’t forget to come back here for the latest in ZM information and concepts.
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