The foundation of Economics is Adam Smith’s idea that the monetary system works well because everyone works in their own self-interests.
Our current form of Democracy is representative. We vote for people who will then represent the wants, needs and culture of their electorate. So they are meant to be working in the interests of those that they represent.
It sounds like the current form of Democracy is incompatible with the current form of economics.
In, what is almost a sister site to Zeitgeist-Info.com, the Zeitnews.org website shows the latest news in science and technology. Covering areas such as Energy, Transportation, Biotech, robots, nanotechnology, and space, it’s a great site which is well designed and easy to use.
I suggest adding it to your RSS feed reader or even making it your home page!
This is a list of alternative news sources. It was compiled by Jacob Curtis and he initially released it on Facebook
It’s not complete, but there’s plenty here.
Why would you want to get your news from such sources? The majority of news outlets are owned by large corporations with very malicious political and financial agendas. Long story short, you can’t trust them to not to blatantly lie or at least spin their stories with some heavy bias. It’s really nothing short of propoganda, and brainwashing in the most extreme cases (it’s definitely the worst in the US). I have included a few mainstream sources in here, as it’s interesting to compare the way in which they present news with the alternative sources.
By now nearly everyone will be aware of the website Wikileaks. In recent days they started releasing US diplomatic cables (messages). Unfortunately in doing so there has been a number of attacks on the website and it’s hosting. As such there was a call put out for anyone with a web server to start hosting a mirror of the wikileaks website.
So far there are over 720 mirrors, with more being added all the time. If you are technically inclined and would like to help, the site is currently less than 20MB in size and is only plain HTML, so you only need Apache (or maybe nginx) and not advanced things like PHP and MySQL, etc..
Please Note : Mirroring the wikileaks website is a personal action taken by the zeitgeist-info.com webmaster, and is not representative of the Zeitgeist Movement’s stance on Wikileaks.
In short, the content of Zeitgeist The Movie is NOT what the Zeitgeist Movement is about. The Zeitgeist Movement is about creating a better future for all humanity. Currently the best way of doing that is through a Resource Based Economy as explained by The Venus Project.
The Mars Project videos show a time traveller from current time going back 10,000 years and talking to a hunter-gatherer and explaining the concept of agriculture and industrialised society. The point is to open up peoples mind to the possibilities of a whole new civilisational paradigm, such as that of the Resource Based Economy.
Note : The first one doesn’t make much sense, you need to watch all three videos (like the playlist embed above).
Note : By categorising different types of people it can be harder to see the subtle differences between the categories, however the knowledge below can hopefully help you understand why some people are more open to ideas than others.
People come in lots of different shapes, sizes, and types. Depending on their environment, their friends, family, experiences, genetics, and hormones they are also likely to exhibit different types of behaviour.
When I am trying to get to know someone there are a number of different types of categories you can think about which can help you tailor your concept or message to them.
This is the trailer to the new Zeitgeist Movie by Peter Joseph. The release is currently scheduled for January 2011 and we are all looking forward to it!
Extrinsic Motivation is the Reward and Punishment (also called carrot and stick) approach to getting people to do things. The best example is Money. Work harder and you get paid harder, screw up and you loose more, or even worse, the police get sent around.
The monetary systems use of Extrinsic motivation is only good for basic, mechanical tasks. i.e those that are easily automated.
Extrinsic motivation can :
Diminish performance
Crush creativity
Encourage cheating, shortcuts and unethical behaviour
Foster short-term thinking.
Become Addictive
Extinguish Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic Motivation is a renewable source of productivity which promotes creativity, engagement and quite often collaboration. Companies like Google, and open source communities like Linux, and Wikipedia are powered by intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic Motivation requires three main points :
Autonomy -The ability to choose whatyou are working on, where, when, howand with whom (you rarely get all those choices, but at least a couple of them).
Mastery -Doing tasks that can get you into a state of Flow. The task level is perfect, not too hard or two easy, but a notch or two beyond your current abilities.
Purpose – Doing your work for a good reason. Hint; money alone isn’t a good reason, if your doing your current job purely for money and would quit if you won the lottery then you have no Intrinsic motivation.
Resource Based Economy
Dan Pink talks about Intrinsic motivation working best when the concept of money is off the table. When people are paid enough that they can have the main things in life they need (e.g food, water, shelter, electricity, and the ability to share that with someone they love), then you allow Intrinsic motivation to shine.
By promoting a world of sustainable, renewable and abundant energy and resources, based on collaboration, open access to knowledge and automation of repetitive tasks, all using the scientific method to select the best possible options, then you end up with a world which shines with intrinsic motivation and no longer has a need for money. That’s when you have a Resource Based Economy.
