Zeitgeist: The Movie - Full, Final version

Miscellaneous General
41

Relax man, I really didn’t mean this in the tone you may have taken it.. Just throwing out my views and interested in others views, thereby further developing my own. I do still believe in what I said though.

In any case, to clarify what I mean. I don’t mean in terms of central planning, I meant the above in terms of people’s willingness to take their opinion of what is best for the whole into consideration (in addition to their opinion of what is best for themselves) when they decide what to do. I don’t mean enforcing anything against the will of others, I mean avoiding doing things you know are bad for others or advancing yourself (relative to others) at any costs to others. e.g. instead of growing market share by making a more suitable product, using vendor lock-in tactics that prevent the choice of the customer from picking the best product (and preventing the optimum development of that particular field). There are many situations where one knows that a particular action is detrimental for “the whole” and one still chooses to do it because to a large extent we are conditioned by society to believe that we have to be this way.. that its a “dog-eat-dog” world. Of course the extent to which this is true depends from circle to circle and individual to individual. Its this lack of thinking of the whole that (“in my opinion” - so you don’t think I’m being dogmatic here :wink: gives us gems like the federal reserve, wars on false pretexts and a lot of other unfortunate things. You’ve also got the issue that even those who do care more about the whole may in many cases feel alone and/or power-less to do anything about it. If you’re a really nice, best-intentions kinda guy or girl (as many start off early in their career) and you’re thrown into a very harsh corporate environment where sincere behavior is abused as a weakness, very often it can understandibly be difficult to keep playing fair. You see it as a risk to play nice unless you could be more sure that others would follow and that you playing nice won’t be punished. If there are more in the company who feel like you (and think the corporate culture is lets say unhealthily selfish) it would help if you are aware of each other so you may be able to leverage each other and feel more confident about taking risks for the good of everyone.

Another question I would be very interested in feedback: I’ve been thinking about the free market thing and the comments here. There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense to me: I assume the better an economic environment caters for the sum needs of its population, the more successfull one could consider it. In simple terms it should as best as possible make its people happy and avoid its people pain. The challenge I see is this: You may have one wealthy person with 20$ and 9 poor people with 1$. The wealthy person may have a desire to build a (I’m gonna pick random things here) skate park in the city square so that they can skate in the evenings and weekends. They will get a certain amount of happiness from that. If they were not to have that skate-park, they would not feel any grave pain though. The poor people want to build a market in the square so that they can trade food goods to be able to eat. If they don’t get the market they will feel much worse than the wealthy person would should they not have a skate-park. Not only would each poor person get more than the wealthy person in terms of happiness if the market were built instead of the skate park, but you have 9 of these poor sods affected. The wealthy person and and the 9 poor people bid for the square, the wealthy person has more leverage for their needs and hence the skate park gets built. This is a situation that happens often in life. The amount a wealthy person can spend on a little whim may be much more than a poor person can on a much graver need (hence affecting their happiness a lot more), but the wealthy person “vote” has a lot more force behind it. Therefore resources and services may not always be distributed in a manner that best serves the greatest need(s) of the economy as the needs of the wealthy have a greater voice. Thoughts/answers/comments?

It seems in many cases like the wealthier one is, the more one can leverage one’s wealth despite (or even against) the interests of the less wealthy. Aside from that one’s own desires/needs have a louder voice, one can leverage one’s wealth to unlevel the playing field to one’s own advantage. Which can lead to an increasing disparity between rich and poor - and not necessarily towards greater sum happiness of the people within the economy.

42

This sounds great in theory. But in practice I don’t see this as 100% accurate. If people act as if the whole does not exist, you have detrimental effects to others by the actions of the individual and hence “everyone suffers”. If the whole does not exist, why not pee on the toilet-seat if you’re not coming back? It may not affect you, but it affects the next person. The other example (more business relevant :slight_smile: is in assessing risks. When considering an action, companies may assess the risk of ill effects to themselves, but not to the rest of the economy (other businesses, consumers, environment). Companies may then act according to such assessments and by thinking the whole doesn’t exist (or matter), negatively affect everybody else (the Bayer aids contaminated pills incident in Zeitgeist is a stark example of this - if you imagine they didn’t get caught). Such ill effects to others may not always be measurable or traceable back to the company. The point is that if you have a culture of everyone acting in this manner (that the whole does not exist or matter) you have everyone actually suffering from it. And this has nothing to do with central planning or dictating.

43

This is the excuse for labeling “selfishness” as evil. Actually, it’s arrogance, and a disdain for others.

Get used to it, lots of people have it at all socio-economic levels.

Can you tell me how that doesn’t happen now? Oh, wait, it does. In fact, every public toilet I go into has the very real likelihood of having had someone pee on the seat, no matter how recently the place was cleaned.

However, the more obviously the place is “private property”, the less likely it is.

I am very much interested in how the state is somehow exempt from this motivation. Actually, this explains how the vast majority of the most polluted places on earth are government installations. It is just to much easier to de-ice the B52 and not give any thought to the run-off, especially when no one can sue you for polluting because you’re the government.

But what you present as an answer is to make everyone behave as you want them to. Thus both dictating and centrally planning.

44

The reason you have difficulty grasping the viability of a free market is that you have no concept of property rights.

Consider the guy who pisses on the toilet seat: if it was his, obviously it doesn’t matter what other other people think because when they acquire his permission to its usage they must take the bad with the good (viz. having to use a pissed on toilet but being able to relieve themselves); if it was someone else’s then they have the right to hold him responsible to clean it up.

Your accusation of capitalism causing overconsumption because of scarcity is paradoxal, as it is precisely because of scarcity that property rights, and hence capitalism, exist: any time that anyone ‘overconsumes’, the only person to suffer is the overconsumer (so in a free market there is a built-in incentive for people to save). Essentially your claims against capitalism only show your complete ignorance of it. This (in conjunction with rampant collectivism like your own) is the stuff tyrants are made of.

45

I’m not going on about tyranny, or even that capitalism is “evil”. Most probably each system tried in the past has its disadvantages even in theory. I’m quite clear about the issues in communism and dictatorship. I’m not here to promote that, actually I’m not even thinking in some polar or boxed fashion about free market versus communism with all its implications. I’m just expressing some of the issues I see with the free market model and am curious whether it has answers or explanations to these. Yes, I’m ignorant in this subject, less ignorant in others. This really isn’t meant to be an attack of anyone’s beliefs or intelligence. Just explain me this (and please don’t assume that I’m pushing central governance with this question):

It was discussed earlier in this thread that one can “vote” with one’s wallet. I pointed out that a wealthier person’s needs have greater leverage than a poor person’s. A wealthy person can out bid a poor person to satisfy a little whim whilst the poor person might have a much stronger need unsatisfied. In this instance, if the poor person were satisfied they would gain a lot more happiness than if the rich person were satisfied. However the rich person’s need will be satisfied because their wallet has a stronger “voting” voice. My assumption is that the goal of an economic model is for it to in total make the people as happy as possible and avoid as much pain as possible. Is there a free market explanation, answer or acknowledgement (as in, its an unfortunate limitation of the system but its still the best we have) of this? (this is the skatepark vs. market example I mentioned in my previous email)

46

Prove it.

47

In India (say Bombay), you have expensive hotels catering to the wealthy whilst extreme poor people are living on land made out of dirt dumped in the water. Resources are spent to cater for the needs of the wealthy, such needs go beyond basic shelter, clean water and food, but waiters , deserts, spa-facilities, room service etc.. The wealthy residents of the hotel have more money and hence steer the use of resources towards them rather than the poor who have basically no “voting” power on the use of resources because they have no money. If those resources were used to get basic shelter, clean water and food for those extremely poor, the difference in happiness experienced would be much greater than the slight disappointment those wealthy would experience if they had to go down to grab their food themselves, or didn’t have a spa etc..

I’m guess when you said “prove it”, you were asking to prove that such situations exist. In fact such situations in our society constantly exist. In some countries more than others. If you are asking me to prove that those starving would feel a bigger difference in their happiness if they were to be given food than the rich would feel if they were given extra luxuries, my response is that of course each person can only feel what they themselves feel. But honestly, there is no reason for us to believe that a poor person feels less than a wealthy person. And if that wealthy person feels some irritation in loosing (or not getting) a luxury, you can be confident they would feel much more if they were deprived of food (and I doubt you will find many wealthy who claim otherwise). And this deprivation of food is the state that these poor are in. So we could go into the theoretical realm of “how do you know what I feel”, but that would be a cop-out. I think its pretty clear that in general, basic necessities for life such as food, shelter, medication make a bigger difference to a person’s happiness than spas.

And btw, if the free market model doesn’t address this question much (do you guys know if it does?), it might be cool to hear people’s own thoughts on this… Do you even perceive this as an issue/limitation to how our societies run? Do you think its an unfortunate “necessary evil”? Do you think a system could be invented or an existing system could be modified to reduce the impact or eliminate this issue (especially thinking outside of the everythings somewhere between free market and communism boxes)? Or would a free market model if implemented correctly (according to your views) actually address this and if so how?

48

And btw, even if one argues that above basic amenities only the individual can decide whats important to them (and I fully agree with this), the point is that a poor person simply has less leverage and voting power to affect resources to satisfy their needs. Hence, even if those poor people felt an extreme need to wear flip-flops more even than the need to get fed, they’re not gonna get that need satisfied either - whilst the rich in the hotel are given complementary bathroom flip-flops although they could very easily do without because they most likely have an existing choice of foot wear.

49

Why not? This would seem an excellent time and place to consider the free market versus communism with all its implications. But then, that’s been done many, many times already.

So if I rank a big-screen TV with happiness 8, compared to someone else ranking a year of private school with happiness 4, I win?

This is the insanity of trying to rationalize different people’s wants in order to “plan” the greater good.

You can’t.

The only alternative is to leave it up to each individual to dispose of their means as they see fit, to achieve the greatest good they individually choose to. But then, we’re right back to “free market capitalism” again.

Prove it. How can you know that the wealthy person is any happier than the less affluent? Many lottery winners end up broke and suicidal, which directly refutes your premise.

Your assumption is demonstrably false. Your assumption requires central planning, in that you are attempting to make a model which will “make the people as happy as possible”. You cannot make someone happy. I learned that a looong time ago.

May I recommend some texts by the Dalai Lama? Such as The Art Of Happiness.

Yes.

  • Leave people alone, they will each pursue the greatest good for themselves.
  • With every individual pursuing their own greatest good, the greatest number will have the opportunity to achieve it within their individual circumstances.

So your stated goal of the greatest good for the greatest number has the greatest chance of succeeding only if you leave people alone.

May I again recommend some reading? How about any of the works of L. Neil Smith, where lots of speculative circumstances are presented where “common” good is answered by each individual pursuing their own satisfaction.

50

India is a socialist country. This is why the bulk of the population is so poor. In a socialist country, wealth is acquired by theft. Such wealthy pigs would not exist. In a free market economy, wealthy people are those who serve the community.

51

No, you’re correct, there isn’t. However, there’s no way to measure and compare the difference between the utility “rich” person gets from the room service and the utility a “poor” (whatever that actually means) person gets from any food whatsoever.

Once again, prove it.

The only way individuals can demonstrate their individual preference scales is through action, this simply isn’t possible unless an entirely free marke exists.

52

Thanks for the reading tips, it will be interesting for me to check out. I won’t bombard you with too many remarks or questions before doing so. My only remarks about about my current impressions are:

It sounds to me like we are too easily jumping to conclude a dictatorship is always implied. I mentioned earlier in this thread that the “answer” to some of the problems pointed out in Zeitgeist may very well be a sociological one. What I mean with that is the way people choose to view, interact and treat each other. Within any single economic system (free market, socialist, communist) the way people treat each other makes a difference. Yes, I’ve mentioned that I think it would be beneficial for people to consider the whole when acting. That does not mean I am advocating dictatorship to enforce people to “think about the whole” or act in a specific manner (as thats impossible to calculate, determine or agree upon). I’m saying that if people evolve to culturally do that by their own accord, we as a whole will benefit from that. Of course each individual is different, each day you are different (some times you are in a right rotten mood and at others you shine to the world) but I’m saying in general terms from circle to circle, family to family, school to school, community to community, there are differences in cohesion. Even within company’s you sometimes get one department or sales person out-bidding another which leads to unnecessary loss in sales revenue.

So my point was never about forcing others to do something. However, each of us has an influence over the whole, whether we like it or not. We may end up evolving to form a more cohesive society or a less cohesive society. If we do end up being more cohesive its not because we are dictated to do so, its because we have influenced each other in that direction. Of course there’s a million things that affect it. But we can (if we believe cohesion is a good thing), choose to do things or act in ways that will lead in that direction. I know there are strong views in this forum, but I also know that (possibly outside this forum) I’m not the only one who thinks that its a good thing for us to work on the health of our society and that will ultimately be beneficial to us as a group.

Regarding central planning, if it is true that that would truly get rid of all war like activities, hey, I’m all for it.

Regarding property, I get the idea that owning something makes you care for it and you can theoretically hold people accountable for damage to it. In practice though, you can’t always hold a person accountable because to track accountability has a cost in itself. Any society or community needs a level of trust to function. The less trust there is, the more expensive it becomes to account for everything (just think of companies where you’ve had to track each conversation to CYA because people are so willing to use things against you versus healthier environments where you can just focus on being productive).

The interesting question that Zeitgeist raised for me is: do our economic systems (with their assumptions) promote un-cohesive behavior because you are taught that the best and only thing you should do is fight for yourself and not worry about damages to others.

With regards to selfishness versus aberrant behavior. Yes, I agree there’s a difference. My view is that with a more cohesive society you get less aberrant behavior.

The reason I think there’s value in not gunning for a strict free market versus communism argument is because that closes out any other truly new solutions, or novel mutations of these that examine aspects other than just whether it is centrally governed or not. Sounds cliche but it prevents you thinking outside the box: If its not free market, it must be dictatorship etc.. etc..

looks like I have bombarded again

53

Thank you. Now I finally understand what motivates your questions:

Envy.

54

I mentioned in the next email that regardless of what needs an individual has, the poor person has a weaker voice to request satisfaction from the economy than the richer person. If money were to accurately reflect utility or happiness gained, then by that logic a wealthy person paying a million for a 3rd super-car gets more happiness than a poor person for paying 20 dollars for a vaccine to save their own or their children’s life. You yourself mentioned that rich people are not always happier than poor people. I fully agree with you. In fact its often the opposite. But if expenditure of money accurately reflected need in the economy, then the more a person spends in money, the more they are satisfying happiness. Since we are all human beings, statistically speaking, we have to assume each person has the same breadth for feeling happiness and pain. The greatest need of a poor person will still be out-bid by the lowest need of a wealthy person. If you still say prove it, in my opinion we are avoiding the crux of this item with going overboard on the theoretical.

But yeah.. maybe there is no solution, I don’t know. I do recognize it as a limitation though.

55

I meant “that not having it would truly get rid of all war like activities”

56

Are you joking? Yeah, I’m a poor indian with no flip-flops or food earning 6 digits as an IT specialist in the netherlands. Comon, is it really that hard to have an open debate without paranoia? Lets just leave it mate..

57

No, not at all. I’ve been reading your “questions” and trying to figure out what was underneath. Your words were many times contradictory, such as not wanting to discuss dictatorship while all the while saying what people “should” be doing.

But this “rich/poor” thing has finally showed what really motivates you: Some rich person gets slippers while someone else doesn’t even get clean floors.

Paranoia? Hardly. The vast majority of progressive legislation is based upon envy. Progressive income taxes, property taxes &etc, all “punish” success. “The rich pay more since they make more.” It’s all just envy, the assumption that life is a zero-sum game and if someone wins it’s because someone else loses.

When it was suggested that you were a latent dictator, wanting to tell other people how to live, was that paranoia? So it turns out you have a case of slipper-envy. So what? The important thing it so identify those motivations and address them honestly.

That’s called “open debate”.

58

You miss the point, utility cannot be measured and compared. It is only possible for individuals to rank their preferance ordinally and these preferance scales cannot be compared to those of others, the only possible way for individuals to demonstrate their preference is through action.

59

Ok, I get what you’re saying and it may well be the dilemma.

60

It pretty much starts off with utter nonsense, so I couldn’t bring myself to watch much further. The connection and resemblance between the stories of Horus and Jesus are so overblown as to be farcical. The very images the film shows in Luxor have a written story they illustrate right next to them, and that story describes anything but what the Abrahamic anti-sexual pathology would describe as an “immaculate” conception.

Yes, the story is one of a god impregnating a woman, but quite in the old fashioned way. Indeed, at one point the woman complements him on the godly size of his member. The ancient pagans, apparently, were not prudes. The movie relies on general ignorance for acceptance and to make its points. It’s trash.