The movie was made by Peter Joseph. The 2007 movie was mainly about 9-1-1
Conspiracy which won�t be covered in this review. The 2011 Zeitgeist: Moving
Forward is a documentary about building sustainable modern economic, new way of
living, criticism of consumerism and monetary policy, preservation and all the
good stuff that�s similar to ideology of the recent Occupy Wall Street movement,
It makes many interesting points, some I agreed, some I don�t, So let�s see the
top 10 list, shall we?
Economic is
to economize, but our society does not economize enough
Yes, our
society does not economize most efficiently, but that's different to say
we don't economize at all.
Just
because Tiger Wood is not the best golf player of all time, can you
accuse him of not knowing how to play golf?
For
Examples:
Cars have
improved mileage
Refrigerator is
more efficient
Light bulb save
more energy
Even your big
screen LED TV consume less energy than the CRT models
Agriculture feed
more people
That fits the
very meaning of economize, to do more with less.
I agreed
with the movie the fact is we do consume more energy than our ancestors.
It�s not because we are more greedy, it�s because there are more people
on earth, and with much higher living standard
I know we
still feel like we are poor. That�s because we don�t compare our
living standard with our forefathers We only compare it with our
contemporary peers.
Money does
not bring happiness, that again, I agreed with the movie.
Rich
powerful people conspire against us
Don't blame
the corruption of the powerful people for the stupidity of the common
men.
62 million
people elected George Bush for a second time on 2004, Is that
conspiracy or stupidity?
Fox news was the
most popular news channel in the media. Is that conspiracy or
stupidity?
70% Americans
believed in WMD. Is that conspiracy or stupidity?
Y2K which
predicted the meltdown of civilization. Is that conspiracy or
stupidity?
Airport security,
many nail clippers and bottle water were missed, yet people could
still bring explosives to the plane. Is that conspiracy or
stupidity?
It is not
the conspiracy of the powerful people, but it�s the inadequacy of the
common mind.
Is the rich our
enemies and the poor our friends?
Warren
Buffett. The 2nd richest man in the world. Is he not rich enough, is he
not powerful enough. Yet he complained the tax for rich people is
too low.
So this poor guy,
Joe the Plumber who later said he made less than 250 thousands a
year is worrying about a tax increase that is specifically targeted
for the 250 thousands. So this guy want Warren Buffett and Bill gate
to pay less tax�. Is that stupidity or conspiracy.
Now look at those
poor folks... say Joe the Plumber, who claimed he didn�t make much
money, yet he complained the tax for rich people was too high. The
rich people complained their tax too high, yet the poor people
wanted the rich to have lower tax? What kind of world we live in?
And look at the
poor grass root followers of Sarah Palin, they walked out the
meeting chanting �Drill baby drill�, They didn�t look like the CEO
of the big oil companies yet they care more about the welfare of the
rich than their own. Is that conspiracy or stupidity?
The rich folk
like Bill Gate spent half of his wealth on charity, probably
thinking he has more money than he knows how to spend. Yet the poor
people from the tea party complained that these �job-creators� were
punished by high tax... Is that conspiracy or stupidity?
Occam�s
razor, why blame conspiracy when all these can be easily explained by
the stupidity of common men? It�s not the rich and powerful people who
conspire against us, it�s the stupidity of the common mind that conspire
against us.
Zeitgeist
the movie is not about Marxism
It is like
arguing intelligent design is not about religion
Technically it may
not be Marxism,but it�s very
close to communism
Comparing Marxism to
Communism is like comparing creationist to intelligent design
Different but
similar. I will give more solid evidence below.
Abolishment
of monetary system
That I
cannot agreed.
Money is only a tool,
It�s a little piece of paper that help us to keep the score
Blaming money for all
the evil, is like blaming the messenger for the war.
The problem is not
money itself but the distribution of money.
Just like in the old
soviet, which tried to get rid of money but instead replace it with
different sort of coupons.
The only way to
change is to change the government who controls money but not money
itself.
We can build
an Utopian City
On paper,
it�s very easy to build a circular city, like the one mentioned in the
Venus project, because paper is flat. But the real world has mountains,
rivers, oceans, desert and jungles�
Who is going to do
the governing job? Who is going to do the mundane job? Avoiding the
question by saying a robot or a super computer will take care of that is
like saying God will take care of everything. Different name, same
excuse.
I don�t think it�s
impossible; it�s just not in the near future. Eventually we will reach
that state, if we don�t destroy ourselves before then.
Distribute
wealth according to one�s need and centralized resource management
We are
already doing that
Health care is like
that, sick people receive more resources, healthy people get rewarded
less
But according to the
movie, after abolishing money, each person should be allocated resources
according to his needs.
Tried and
failed. Small community like Sontula in Vancouver Island. Big empire
like the soviet union. Ancient country like China. All tried these
before and failed.
The problem is
who is going to decides who need more?
According to the
movie, it will be a super computer, but who is going to decide the
algorithm of that computer? How to resolve the disputes? What will
decide this man deserve an iPhone more than the other guy?
Better stay
with what we have and improve and optimize our current system. We don�t
need revolution, we just need evolution.
From 1970 to
2010, Poverty doubled?
In reality poverty dropped by 80%from 1970 to 2010, mainly because of the modernization of
China and India.
Important factors include globalization, market-based reforms,
liberalization, Information Age technology, productivity gains in
agriculture, and the collapse of central planning in China and India
It is true the LDC
(Least Developed Countries) becomes poorer, but the poverty of those
countries were mainly due to political, religion, and civil wars, not
monetary policy or conspiracy.
Money is
equal to Debt, therefore it is a Ponzi scheme
Charging
interest on money is like making money out of nothing....
That�s why
the Christian and Islamic law in the middle age were against
charging money for borrowed money
For someone
to be in debt, someone else has to own the debt.
Interest is not
really generated out of thin air:
In theory,
interest payment indicate an increase in productivity
When a farmer
borrow money to buy fertilizer, the crops he produced pay for the
interest,
A Ponzi scheme
does not involve increase in productivity.
Stock
market
Stock
market is trading debts
Stock market is
more than that, it�s keeping the money in circulation.
Just like the
water in the fish tank, it has to circulate through the water tank
to refresh the oxygen in the water. If you keep the water still, all
you get will be a tank of dead fish.
Besides, it also
act like kind of social service. People gamble with their money but
the money is not really lost, it was built into infrastructure (like
optical fibre) or providing free services on the internet. The
company may go bankrupt but the infrastructure it built persist.
But yes, I
agreed with the movie that our modern monetary system is a bit similar
to Ponzi scheme than before, but that�s only because of the
deregulations of the banks
So all we need is to
fix the system, not to abolish the system. Evolution, not revolution
If we spent
all our money now, we won�t have enough money to pay everyone
Unless
everyone is going to die tomorrow, it won�t happen, and if everyone do
die tomorrow, we don�t care.
Human don�t live for
today, we always save for tomorrow, in the forms of goods, assets or
money.
But yes, a disaster
can happen if...
If there
is a limited resource
The resource is
critical to our survival
For
example, if human must drink coffee to survive, and we only have 5
billion cups of coffee for the 7 billion population then the price of
coffee will increase astronomically and our monetary system will
collapse
Food we have plenty,
water is a bit of problem, oil would be our biggest problem
Yes we consume as we
do now, we will run into trouble like the movie said, but again, it
needs improvement upon current system. Evolution, not revolution.
We need to
change the world
No, the
world is fine, it�s us that is the problem
Our irrational mind
is the problem
We need to battle our
own irrationality, modify the way we consume and vote.
The battle is within
ourselves, and not some hidden sneaky powerful people.
Change ourselves
before we change others.
That�s my message,
thank you for listening.
Closing:
Do we have
problem?
We have
lots of problem
We maybe living at
the end of the golden-age, which was brought about by the advancement of
science and technology and the information age.
The cause of
such downfall is the exhaustion of critical resources i.e. oil, food and
water, the monetary policy need a lot of improvements (i.e. not to reward
failures with bonuses) but not the total abolishment, and also of human
irrationality.
What we need is Evolution
not revolution.
We need to battle our own
irrationality, modify the way we consume and vote.
The battle is within
ourselves, and not some hidden sneaky powerful people.