Sunday, February 6, 2011

Zeitgeist First Steps

Assuming you have read my previous posts, or at least understand and agree that the current money system is inherently problematic, the easy answer is yes we need to get rid of money and go toward a resource based economy.

The hard question is how can the entire world turn their heads upside-down overnight?
The answer is no they cannot, and they will not. Change will be slow but sure to come because it's easy to see if you just open your eyes. Things like Wikipedia and Linux were the beginning (decades ago), now we see Wikileaks and the Tunisian and Egyptian protests. We can see changes around the world ARE happening, and I think that's the most important part.

The more complex answer is how will these changes manifest? what direction will they take? and ultimatly we WILL, without a doubt, end the money system. One way or another.

As I said to the stubborn entrepreneur I had conversations with about this topic, it is not a question of 'if' it's more about 'when' and 'how' and we can see some of those answers as well already.

As with the zeitgeist movement they have many good answers and suggestions but they often don't have them all and so I think they should really ask the public (they have 500k people signed up) for more inspiration in their forums.

Motivation or incentives - specifically for complex tasks or problem solving it is proven that monetary rewards are almost never (90% of the time) solved fast, high quality and rewarding (to the person) by money rewards. [Reference: "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" watch it on TED]

More conversations and more thoughts have gone on in the past few days and I have taken in more knowledge, here is another documentary along the way that explores how humans exploit resources (tar sands - oil)  for monetary gain without any consideration for the precious ones that we really depend on to survive (water) http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2011/tippingpoint/

But I hope you have basic understanding by now so will continue to explore a different system.
As a side note one discussion with immigrants from the former soviet union led them to believe that Zeitgeist is a Communistic Idea. After reading up on it, yes it has many similarities but also many exceptions such as politics and money. Also please keep in mind the soviet union was not communist it was socialist with the goal to get to communism which never manifested. Which led me to believe that the soviet union may have never intended to be truly communistic since I know they had many of their own agendas in place and kept many secrets from its people. After seeing the similarities I thought 'maybe communism is not such a bad idea after all...'

More importantly, we really have to remember is to forget about labels and strict ideas or ideals and to simply work out a new system that will solve our problems and it will never be perfect so we will always keep solving new problems as they come along. That's the only way to make a better system for all of us while not destroying what we have left on this planet in terms of resources. All we know now for sure is the current system really is very bad and it must change. And it will change.

Once we can work out a way for all of us to get physical (or physiological) needs such as clean air, clean water, and nutritious food. Second we need to get our safety needs (that doesn't mean surveillant cameras everywhere!) a warm shelter that is comfortable enough. And now we can start solving real problems like how to reduce our wast or resources, energy and consumption in order for everyone to have a chance to live well and also help solve these problems! (there are many of them; how to reduce toxic use, advance technology and all of that without ever worrying about money).

Some of you may have learned it in school as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, at least in my case I learned it in a high school business class of all places. We distinguished from needs and wants. We learned that in order to sell unnecessary products we have to create the need of those products when really they are simply wanted (you will not die without an iphone - literally you need food and water first and after you have it all else is just a 'want'). Anyway we really need to explore the knowledge we have and technology can accelerated the learning and problem solving along with brilient minds that study the fact that reward of money will not make us happy, nor will the money itself. Problem solving for a purpose, say real world issues that are actually useful will!

Okay, give me your thoughts and comments below.

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