Re: [Zeitgeist (PDX)] Digest for zeitgeistmovementpdx@googlegroups.com - 3 Messages in 2 Topics
Ron Difeo
“more primitive position”… I am still milling it but I know that when starting over if we go back to the basics as much as possible; simplicity is easier to find and understand how to build upon. “experience on how to survive in the tribe's environment”… I don’t have experience and knowledge to put my ideas into something useful yet but I am progressing now that I am learning to be self-educated as much as depending on the institutional process. “make final decision on things on which there isn't unanimous agreement.” One of my basic concepts if I get a group started or join one is to avoid accepting hierarchy until I know what it is I can’t do, won’t do or just don’t want to do myself. If the other group members function the same way I might learn more about asking questions about decisions starting from a more primitive position.
I think the directions that growth of culture that the group can rest upon is to operate in the perception of abundance and to be driven on the perception of scarcity. I think the way to achieve that amount of complexity is to keep up with current information, technology and opportunity on a regular basis while working without the restraining binds of demanding or wanting full pay for the work that we do. I think a living wage income is what is important and beyond that consciousness about cooperation, training of the whole group and the growth of working with and for the purposes we really want to, might be something that humans have some flexibility about. Personally I believe I could master myself about it in favor of working within a group over working for xyz company.
Would workers want to buy a new car and a boat? I can’t help but to wonder but I would rather put any excess income into the start-up of new work groups and people who want to self-organize anything and everything, work, leisure, entertainment, and all the rest. One of my encouragement concepts is to explain that more people around us that are employed provide more security for each of us.
“aggression of other lands and people.” I interpret a replacement for this activity and survival method from the industrial revolution but we haven’t yet done the work of making scarcity something that is in everyone’s control and making abundance something that is respected well enough that we meet our basic needs and beyond that, the basic needs of others is more important than having excess. The first part of that for me is about the work-place. Currently the workplaces I can join are where I can be obedient to other men or lose the job and that is it. I think a group of workers can make a place where obedience is to the needs of the community we serve directly and eliminate the middleman (management, owners, professional sales and most of the office team) at least until I clean up my own thoughts and habits. If other people are interested in doing the same thing I might find someone to work with.
Where I offer a product or service I would be interested in improving it or replacing it as needed instead of leaving that up to the planners and managers who may not be truly interested in the community I live in. I think it is important to work and live nearby and it is hard to do in the usual job search.
We are living in a time of abundance now but the scarcity is in the quality of time that we spend providing that abundance as well as benefiting from it.
This lack of quality can be easy to convert into productivity if it is true that we can spend our leisure, wasteful entertainment time with the things that we are interested in that are also productive. That is very hard to do in the construction of our current reality because everything in our world, language, culture, people, our time and the places we go are manipulated to support work for dollars per hour. We need to free ourselves from this lined up framework.
The conditions of abundance and scarcity have changed with the new mastery of division of labor, the industrial revolution and technologies. Advanced societies can replace limiting and abusive conditions if the general populace can see how we can all spend our time more wisely and still not lose any value or quality of life and happiness. It isn’t just working by ourselves it is also working in groups.
I think insuring my own survival is now a matter of getting people around me working the way I want to work. If other people around me have different ways of seeing how to work, then I want to work their way too if it doesn’t interfere with whatever must be.
I don’t think it would be at all hard to change the economic system if we learn to work and look for work in groups. I think we would have to do a little work without guaranteed pay until we learn the concept of the search function. I don’t know how to do this on my own but I know that we would have to be willing to do things without promise of pay until we find where the weaknesses are in the current system. It is likely there is some because so much of it is random. So work without promise of pay is used to look for weaknesses or gaps between what is needed and what is already provided. This does not necessarily mean new products and ideas as much as it means solving problems in ways that we are willing to solve them.
Entrepreneurs create their own work and I think they sometimes do it by doing exactly what I am writing about although I am not suggesting that I want to be one. I do think I have to work more like one that what I do now.
If we were active in doing whatever needs to be done we would find ways of getting paid. When I am active in anything new I start learning the ropes. It all gets easier. Right now one thing that needs to be done is identify any specific activity that is lacking in our own lives causing stagnancy. Such an activity seems to exist or we wouldn’t be stagnant. If you don’t consider yourself stagnant then I guess I don’t have much to offer but if you do then I have an idea.
We start with activity that is as purposeful and based knowledge as much as we can although some or most is initially random and not necessarily productive. Besides gaining experience it is a way to wake up our minds to the details of our world and the activities that go on around us. With experience and discussion we learn more about what this ocean of potential is made of. Is it water, acid or something more solid and if we can work with it farther.
Searching for truth may not be something that is only reading and learning but may involve risk, physical activity, discussion of meaning on particular topics or situations. Our current situation seems to require us to consider that just because someone is working within the power based system successfully doesn’t mean his mind is power based. I think most people want the same things you and I do though they may see different sources for it. If people know of different sources to serve what they need, will they choose these other sources? We don’t have any conditions to measure it from and no way to offer it. We need a little grassroots experimenting.
“We the workers have to struggle, and in that struggle we hope to become bosses one day.” Sure some people are thinking this way but I hope you know that since the industrial revolution we don’t know that we need hierarchy, money, government or religion. Until we find out why we need these things and how much of it we need we are handed waste and value is extracted from us.
Group: http://groups.google.com/group/zeitgeistmovementpdx/topics
- Zday 2012 - Your input wanted [1 Update]
- Rewording the idea [2 Updates]
ZeitgeistPDX <ad...@zeitgeistpdx.org> Jan 15 11:33PM -0800
Hello all!
We are in the midst of planning Portland's Zday 2012 and it would be great
if we could get some feedback from the Portland area people on this list
with any input that you may have. If you have a suggestion for a local
speaker, a specific topic or even a video or short that you feel might have
a place at Zday, we would love to hear about it. If you came to last year's
zday and want to tell us what you liked and didn't that will work too.
And finally if you have some motivation to help plan or volunteer at the
event we would love to hear from you.
Feel free to post here to make a discussion of it or email
back<ad...@zeitgeistpdx.org> privately if
that suits the message.
Thanks!
Nick Polimeni <npol...@gmail.com> Jan 15 06:42PM +0800
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
> 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
"Ai: Man" <airea...@gmail.com> Jan 15 01:36PM +0100
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.
Den 15/01/2012 kl. 11.42 skrev Nick Polimeni:
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Ronald Difeo