The Zeitgeist Movement

[LMNO]

Well, let's look into this further... What structures are in place for the ZG movement that will limit, for example, tribalistic xenophobia?

It's possible that the brief list above simply doesn't map out any safeguards that are in place.  I'm willing to listen.

[hooplala]

Well, let's look into this further... What structures are in place for the ZG movement that will limit, for example, tribalistic xenophobia?

It's possible that the brief list above simply doesn't map out any safeguards that are in place.  I'm willing to listen.

I have no idea, I don't know anything about the issue... my complaint was off-topic and I retract it.  Sorry about that.

Please continue.

[LMNO]

Just for the record, I'm not mad, nor am I pissed or in a fighting mood. 

That stance is just an idea I've come across, and has tended to serve me well when looking at systems of governance; and it tends to be supported by history.

I do understand that I can be wrong, and that such a veiw has the potential of being horribly pessimistic.

[hooplala]

Also for the record, a part of me agrees with you... but part of me, not so much.

[Golden Applesauce]

I had much the same reaction as LMNO when my roommate had me read a PDF of the Venus Project plan / thing.

It's a post-scarcity society with a world government run by Multivac.  Everything is done in the most "efficient" way possible, as determined by Multivac and it's complement of technocratic-scientist-engineer-priests.  The post-scarcity part is achieved by a) forcing manufacturers of consumer goods be less wasteful and b) conquering the world and running it with a supercomputer.  The resources we save from forcing car companies to not make cars that break on purpose after 5-10 years and other manufacturers from using disposable packaging / disposable anything will be enough to provide every person on earth with an awesome standard of living.  Note that money is not used; there is simply so much stuff that people can take whatever they want.  But since they can have whatever they want, they don't feel the need to actually have it, so people don't end up wasting resources by accumulating and/or consuming resources they don't need.

It's a society that hopes that artists and scientists are ambitious (since there is no mechanism for them to produce anything besides self-motivation) while also hoping that no one else is ambitious (since it wants everyone else to be satisfied with the status quo.)  It's a society that's predicated on the idea that the entire world is happy turning over control of their economy and legal systems to a bunch of engineers with a fancy computer, against every single independence movement ever.  It's a society based on the idea that a group of technocrats, accountable to no one, will always think only of how to benefit the human race.

There are systems that try to harness aspects of the human nature for the greater good (I'm thinking regulated capitalism) and systems that try to limit the damage that can be done thereby (spreading power, checks and balances) and those have a hard time dealing with the people who run the.  This isn't one of those categories - it's actively ignoring the human nature of the people who run it.

[The Wizard]

Just at first glance they seemed to be technocrats. Just reading up on their website at school today, they seem to place a lot of emphasis on attacking every problem via scientific method, and arranging anything that can't be analyzed that way until it can be.

And thanks for the info guys. Satzanfang especially, for the summary.