Hi fellow humans ;)

I've noticed the efforts by Neil to introduce The Venus Project and your reactions. I would like to re-open the discussion and share some of my own views and perspectives on the issues raised.

 First I would like to clear up that I do not consider myself member of the Zeitgeist movement any more than a member of Open Source Ecology. I'm however a supporter as long as it reflects my ideas which both of them do, just as many other great initiatives do. In other words, I do no identify myself with any particular initiative, I merely support ideas which reflect my own.

 That said, I posted on TZM (The Zeitgeist Movement) forums a thread addressed to Neil with the idea of opening a communication channel with OSE. Why I think that would be a good idea and what would be the purpose of it? I greatly admire efforts of OSE and I believe it's exactly the direction humanity should be moving in, it's also very much in line with what TZM and RBE (Resource Based Economy) is proposing. I would like for many more people to be aware of OSE, join and help.

That's why I think opening a communication channel would be very beneficial. It would be great to make an userbase of TZM aware of OSE and best approach how to do that is an interview with someone representative of it. Mind you that The Zeitgeist Movie had 50 million views on youtube, it has 300,000 subscribed people to its mailing list, 20,000 forum members and few hundred people listening to official radio broadcast at blogtalk radio LIVE (more through archives). So it has great potential to reach many like minded people, many of them very eager to help out. Clearly the interview would be neutral in no way implying support for TZM or The Venus Project, I just think it would interest people to hear about challenges you faced, successes you had and your plans for the future.

The other thing I would like to address are the concerns about so called  "Computer controlled government" ... it sure sounds very scary :) but only until you know what is actually meant by that. I don't know if I want to go into details here but let me assure you that nobody wants to replace human element or impose some restrictions on sovereign individual decisions. This is very common misconception as the moment people hear about this, the images of terminator, skynet and matrix pop up in the mind :) These fiction flicks have nothing to do with actual reality form the point of view of "machines taking over". Machine does what it has been programed to do ONLY. You can smash to pieces hundreds of notebooks in front of any other and it won't get mad, that's utter nonsense and pure personification/projection by people.

Computer assisted government would describe it more accurately. The fear that many people have is that it would make decisions FOR them and control their life. This is definitely not the case any more than calculator making decisions for you or that computer controlled injection system in your car controls your life. Or network equipment making Internet possible is directing your life, or traffic control in air travel, or forum systems ... well, you get the idea, it's irrational fear. What it would do is to collect ideas all over the world, cross-checking them with already known knowledge and giving you feedback. It's essentially huge communication network. So for example if you wanted to do a bridge you would submit your designs to this system. It would cross-check it with its database and found out that similar design was tried in Japan and it has broken down after 5 years ... so you know it's good idea to reconsider it :) It would not prevent you from building it anyway if you feel like it so it would not impose restrictions on you. However you would be informed of possible consequences which can be very useful.

What is however VERY real concern is people abusing technology.  If it ever come to machines controlling your life you can bet there is a human on the top of it. Machines aren't going to strive for world domination, that's human emotion ... and that's exactly what's happening right now, technology is in the hands of few who use it to enslave others. This is a problem pointed out also by the author of Z movie and founder of the movement Peter Joseph, if military succeeds to create fully automated army with only a few in charge of it ... humanity is doomed. And they're working hard to do that so we have to work hard to counter it.

Anyway, that's enough of my rant :) The part about machines is obviously open to discussion and there are concerns which certainly need attention and TZM members are very well aware of that. There is constant discussion going on on TZM forums. I would advise to not jump into conclusions and reserve judgement until you are familiar of what The Venus Project is actually proposing. I think however that this issue is premature and irrelevant in relation to opening up a communication channel, we should focus on issues we can solve right now and to which we can agree, cooperate and make the world a better place to live in ;)

Peace

Blogtalk Radio address: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Peter-Joseph

Neils (VTV) Blogtalk Radio address: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/V-RADIO

Zeitgeist Orientation Presentation with subtitles: http://dotsub.com/view/a34fba0d-4016-4807-b255-021b58dbc9a4

TZM Forums (don't be spooked, it's quite a mess IMO ... it's online only for half a year, it's slowly crystalizing though ;) ): http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&I...