Different RBE topic

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It's been close to a year since I started watching the Zeitgeist film series, their idea that human effort could go towards helping the way we live instead of coming out on top struck a chord with me.

Then they talked about robot bubble cities and fed conspiracies, I felt like they were looking for an easy blame and solution that was too good to be true.

I still think RBEs have a shot in the mid future when costs for renewable energy approach a value closer to 0, and tasks like identifying a physical object and picking it up can be more easily performed by machines.

Here, you'd have unmanned vehicles that remove unwanted items from the population. Priority would be given to hoarders turning a corner, people with no further need for an item, to items obstructing roadways, recyclable materials, and perhaps just garbage if the capacity is there for it.

The idea is that you have a crowd that is technologically unemployed who would sort through everything and either recycle the items, or for the more useful stuff (laptops and tools), try to polish up the items and make it accessible for the public for free.

The Earthship model could be used to house the participants (although building one is very labor intensive)

Bottom line though, having an infrastructure to reduce clutter will serve to increase the overall efficiency of the population, and give the crowd interested in an economy based on resources plenty of resources (beggars can't be choosers).

Backing up a little, a Resource Based Economy is a hypothetical economy where only physical resources have any real value (and money doesn't), I'm not sure if money will ever become completely irrelevant, but I think some of the ideals I saw in the Venus project and the zeitgeist movement (RBEs biggest advocates), can be worked towards by people who are similar minded, and unemployed.

Any chance of an RBE would have to involve the resources nobody else wants. A resource based economy would have to start in the recycling sector, and would involve human effort because the movement doesn't have much more than the people moved by it at the moment.

It would be extremely useful to humanity to have their waste products disposed of properly or recycled, having a movement to work on this area would help increase overall efficiency in my opinion.

What is Zeitgeist anyway?

zeit = time.

bah, nevermind that last bit.

Zeitgeist means "spirit of the age (or times)" in German.

this sounds rather ominous.



there are a few problems i have with it. firstly the obvious criticism on the grounds of technocracy. i don't fancy machines and specialist engineers being in charge of things.

secondly, the approach to implementation is very, very unrealistic.

from the venus project's wikipedia page:

********************
The proposed way to transition to a resource based economy is as follows:[20]
Phase One — build a research centre ✔
Phase Two — produce a full-length feature film to premiere globally
Phase Three — construct an experimental research city (test prototype) including a theme park to show people how the future can be.
********************


build a research centre, make a film and build a city with a theme park, and we're good to go, apparently.

i hate to drag up marx again, but....

People movers?

ruveyn

@MDD 123
I think RBE is quite different as there is no 'second class citizens to take things nobody want.

@Peebo
I completely agree with you. Really what the proponents doing is just asserting the problems away.

certainly sounds like it.

I'm not talking about vehicles deciding for themselves what to pick up. I'm talking about people being able to dial up a car, put any unwanted items in, and have less clutter in their lives. Driverless cars are a possibility today (just an expensive one).

I didn't call anyone second class, you realize that there's a national unemployment average of 8.5% in the US, it would all depend on whether or not people wanted to volunteer themselves for something like this. As it is, there is already a following that likes the RBE concept, if they wouldn't be willing to apply themselves to some sort of project, then there's no chance of it working. If I wasn't in college right now, I'd be all in for something like this.

but do you really think that a utopian society will emerge from the unemployed recycling unwanted rubbish and the production of a movie and city with a theme park? surely you do realise that this is quite simply absurd? i understand that you and many believers in the zeitgeist are well intentioned, but it's just quite simply never going to happen. from doing a bit of research on it it appears, ironically, to be nothing more than a cash cow for the original proponents of it. you'd really need to completely lack any sense of robust inquisitiveness to believe that it can be a serious proposition.

A complete waste of two hours of your time. In a nutshell, it is a conspiracy theorist propaganda film that has been debunked.

I liked SOME of the ideas presented by the movements, but you're right, both leaders have a solid track record of taking much better care of themselves and tinkering with media software. The conspiracy theories and the idea that someday everyone would hand over their personal belongings and let a computer take charge charge are ridiculous.

When it came to being more resource conscious however, it struck me as a sensible idea. We aren't inclined to have much regard towards natural resources when money is at stake. We do a decent enough job at developing technology to help mankind, even if we don't always use it, IMHO.

Recycling is an industry that doesn't make much money, but helps with our managment of natural resources. Whether going into this area with a volunteer group and an infrastructure will lead to throwaway resources becoming valuable in their own right is hard to say. Michael Reynolds has proven that you can build a solid structure using carefully aligned tires packed with dirt (not as easy as it sounds), and he continues to look into low-cost effective ways to construct houses.

the problem is that any profit based and non collectivist system of social organisation will inevitably result in gross squandering of resources. a lot of people are aware of this, and perhaps this is what attracts people to the zeitgeist movement. perhaps also certain elements are attracted by the conspiracy aspect of it.

the elements of it that are actually desirable (distribution of resources based upon need, dismantling the power structure of the state and the monetary system) can be found in anarchist and libertarian communist movements (from where the zeitgeist movement wholesale leached them), which also advocate actual strategies by which these goals can be achieved (violent revolution on the part of the oppressed classes), rather than the ridiculous notion that building a theme park will convince the world capitalism and the state aren't very good. they also dispense with the more ludicrous conspiratorial fringe ideas.

it's unfortunate, but perhaps rather telling of the state of affairs in the modern world, that a movement like this can drum up so much support which, if channelled more effectively, might actually help us get somewhere.