Comments on: A 3-point critique of Zeitgeist, Moving Forward

By: Mauricio

Mauricio — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 01:54:20 +0000

Andreas contextualizes everything as embedded in social dynamics, therefore zeitgeist falls short, deterministic and full of falacy. Eric makes a point when recongnizing the “economic atheism”, but eventually ends up discussing the design for the utopian city. Both reviewers point at all the absurd concerns they can think of to avoid the debate of the value of the film.

The value of the film, the movement and its success is the recognition of a common demand for efficiency in the organization of our social, economic and political processes. Take away everythingelse: the analysis does fall short, project venus sounds like the most human-benevolent form of the singularity and it might only turn plausible after some form of apocalypse.

Throught this decade we’ve dealed with this demand by creating free spaces and interventions (just surf the P2P wiki), but in our desire to act as change agents in the urgency of our great anxieties we have shortened the scope of our actions and ambitions. As naive as this movie can be, it puts our ambitions in perspective: we need to design more aggresive interventions that escape the frictions and control mechanisms of “the system” in a far more coordinated way.

Any intervention that develops too strategicaly embedded in “the system” deals with the frictions that grow in the politics of the relationships through which it has developed. Any alternative to grow while avoiding this frictions is subjected to the control mechanisms of “the system”. The design of new interventions is a process of coordinated experimentation that builds upon a detailed comprehension of the processes of “the system”, its frictions and control mechanisms. These interventions, while organically developed, must align to a strategy that points to an “efficient system”.

This will only be possible through the development of a form of metalanguaje to think, represent, model, simulate and build social, economic and political technologies that absorbs and makes useless all the traditions of social, economic and political thinking in a new platform of analysis. Within this framework, we must develop a tool to represent all components of “the system” in order to build an exploratory model of the technologies in place. Building this model requires a series of interventions in itself in order to encourage people to lose an important part of their strategic and monetary value by leaking the information. This exploratory model will be the platform of action where we model, simulate and coordinate new interventions.

Zeitgeist makes explicit the demand for a greater efficiency, but falls the shortest when designing a course of action. It’s time for our ambitions, analysis and actions to be as big and complex as our problems are.

By: Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 06:08:31 +0000

In reply to Debra. Thanks, I will check the link, Michel

By: Debra

Debra — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:01:54 +0000

Hi Michel,

I very much enjoyed reading this post. I would like to share some thoughts with you http://www.circularcities.com it is a work in progress.

I look forward to reading more posts from you!
~D

By: David

David — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:18:13 +0000

I like Eric Hunting’s review. It’s logical and does point out what some people are feeling. “What do we do?” — This, in fact, is not something that can be answered so simply. The reason a course of action is not outlined is because at this stage of the game, our efforts would be extremely minor as opposed to what they could be, and what they need to be to save ourselves quicker (from suffering and inefficiency). What we ideally need is for a very, very large number of people to accept that *Critical Thinking* and *Education* are the only means by which we are going to better our lives. The only way in which we will avoid human suffering because of war and capitalism… and the pursuit money (which we all currently need a great deal of to live healthy) is to find the root causes of these things, and correct them over time. Getting rid of money would be a gigantic step in alleviating much of our societal stress. And the best way to do it is to look at yourself and see how you can be aware and alert to things that you do that are counter-productive to the well-being of everyone. If everyone did that, we would correct the problems *faster*.

The more people accept this way of life, or this perception of our current world, the more we are going to be able to change it for the better. If specific directions were given, they would be inefficient, and the small small sector we build, in which this ideal style of living is achieved, would be ransacked and ultimately destroyed by the industries that are losing profit do to our existence.

The timing isn’t right, and the plans have not been lain out. We are about educating everyone right now.

If you are already educated on all we are saying, you should be helping to educate everyone else. We need a community to build this movement. If we don’t have support from a majority, it will be us against them, and that kind of thing never works out well.

Sincerely.

Note: Your points in this post appear: 1, 2, 3, 2.