Thoughts.com

This (scientific method) is not always right. No way is always right. Aristotle was no fool. It is a scientific fool who asserts that Aristotle's methods of contemplation, of thought, is idiocy in the face of scientific method. But I hear so many academics make this argument now.

Contemplation and thought, with expression in a rigorously rational argument is wholly valid.

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By Ben Wallace
Author of The Common Purpose Manifesto
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The 2011 Zeitgeist movie 'Moving Forward' proffers a 'systems theory' for a totally monitored and controlled society (1:34:38).

It's not how I interpret a systems approach to our society and our planet. To me, a systems approach means understanding the fundamentals of our system (our human purpose and principle) and making changes to our judicial, economic, organisational and social structures to reflect these, while letting people in the system grow and choose freely, not monitoring and controlling every aspect.

Such a complete level of scientific monitoring and control, as suggested in the film, is crazy and scary, and frankly a communist-like project that will likely not work. Or if it did succeed in its inhuman control, it would be a system for robots, not humans.

The film's participants deny the communist label and give it another name: the "Resource-Based Economy", which is (from the website), "an economic structure based exclusively on strategic resource management, as the starting point for all decisions."

The reduction of a naturally complex, adaptive system (which is what biological and human systems are) into a totally planned and simplified system through monitoring and control, is what they wish for in order to resolve the issues of resource distribution. This is a totally planned economy, whether it's called resource-based or communist.

I agree with some of the analysis of the issues in the film, but not with their final solution, which amounts to control by the intellectual, scientific elite and their machines.

This is a panic film, but that is not all bad, as it encourages change, and change needs to occur (as always); however, its advocacy of a 'revolution' (even hinting at violent revolution) is a bit mad. We do need to transition (from limited fossil fuels and immense inequality) and make progress, and that needs advocacy (and protest), but I don't think their completely planned cities are for me (I prefer London).

Peter Joseph made the film. The Venus Project is from Jacque Fresco. Relevant links below:

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w)
The Venus Project (http://www.thevenusproject.com/)
Peter Joseph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Joseph)

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By Ben Wallace
Author of The Common Purpose Manifesto
Add me to your network on LinkedIn http://nz.linkedin.com/in/benwallace13
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Is this what the sexualisation of everything does?

It's a kind of power, but is it a kind of power we ever want to see or have used on us?

Violence is also a kind of power, and one we don't want to see or have used on us. Is it the same with sex? Do we really want it used as power?  

Brutal, gratuitous sex and violence.

Why do we glamorise sex and violence in our films, our video games, and our music? Why is it so pervasive in our visual and musical arts?

I guess it's at least partly a youth thing – many youth seem to get off on, at least the depictions of, blatant sex and violence. And this is fed-into by the people who produce the film, games and music, who are often youths themselves.

In a debasing spiral downwards, this feed of depicted sex and violence affects what more and more youth see as desirable in real life, and they start to demonstrate more and more of this sex and violence in their own behaviour. What is the good that comes from this?

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By Ben Wallace
Author of The Common Purpose Manifesto
Add me to your network on LinkedIn http://nz.linkedin.com/in/benwallace13
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The financial problem isn't to do so much with excess credit at its base, but with excess savings and investment in financial instruments that have little to no tie in production, all powered and leveraged on the excess savings (wealth) of a few (via credit). 

A redistribution of excess savings can help deal with this. We need people to have money to grow their talents and invest in themselves. The key is to tie money to this form of production, and a shared base income can help do this, by funding every individual with a base income.

Not allowing loans based on savings (fractional reserve banking), while not redistributing savings (via a shared base income), favours only those with excess savings, i.e. the wealthy. It would be an appalling situation, where no-one without wealth could make a go of it. Growth would stagnate, poverty would increase, and inequality would be even worse.     

A shared base income allows everyone to invest in themselves and their contribution. It gives everyone a direct tie to the economy, in which they share and invest. So allow credit, curtail speculative markets, and share in a base income we all receive so that we can all contribute and produce.

[My comment prompted by Douglas Carswell's UK Banking Reform Bill broadcast on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGr-OuXihg]

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By Ben Wallace
Author of The Common Purpose Manifesto
Add me to your network on LinkedIn http://nz.linkedin.com/in/benwallace13
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Not why, but how it works.

If you understand how the something works then you can intelligently change, alter and monitor it. Anything else is pot-luck or statistical probability.

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By Ben Wallace
Author of The Common Purpose Manifesto
Add me to your network on LinkedIn http://nz.linkedin.com/in/benwallace13
Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/BenDWallace