The Zeitgeist Movement - The Venus Project Moves Forward

[mber]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYLLFpNn4lM

Here’s the new trailer for the 3rd Zeitgeist movie.

Try reading the comments, you’ll want to just…face palm.

What’s more, when you try questioning these people, they confidently assert that they refuted Dr. Murphys article here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/v-radio/2010/09/06/brandy-hume-returns-to-confront-austrian-neo-troll

Honestly I really don’t see this “movement” going anywhere because of their serious lack of economic understanding. Yet, if it is funded properly (which I suspect it is), then it couldn’t possibly be any less receptive than the economic policies of the last eight years right? I get a bad feeling about this..

Thoughts?

[Giant_Joe]

Honestly I really don’t see this “movement” going anywhere because of their serious lack of economic understanding.

Not only that, but their denial of reality.

Yet, if it is funded properly (which I suspect it is), then it couldn’t possibly be any less receptive than the economic policies of the last eight years right?

If they can actually meet their goal of eliminating scarcity, I’d be giving the shirt off my back to them.

Turns out I know a few things about economics to know that for the most part, they’re just uneducated cranks.

And that link to the radio show was a little bit ironic. Got this google ad:

Mises Proven Right, Again

Tired of Know-Nothing Economists? Sign up for Free Analysis!

[mber]

Absolutely.

What I can understand so far from their arugments, is that scarcity will be over come through creating abundance by the new technology. For example, providing everybody with renewable energy so people don’t get an electric bill anymore.

Still the question begs, how do we provide the nessasary capital goods for this? Unless these renewable energy sources fall from the sky, they’ll cost resources, land, labor and capital.

[GooPC]

Socialism fails to badly that its supporters are constantly rushing around creating new reason why “it will work this time.”

Rothbard’s brief summary of recent shifts in socialist thought in For a New Liberty puts the Venus project in perspective. The project claims that the current problem with capitalism is that it isn’t producing enough of the right technology. Rothbard notes a contradictory view from the 60s:

For two or three frenetic years we were regaled with the idea that America’s problem was not stagnation but the exact reverse: in a few short years all of America’s production facilities would be automated and cybernated, incomes and production would be enormous and superabundant, but everyone would be automated out of a job. Once again, free-market capitalism would lead to permanent mass unemployment, which could only be remedied — you guessed it! — by massive State intervention or by outright socialism.

It seems like that past 10 years have been dominated by the sustainability movement. Their idea was that capitalism was too productive, that we were using up all of the Earth’s resources and we needed government and socialism to implement “controlled, sustainable growth.” Since the bubble popped, this view has faltered, and I will bet good money that as the recession continues the sustainability movement will continue to decline.

Since the bubble popped, we’re back to classic socialist ideas: capitalism doesn’t produce enough wealth. It seems like modern society is somewhat receptive to the Venus project’s technocratic socialist utopia. They think that this time socialism will work because “we have technology on our side.” But it’s still the same socialism that Mises proved wrong 100 years ago.

[mber]

SophistAssassin

I can debunk Austrian Economics with two words: Technological Unemployment.

Ask any Austrian Economist and their response will be “technological unemployment doesn’t exist! Just look at history! They only displace jobs, they don’t destroy them.” This was true in past decades, but we’re running out of sectors. They also ignore the fact of exponential technological growth. Count 1-30 linearly and you get 30. Count 1-30 exponentially and you get 1 billion. See Kurzweil’s work.

Me

I assume one of your goals for the Venus Project is to achieve abundance. So If what you mean by displacing jobs is that businesses no longer need those employees because of new technology, than we’re confronted with two things. One, this business is being more productive (supply more goods) which pushes us ever closer to a world of abundance. And two, we now have new workers to man the new technology. Work is not the goal, leisure is the ultimate goal of labor. Jobs = bad.

SophistAssassin

Many of the occupations displaced don’t create new jobs. I am watching that happen at a part time job I have right now. Digital projectors are phasing out projectionists completely. So by Austrian Economic theory, that must mean there are new jobs made to repair these machines, right? Wrong, we already have a maintenance guy. The projectionists would be laid off. These projectors already can be programmed to start at set times. This is just one example of many.

Me

What’s your point? Do you think all of the jobs of electricians, sewer technicians or oil ship workers will stay if over night we adopted your new “abundant for all technology?”

Like I said, we don’t want jobs, we want leisure. More productive capital goods push us closer to the goal of this.

SophistAssassin

I am saying that Technological Unemployment is a huge problem to capitalism in general, no matter the form. How can a society function once 50+% of the workforce is eliminated and people can’t find jobs because there literally are none? What will be their source of income when they can’t get a job? Will they have to barter for everything? Sell themselves?

Austrian Economic Theory was popular a century ago because this problem didn’t exist back then. It’s an outdated system.

[Alan_Chapman]

It’s my understanding that the VP aims to abolish money and private property. Such a society would quickly disintegrate and regress into a hunter-gatherer society with most of humankind dying of starvation and exposure. None of the technological advancements that they envision would ever materialize.

[Mises_Pieces]

This is dumb. If technology eliminates a job, that person will just be freed up to do another job fulfilling human wants. The only thing that could stop this from happening is if all human wants were satiated, in which case, by definition, no one would want a job.

[ricarpe]

They argue that technology will give us abundance and we’ll live care-free lives a in a world of plenty; then, in the next breath, they bemoan technology for creating unemployment.

Am I missing something here, or do they contradict themselves with their argument?

[mber]

They argue that technology will give us abundance and we’ll live care-free lives a in a world of plenty; then, in the next breath, they bemoan technology for creating unemployment.

Am I missing something here, or do they contradict themselves with their argument?

Yeah it’s pretty silly.

I tried making the point on youtube that it’s Leisure which we’re after not work, and that an increase in technological producitivity is a good thing. And yet they resort to “Austrian economics is old and outdated because it doesn’t account for technological unemployment”.

What?

[Metus]

It’s the good old argument by assertion. You just can not mind them idealists be bothered to read their opponents arguments, let alone think them through.

[WurmD]

I tried making the point on youtube that it’s Leisure which we’re after not work, and that an increase in technological producitivity is a good thing.

Hmm..

But we already have an installed production capacity greater than the population’s needs don’t we?
About food, UN stated 50% of the food produced goes to waste.
About everything else, a small example close to me is a car factory that hasn’t worked at 100% in years

Why isn’t leisure time increasing? (Is it increasing?)

EDIT: the continued increase in productivity is indeed a good thing, I do want to see my leisure time increase in consequence to that

They argue that technology will give us abundance and we’ll live care-free lives a in a world of plenty; then, in the next breath, they bemoan technology for creating unemployment.

Am I missing something here?

Well, today when cashiers are substituted by automated kiosks, it causes unemployment. Which until the cashier goes through the process of adapting his skills to provide another service, is equated with hardships, right?

In another world where supermarkets would simply be open, free access to all (just swipe the barcodes at the exit to help monitor the stock), a cashier being substituted by an automated kiosk would mean he was finally free to go do something more interesting, or just enjoy his greatly increased leisure time.

And when we think cashier, we can think of any repetitive job, any automatable job.

[mber]

Right, it puts the labor to more productive uses to satisfy the more urgent demands of consumers.

[yuberries]

If them venusians think they can abolish scarcity, then go ahead, make infinite food and housing and give it out for free. There’s no need to abolish anything. Money isn’t stopping people from breathing the abundant air. Neither is private property. Capitalism isn’t stopping self-replicating robots from being made, that’s ridiculous. The first company to make such robots would gain a huge financial advantage and prestige for centuries to come. Microsoft went this far with basically just an operating system. Imagine the makers of such a revolutionary machine… the world would give it trillions. What more incentive you want? Rather, why take away the type of incentive that worked best so far, to replace it with nothing? Forcibly so even. It’s unjustifiable.

In sum, they show their communist bent by being anti-capitalist for no reason related to the technology they want to achieve. They put the cart before the horse when they want to get rid of capitalism first, before having the physical conditions that render capitalism irrelevant (super abundance).

Resource-based economy should rather be called Reality-based economy.

Hm… thats without invoking any praxeological axiom, which alone whould refute everything venusian of course.

[WurmD]

They put the cart before the horse when they want to get rid of capitalism first, before having the physical conditions that render capitalism irrelevant (super abundance).

But don’t we already have super-abundance? The (literal) mountains of trashed cellphones aren’t one example of that? The said 50% trashed food isn’t another example? :S

Forcibly

It would never work by force :), that’s written somewhere in the venusian handbook.
Never “by force” and always “outgrowing the need” for each of the undesirable things such as money, prisons or laws.

trillions. (…) the type of incentive that worked best so far, to replace it with nothing?

Noone puts it best than Daniel Pink http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html how money really isn’t an incentive at all for creative tasks, such as inventing fancy robots ^_^. (He also hints at what would replace $ as the incentive)

Capitalism isn’t stopping self-replicating robots from being made

Well, it did stop the electric car for a while, didn’t it?

[Marek_K_Nowak]

What’s more, when you try questioning these people, they confidently assert that they refuted Dr. Murphys article here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/v-radio/2010/09/06/brandy-hume-returns-to-confront-austrian-neo-troll

God, it’s so annoying to listen to those 2 talking.

Why didn’t they invite someone who has a clue about economics to their debate?

Did they took the 2 most ignorant members of their community to talk about it? Or all people as clueless as them?

All I heard for 1 hour was endless repetition of the most common and ignorant fallacies that the general public can hold, combined to the eternal excuse “it’s different for us”.

Fact: Eliminating money is not a new idea, socialist have been talking about that for centuries.

Fact: You will never eliminate scarcity. Not only they grossly over-estimate the current stock of capital and resources, human body and time will always be scarce. The Garden of Eden will never exist on earth. Sorry to break it to you.

Fact: Most of their argument rely on the “there’s no scarcity any more, so it’s not a problem!” Since they are deadly wrong, and massive amount of saving is currently required to even keep the limited level of capital stock we have, they would bitterly face the hard reality if they even get an attempt at realizing their pipe dream.

Fact: By eliminating duplication in production, you eliminate competition.

Fact: A computer decides nothing. The one programming the computer decides everything. Their technocracy ruled by “Cybernation” will unavoidably be ruled by a tiny elite, pretending their decisions comes straight our of the “machine”.

Fact: Fesco sounds smart only to economically illiterate people.

Fact: As soon as someone learns some basic economics and economic history, one see how their ideas are just an old, tired repetition of myths, cliches and failed childish dreams, dressed in new high-tech computer generated screenshots.

Fact: The Venus project is , at the end of the day, just another socialist anti-money, post scarcity pipe dream, populated by super-human. Been there, done that, resulted in millions of deaths each time.

Please, please educate yourself, venus project people, and you shall know the truth.

[yuberries]

@WurmD

They put the cart before the horse when they want to get rid of capitalism first, before having the physical conditions that render capitalism irrelevant (super abundance).

But don’t we already have super-abundance? The (literal) mountains of trashed cellphones aren’t one example of that? The said 50% trashed food isn’t another example? :S

It’s not. Those cellphones are trash because no one found a good enough use for them that is worth collecting them for it. Besides, it is a given that every electronic device is inadvertedly going to be trashed some day. What do you expect to be done with all of them? Rather, does that mean that they should never have been made? Or that some other task should be done with them? Then put your wallet where your mouth is and fund such project. They’re probably uneconomical, meaning, wasteful themselves, which is why they aren’t done… read mises.org articles on recycling if you care more than I do.

The 50% trashed food is yet again out of context; what was the figure 100 years ago? And 1000 years ago? Why such food is trashed? Are people throwing food away because they’re rich and don’t care about their money? Is it mismanagement - entrepreneurs are all being retarded and wasting 50% of their supplies? Is it unavoidable spoiling that everyone everywhere has always had to face in the food business? I don’t know but I’m thinking the latter. There is nothing so obviously wasteful that the people in business aren’t already aware of, and try their best to minimize.

@WurmD

Forcibly

It would never work by force :), that’s written somewhere in the venusian handbook.
Never “by force” and always “outgrowing the need” for each of the undesirable things such as money, prisons or laws.

OK sorry for the false accusation and ty for the clarification.

@WurmD

trillions. (…) the type of incentive that worked best so far, to replace it with nothing?

Noone puts it best than Daniel Pink http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html how money really isn’t an incentive at all for creative tasks, such as inventing fancy robots ^_^. (He also hints at what would replace $ as the incentive)

There is so much wrong with this argument that i don’t feel it’s worth my time explaining you everything (edit: okay maybe not wrong, but completely misunderstood and twisted). Methadologically, praxeologically, even empirically… I would have pointed you to an article instead but there doesn’t seem to be any besides this http://blog.mises.org/13791/roberts-and-pink-on-incentives/ so I’m gonna be kind and explain a little.

1- Empirical social science is garbage. I won’t elaborate on this because I’d rather focus on the other points

2- Praxeologically, there is absolutely 0 sense as to why someone would do less of what it wants to do, when it’s given more money, so the claim that money makes people work worse is praxeologically retarded. Unless the person has an adversion to money, the person would at least not bother a promotion.

3- What can make sense however is that more money lures the wrong type of people, or gives people a wrong signal when abused - those who want money more than they want a career, develop their plan, etc. etc. THIS theory is praxeologically valid, but has little impact on psychology, its a matter of economical interactions.

4- Rewards, in the scope of what you spouse, is also only being studied on a employer-employee relationship. The incentives that austrian economics explores goes way beyond that. Money means much much more than just a reward to be given around. But you’ll have to study much much more to understand what I mean so I won’t bother. edit2: now that I’ve read the article (http://blog.mises.org/13791/roberts-and-pink-on-incentives/ ), Blumen makes an argument of about the same nature. The experiments are retarded because they take a fixed pool of participants and pump money in. Of course its not going to help… sigh

Also, do not trust any mainstream economist, nor the FED, to know anything about economics.

[SirThinkALot]

What I can understand so far from their arugments, is that scarcity will be over come through creating abundance by the new technology.

Actually if you check out their site(http://www.thevenusproject.com/index.php), the claim isnt even taht scarcity can or even will be overcome by technology, but that it already has. The only thing preventing use from transition to a ‘resource based economy’ is the fact that corporations and government ‘force’ us to ‘ration’ resources through money. Peppered throughout their FAQ and several of their articles are bits like this:

At present, we have enough material resources to provide a very high standard of living for all of Earth’s inhabitants.

Technically The Venus Project is feasible today.

Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care; update our educational system; and develop a limitless supply of renewable, non-contaminating energy.

I’d have more sympathy for them if they were suggesting that technology might or could be overcome scarcity at some unsepcified point in the future(still impossible without overturning all the known laws of physics). But they seem to actually think scarcity has been eleminated today, and that only ‘society’(particularly the use of money) is holding us back…

[yuberries]

^ Ok the project has descended to the level of complete bull**** to me, thx.

[WurmD]

There is so much wrong with this argument that i don’t feel it’s worth my time explaining you everything (edit: okay maybe not wrong, but completely misunderstood and twisted).

ahmm.. Well, Pink’s TED talk is short (18 min) and funny as well, I hereby poke you to watch it, you won’t lose much.
The claims (coming from repeated experiments) are simple enough:

• Get a bunch of people,
• offer half of them rewards for the best performances,
• give them a task that requires at least rudimentary cognitive skills,
• watch the group incentivized with rewards take longer on the same task

they take a fixed pool of participants and pump money in. Of course its not going to help… sigh

scratch-head :S, could you point me to where to start studying to understand..?

If you preface everything you say with the phrase ‘studies have shown…’ people will believe anything you say no matter how ridiculous. Studies have shown this works 87.64% of the time.

XD how about a list of said existent technologies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk3845iQQI
SirThinkaLot, click here, just for you

[Azure]

ahmm.. Well, Pink’s TED talk is short (18 min) and funny as well, I hereby poke you to watch it, you won’t lose much.
The claims (coming from repeated experiments) are simple enough:

• Get a bunch of people,
• offer half of them rewards for the best performances,
• give them a task that requires at least rudimentary cognitive skills,
• watch the group incentivized with rewards take longer on the same task

Unfortunately this is not a refutation of the usefulness of the monetary system or of capitalism itself.