1. Global Government. Yes, the global government is the planet itself. I’ll say that again, our earth is our government; a global computerized system would be implemented not to limit, withhold, or advance some secret elite cause, but to explore, quantify, and expand on existing planetary resources for you and me. This would allow us all to understand what we have and how we can use those resources. A tremendous amount of waste is being produced by current construction methods, agricultural policies purposely destroy food to keep prices up, commercial products are built not to be recycled but to be sent to landfills that destroy possibilities for potential resources and land. There is no accountability for such inefficiencies in the current paradigm. Political, corporate, and militaristic or any other systems of dominance are destructive, wasteful, and inefficient in dealing with the earth’s capital and would have no basis for existence. The basis and motivation of the global system is first and foremost to meet every human being’s biological needs (clean air, abundant food, clean water, the best in medical care, adequate rest, etc.)
2. AI Automatons replacing humans as workers. To a certain extent automatons have already been integrated into society (automated automotive factories, call centers, traffic lights, ATM machines, escalators, elevators) unfortunately these technologies aren’t expanded upon to true social necessities (automated gmo/pesticide free agriculture, automated desalinization plants to eliminate water scarcity, automated construction to eliminate unnecessary deaths of workers, automated transportation system to eliminate the hundreds of thousands systematically killed in traffic accidents annually).
3. AGI (‘Skynet’) Supercomuters controlling most aspects of politics and society, including rationing global resources to global citizens. If they actually thought this out they’d know that soon enough machines will need more resources than humans. First of all, SKYNET is from the Hollywood movie Terminator and has absolutely no basis in this system. As far as controlling most aspects of politics and society, there are no politics. For the most part politicians are elitist, self interested bureaucrats that serve the established powers instead of the people and have no basis in the aims of the ZM VP movement. Reverting to the word control, what do you define by control? I would make the argument that machines controlling certain aspects of society are great in that they ease stress and make our lives easier. For example machines perform the tasks of cultivating our crops, directing traffic, maintaining internet functionality, maintaining a comfortable temperature in our homes, providing life support for sick persons, advising us of any problems with our automobiles. I understand the term “control” automatically raises hairs, but you have to look at the motivation behind such processes, human efficiency and well being. The ZM and VP look to expand on all these technologies that assist human beings in everyday life. There is no benefit in creating a divisive society of elitist technocrats and manipulated masses, this is a myth that we are tagged with supporting simply because we advocate technology to solve social problems. The internet is technology, let’s keep it in perspective please. When you say rationing global resources what do you mean by this? This implies that there is a scarcity in the system to begin with. Remember we are trying to move away from scarcity to abundance so that we do not have the rationing that currently exists in today’s system, and technology will help us achieve this (i.e. more advanced forms of cultivating crops and harvesting water). I agree with you that machines would need (as they do now) more resources than humans. However, what is your conclusion? When you say resources do you imply food and water, if you do, mind you that machines don’t consume such resources, they consume resources like petroleum and solar radiation which cannot be processed by the human body. Machines perform more work than humans and require more energy input as a result, but that doesn’t imply humans will suffer from this use of energy from machines. If anything we benefit from it because we have the ability to transform other forms of energy (heat, sunlight, garbage) into ones we can immediately use (food, electric heating, services). Collectively, plants and trees consume massive amounts of solar energy, exponentially far more energy than humans do. However, we consume another order of energy, we don’t necessarily compete with them because we aren’t wired to directly “eat” or “drink” solar radiation, just like machines don’t eat hamburgers and don’t suffer from human starvation. If what you said implied something else, I’m sorry. But its not so much that machines would need more resources than humans (this is a competitive connotation), it’s the idea that machines will harness many and different types of resources for humans to use.
4. A Utopian Agenda that “Peter” claims isn’t Utopian, yet the ‘research institute’ even describes itself as being Utopian / Futurist. History proves that all forced utopias become dystopias. History may very well show that, I actually don’t know, but I’m a bit confused as to the claim of describing themselves as being Utopian. Please cite where that is admitted. If anything in Zeitgeist Addendum Jacque Fresco does admit this isn’t Utopian at all, Peter Joseph in one of his lectures also admits this isn’t Utopian. I’ll be glad to cite you where I found those, but where did you get that? The only statement said anywhere near that is something like “its not utopian but it’s a hell of a lot better.” This is true.
5. Selfish Transhumanist agenda. I don’t know why you think any of this as selfish? Please elaborate. I haven’t read any books on the transhumanist movement however I did look into the definition and it says something like advocating technologies and methods that improve and go beyond human capacities. If there is a political, militaristic, economical, or other establishment motivation behind transhumanism, forgive me I am not aware of it but such establishment motives would completely contradict the ideas of the ZM and VP. However, we are all transhumanists by the very definition. The moment we use eyeglasses, the internet, cars, cell phones, shovels, computers, shoes, perform surgeries, etc. We are implementing technologies that go beyond our original capacities (we go inside cars to get to a location faster than if we walked, we are a part of that machine in the meantime.) I’m sure you wouldn’t label anyone who got a synthetic hip replacement, hearing aid, or a pacemaker or a contact lense or even a voice machine (i.e. Stephen Hawking) as a proponent of some transhumanist agenda aimed at destroying humanity. But neither should you call the ZM or VP that either, because we support technology for those ends just described. We support the ability to use technology for disabled individuals and even able individuals to improve quality of life in civilization.
6. Cashless (non-backed by Gold/etc) economic system. A ‘Resource Economy’ has been tried before… in the Soviet Union. If that was the case in the soviet union, they did a horrible job and history has shown the end result of that. They instituted banks, military-social dominance, politics, rationing of resources, monopolistic industrial establishments focused on creating warplanes, tanks, bombs, soldiers and institutionalized schooling that wasn’t interested in studying the natural world but a nationalistic fundamentalism based on maintaining the state’s affairs. The Zeitgeist movement and the Venus Project are completely opposed to such directions. We want to create a world without those backward ideologies. The earth currently functions as a resource based economy, for example plants don’t rely on money or gold to process their own food, they inherently use a technical process called photosynthesis to form sugars by harnessing solar energy. This provides food for animals, in turn animals serve as food for other animals, decomposing animals serve as food to bacteria which in turn nurture the soil and create an environment for new plants to grow again. You get the point, im sure. The natural world deals with resources in real time, not a dollar bill or credit card that is vulnerable to inflation, deflation, compound interest, and other bullshit abstract constructs. The Earth balances its own budget. The planet only allows a certain amount of life to flourish dependant on the amount of resources and stabilizing systems in place in a given area. Our earth is a food/resource web. It is in our best interest to understand these technical processes and utilize them for our own needs. We also want to expand on the earth’s abilities to provide sustenance by using human technologies based on the natural world for the good and health of all of us. Yes the earth also has destructive tendencies (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis) but we would develop technologies to overcome those events and maintain sustainability, efficiency and abundance.
7. Population Control. To meet these targets as policy sounds like a slippery slope to me. If I don’t communicate this well I’ll try again later but I’ll start with an analogy. You know how restaurants, stadiums, theatres, or any social conventions have a sign posted somewhere that says maximum capacity? This isn’t to control anybody per se or take away their freedom, its more of a management issue to ensure a comfortable environment for everyone as opposed to a crammed suffocating claustrophobic sweathouse. Never mind if there is a fire, you’ll die in the stampede before the fire itself. My point here is we need to balance our resources with our people to ensure the best quality of life for all. If we are too focused on having more and more babies WHILE disregarding the infrastructure of a city, that city could experience shortages in water, lack of teachers, higher job competition, etc. Of course this doesn’t mean killing off anybody. If anything it is a myth that we are overpopulated, we have the capacity to support many more people on this planet, the problem is how current systems in place (cities, distribution of resources, zoning and planning) are so ridiculously inefficient and abused that we think it’s a idea to get rid of some people). We have the oceans to colonize, we have the moon possibly, we have deserts that can be converted to forests (we have the technology to do that now). The idea is to keep population WITH ABUNDANCE and to do that we have to consider rezoning, re-planning whole cities, creating more spaces, rethinking networks of distribution. I don’t think anybody is a proponent of having children in a deprived environment and that is certainly not agenda of the ZM and VP. If anything that term “population control” is the methodology used right now in America and abroad, human beings are crammed into metropolitan areas or completely isolated by mass produced suburbias, if one wants to move to a rural area for space jobs are scarce. You can’t go to libraries, recreational centers, parks, beaches, schools or any other social environments after 5 PM because it’s all closed. This is control. No wonder there is crime. The current system’s motivation isn’t to ensure a good quality of life for you, but to keep you in line with what economic interests want. Going back to this whole issue with the word control, technology we advocate has absolutely no interest in “controlling human beings”, an elevator ( a machine) doesn’t say to itself “ah this bunch of 26 humans riding me are inefficient so I will ignore their command for the 5th floor and will only take them to the 2nd floor, then I will tell these humans to walk the rest of the way because my calculations have concluded they need to lose weight. It doesn’t work that way. If the elevator has the capacity to take them to the 5th floor then it will do so, no questions asked. But if the elevator’s capacity is only 3000 lbs and the audience inside is 4000 lbs (26 people), I don’t think people inside there are collectively screaming Well we have the freedom to get to the 5th floor at the same time, if anything they don’t want to go in there, its dangerous and claustrophobic, besides the elevator couldn’t handle it and the cables would snap. This is all about management and not control. Therefore a competent manager (global computerized system) would build another elevator with added weight capacity (Of course we would like a system that anticipates these problems in advance, buts it’s an example) which, as a result, manages not controls populations in working elevators to be safe, comfortable, and fast. This is the essence of what is meant by managing the planet’s habitants and resources. Mind you there is nothing against freedom, I want it as bad as you do I hope. We want freedom inherent in the system, and that’s what a cybernated systems aims to do.
8. The global government run by a global ‘god-on-earth’ AGI computer network to replace all world religions. I think I answered the global government aspect. If you mean god on earth by being an omniscient of the earth’s resources then by all means, this would definitely help us allocate what we need. If you mean god on earth by being omnipotent than it would be of great service to humanity to have a system of unlimited energy (electricity) to power our lives this would free us from unnecessary conflict of scarce resources even though omnipotent energy currently is not a reality. If you mean god by omnipresent, than by all means I would love nothing more than having a global system more advanced than cell phones and highways today that keeps me in full contact with my planet and fellow human beings, whether it is on another continent or planet …..no credit cards or dollar bills needed, just energy and the appropriate technologies. Now if you mean a version of god on earth from some George Orwell novel where some elite technocratic group exclusively uses technology to spy, control and manipulate your everyday affairs, then this is definitely not what we are talking about. That would be an absolute waste of resources. Why spy on someone with thousands of cameras, sensors, secret agents and drone planes, etc. etc. etc. when those resources can be used to make cameras and probes to find out how much titanium is in the earth’s crust, how much iridium or sulfur or coal or diamond resides under the land masses. We can “spy” on the earth to explore deep sea riches that could harness valuable minerals, send “drones” in the Amazon rainforest to find and replicate exotic herbs that improve our lives, or have “automatons” espionage other worlds for signs of life. Mind you these words are arbitrary because the focus of society in the VP and ZM isn’t some neurotic, fear driven thirst for authority. The focus is integration of all the planet’s resources for socially progressive endeavors like exploration, travel, knowledge, health, companionship, etc. I don’t know where you got the idea of the ZM or VP replacing all world religions. It is in our interest to spread awareness as to the current understandings of our world. For example there is no basis for the concept of race, we are all biologically related yet we continue to behave in divisive ways. Certain religions are proponents of race, caste systems, laws, and wars that are irrelevant social concepts that current modern discoveries and technological abilities can solve. But religions are beside the point, it can be a “scientific” ideology, “cultural” ideology, “political”, “economical” ideology etc. Any of these trains of thought that continue to perpetuate the idea that humans are innately evil, or animal/primal in nature, and must be managed by leaders, and that war is human nature, and that human suffering is necessary and that an afterlife of torture is inevitable if you don’t follow certain doctrine is completely out of touch in today’s world. We have the means to progress beyond these limited worldviews into a connected multi-culturally advanced, rich population of diverse individuals that share, grow, and interact with one another on the basis of family, human creativity, and planetary sustainability.