Rewording the idea

[labordiger]

Everybody wants to correct politics. Could it be that something more
fundamental is at work in society? Could we be ignoring something
about ourselves collectively? Over a long period of time the effects
could be accumulating and snowballing. Avoiding labor my first
suspect. Could we be ignoring ourselves about avoiding labor
collectively since the industrial revolution? Factor in that schools
train for obedience. Who wants to work under conditions of obedience
to other men who hold positions at any cost? Is it thinkable to
participate in self-guided group study to replace some of the need for
hierarchy at the workplace? Depending on what the group or the
individuals within the group decide to study would influence results
of the work but with experience it could become an option.

[Nick Polimeni]

This is a very interesting notion to explore... 

The order of questioning, however, would be important. Start from a more primitive position, as it probably will have started. A primitive village tends to have leaders. People that have been in the tribe longer, have experience on how to survive in the tribe's environment, and it almost goes without saying that the head of the family, assuming he/she's the most knowledgeable, consents to allow that person to make final decision on things on which there isn't unanimous agreement. 

There are ONLY two fundamental directions that the growth of a tribal culture can rest upon: One the perception of scarcity, and having to compete for resources for survival. The other one is the perception of abundance, where nature provides more than the existing population perceives to need.

We know that many tribes around the world have survived, and survive to this day, where the perception of abundance was present, and thus, no need for competition for resources was necessary. 

However, human history is primarily replete with scarcity, and the need to seek food and shelter for our populations, which has primarily been satisfied by aggression of other lands and people. 

It is interesting to note that humans wouldn't have advanced to the technology of today from a culture of a tribe that experience abundance. Since, all desires would be satisfied, there was no need to do much more than collect the food, eat it... and that'd be the end of it. Any vision of technology would only come from the desire to reduce the time required to hunt or gather... And sure enough, we do see such things as planting and irrigation systems to make growing things easier, and taking advantage of nature. 

Now when we look at modern culture and the need to work we know that is a necessity born out of scarcity to a point where things have to be done to overcome the problem either with our own production, or when our lands didn't yield enough for us, we became marauders, and nomads, leaving our arid lands, such as the Huns and the mongols, and some Germanic tribes, all of which came south to pillage and plunder areas which were more propitious to human habitation. As land became more scarce, and wars touched our own families directly, we opted for new way to increase resources, thus inventions of stuff... 

Within the society one had to compete with fellow citizens, or fellow inhabitants. It became a different kind of war, and it became that one had to have some power to ensure one's own survival. That is the present situation. Each of us work hard because we were made to believe that it will give us lots of money, and we'd be powerful enough to gain resources. Since in a continuing state of scarcity prevailed through several centuries, power became more and more important, and at a greater scale. The more power you have, the better to ensure your own and your family's survival. 

Now in the ZM, as we become aware of the ability to produce abundance, and can produce in excess of what we might consume, we find it difficult to change the system in short order... we feel we can go along with a new system, but we can't find the transition from the thirst for power, to the comfort in the knowledge that we're able to supply everyone to a highly comfortable existence. How do we start? Who will change his/her mind first, about pursuing power? and how can that be accomplished. 

Most of our habits and ideologies are still rooted on the need to exchange value for equal value, and we struggle to ensure that we get it; the company store being in charge, can easily enforce its due. We the workers have to struggle, and in that struggle we hope to become bosses one day.  Our own cultural mind set impedes us from taking another tack. Yet, that is the biggest barriers to change... the 1% wins, and the 99% also wants to win in the same way, and consequently, can't oppose the 1% because we believe we have to have our chance. When there is abundance, the concept of values will change... 

We, the 99% still believe in many of the tactics and practices that created the 1%, and we hope someday to be there. This is one thing that has to change... more than anything else. And that depends on a thorough understanding of the fallacy of the system we keep in place, where we want to change the politics, just enough so that we get a better chance to move to the 1%. We are daily fed the information that without work we'll experience scarcity; and the 1% that runs things makes sure we get daily confirmation of that, by ruthless control of the system, and our lives. 

Then you can say, "Is this system really equitable, and does it offer the hope that some day we'll benefit from it also?" When you realize that the 99% of us will never get to the 1% club, we can concede that the system has to be change from the roots. A total overhaul is needed... there are only few things worth keeping, and that is our scientific knowledge on how to maintain sustainable production to create the abundance we have the technology to create. 

There you have it... more food for thought.

Nick  

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[Ai: Man]

Thanx for the meal ;) 

I think we have to have basics brought into the game about the human mind, the human biology, when we have this discussion. I don`t think we can have it without looking at the brain of the human species, understanding hormones. I have looked more closely to the work of Robert Sapolsky, who some of you might know from the third Zeitgeist movie. He is really worth a study, as his lectures explains a lot about who we are and why we behave like we do. It`s actually not even complicated to understand. 

Try taking in the first lecture here http://www.archive.org/details/RobertSapolsky-BiologyAndHumanBehavior (the rest is mind blowing btw.) and you can also hear about our quest for dopamin here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWZAL64E0DI

We need to educate ourselves and everyone around us. We need to realize, we`re an organism, we`re supposed to be this highly functional super brain.. never afraid, always curious. But we instead turned into this dysfunctional nothing, slowly withering like a plant in the closet. We need to ask: why? (all the time).  We need a way different psychological environment surrounding us, we need it in our everyday life. Education is key, it really is, as equality is key to life.

[Nick Polimeni]

It's always a good bet to return to basics. But then, we'd have to revisit our objectives and how going back there will get us to where we want to be!

As I remember, the psychologists and biologist that were featured in the film "Moving Forward," were more or less saying that above DNA, and genes, and other body brain characteristics for which there was a propensity, could be overcome with training, conditioning, and so on... that is, cultural influences, and will could cut biological, and genetical predisposition at the pass; i.e.: The character of man was manufactured, built and rebuilt by the culture and events of life. 

So, a more fruitful path would be examining our "reality" as we see it, and take each piece of it, and test it for a real underlying truth. By examination candidate "reality" I'll explain it this way: Those things that we take for granted to be natural or true. For example, what is work, and why do we believe that people must work to survive, except only within the cultural context within which we are somewhat trapped. Why must we live a the idea that we must exchange our work for equal value, especially, when value is so fixed to economic/physical exchange ideas, most of which are flawed?  Why do people believe that "markets" establish value? In other words, these are fundamentals that we believe are incontrovertible truth (at least from within the limited context we are made to work within).  There are sometimes moral ideas, such as "humans are superior" to other species. What's the basis of this? 

There are many others we operate on, that we often can't even identify as ideas separate then us because we ARE them so much that we don't even consider them as external ideas we inherited, etc.; like, "Can't trust anybody." Women are _____ such and thus." "We can't be sure of anything." Thousands of cliches believed without question... "When in Rome..." ad nauseum.

I did a list of things I believed in, and things that I wanted to do in this life, when I was twenty years old. (This is an ancient self examination process.) As I moved through the list, I crossed out things that after honest examination I could no longer believe in.  This can be gone through again, and again, taking items off, and adding new ones, as necessary. Well, the biggest, immediate change was that I no longer felt it necessary, nor saw it as a duty to defend anything, including my "country" as it wasn't and I was merely the servant of political ideas I was made to believe were "naturally mine." So I presented my resignation from the the US air force. 

The point here is that you really can't change people's mind about their ideas of truth by just telling them. Changing underlying "truths" (more often than not, false) is a personal process, which is the only permanent way an idea will change without reverting to its original form. 

Surely we can discuss these points and ideas endlessly, and some will accidentally recognize a new truth (never seen before, and one that does not have a contrary idea in the person's mind already), and make a leap to a higher level of consciousness. But in my experience the ONLY thing that really works is honest personal examination. In conversations often we lean in directions biased towards the more eloquent speakers. 

Here's an interesting one: If your boss fires you, that's the end of your job, and you simply can't show up the next day as if nothing had happened. Now if I believe that the boss had that as a natural inherent power, I wouldn't have told him, "You can't fire me. I don't work for you. I work for our customers and clients;" then showed up the next day as if nothing had happened; not a word from the boss. 

Cheers!

Nick