What is wrong with Money, Zday 2019, Lawrence Bishop [ The Zeitgeist Movement ]

[@DimmerswitchDan]

This really could use some editing to cut out the painfully long pauses

[@beauxq]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5rQcpRojr2eeM0

[@michaelcentra2792]

I like how he connected money to force as money is the evolution of force. Money and force both appear wherever the simple acknowledgement of another's need for resources is absent. Without simply acknowledging and organizing the attendance to people's need of resources, you either obtain resources by pure force or by force of money. Neither acknowledges or identifies proper need outright.

[@Anonymous247n]

Well sure, people have needs... but is there an inherent right for people to have their needs satisfied? I think we may spin this argument in different ways, but this is what it comes down to... We could argue about personal property and the right to own it, and how others don't have the right to take your personal property etc etc... but i think we'd be missing the main point if we focused on that.

[@michaelcentra2792]

@@Anonymous247n I'll answer that with a question: Should participation in an economy --as we so often see under capitalism--- result in substandard access to resources and services? I think everyone agrees that (barring automation) any able-bodied person who doesn't input labour, is not owed access to cooperatively provided resources and services. The issue is people are providing their labour...sometimes through one or even two full-time jobs--- and are still getting substandard access to resources and services in return. This seems to go against what science can tell us of what constitutes an optimally functioning access to resources as per human beings. A truly working economy doesn't ignore essential human needs and requirements for comfort, health and self-management in exchange for participation.

[@Anonymous247n]

@@michaelcentra2792 I don't think participation in an economy (like a capitalistic one) should result in substandard results. The libertarians, for example, believe that the market will even out and that people will recognise good products and services, and will reward their providers with capital, and perhaps even more importantly, TRUST. Of course i'd also admit that there is always an INCENTIVE to provide substandard results IF YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH IT... because you'd cut costs and save money. So while i'm not sure if we can achieve it, a free market economy with NO regulations and restrictions at all could potentially have pretty good results in the end... Yeah, what you're talking about in the other part of your comment, i suppose my answer to that is: the economy IS in fact trying to exploit those who can be exploited - as much as possible! Perhaps if democracy works and if dissatisfied people reach a critical mass, we might be able to change this and vote for more left-leaning politicians to represent us - or right-leaning if we're going toward libertarianism? :P I can't say! But definitely, people are being exploited and it will probably only get worse, as long as people are willing to live under such circumstances, not demanding change. Now, about my question to you? :) Because i don't feel you've really answered my question with yours :P

[@Anonymous247n]

@@michaelcentra2792 I guess i'll follow up! :) If you believe that people's needs and also requirements for COMFORT are to be satisfied - again, why? Human NEEDS are obviously mostly being met in the world - people are not dying! If their essential needs would not be met, people would die, literally. We could argue about what a "need" is, but... being comfortable? Is that a need too? Besides, i had asked if in fact people have an inherent right to have their ESSENTIAL NEEDS met at all! The need to get food, water, shelter! Are people really supposed to have all those needs met without any questions or conditions?...

[@michaelcentra2792]

@What Thanks...I will read it tonight and hopefully have something to respond with after.

[@w.s.soapcompany94]

It's a game but people's lives depend on having it and spending it.

[@Wilson84KS]

Yes, that's where the power comes from, corruption/blackmailing is the foundation of it all, because not only quality of life but survival itself is not depending on the availability of the needed goods, but on money, people in 3. Reich wasn't Nazis, they just did their jobs, first for ignorance and fear of loosing their standart of living and then of fear to be killed.

[@w.s.soapcompany94]

@@PCMcGee1 you're right it's not a "real asset" but look at your reality how many kids can you start feeding tomorrow without spending any money or committing any crime from what you have to work with right now? Are there enough dumpsters in walking distance? Sustaining our selves without need of money/debt should be the goal but that infrastructure has not been built yet. Charity is just someone else's money and when extrapolated so are the dumpsters.

[@w.s.soapcompany94]

@@PCMcGee1 your talking in hypotheticals man. I'm not advocating for money or against sustaining ourselves without it. Im pointing out that it is both a toy, and in the current reality the thin cord that connects people to what they need to stay alive. I agree with you that there is other healthier ways survival could be organized but the reality is people's comfort and survival have become deeply tied to it and really they trust it more then they trust each other.

[@grandmaster845]

Everything is a game. Everything is a perception and we all played by it. Perception is just a "Best Guess" of our thinking because of our incapability to look and sort things out based in ALL of the sources of problems before giving a judgement and technical solutions for it. In short, We are not A.I. !

[@w.s.soapcompany94]

@@PCMcGee1 exactly right but nothing about that changes what is going to happen today right now. People are going to try to accumulate money and use it to obtain their frivolous crap and their necessities. When I say that it's a silly game that is simultaneously deadly serious I'm merely acknowledging that It is beautiful and ugly it's trusted and hated it's freedom and slavery. Any competing model has to deal with both its flaws and it's successes. Most people do have access to necessities with money and that means they don't have to beg and the satisfaction achieved by those that are doing really well at the accumulation game are powerful feelings they are not going to walk away because of the reasons you have listed. Unless they can see an improvement instantly they would kill before they gave up on money, altruism is simply not a strong enough of a motivation. You're up against a huge edifice built on survival and supremacy. People stay with money not because of its flaws but because of its successes. I get that it's madness to equate a piece of paper to the nutritional value of a meal but it's also very difficult to walk away from that system when it has fed you and your family for generations.

[@summondadrummin2868]

By diminishing or demoting money's demanding influence over us we can move closer to the goal of RBE. This can be partly achieved through Basic Income

[@unmog4223]

Eat the rich

[@jimm3370]

Man... oh man... I had to shut it down @ 14:00. The material is fascinating, but the delivery is terrible. This should have been a blog post, not a YT vid, b/c the creators demonstrated an appalling lack of respect for their viewers by putting up such a disjointed presentation. I feel badly for the attendees. Sadly, a crappy vid like this will turn off more people to TZM than it will ever attract. If you're a newbie, watch any of the original videos, the first titled 'The Zietgiest Movement' and see some of the comments here for much better organized presentation.

[@Specopleader]

Very well appreciated

[@globaldigitaldirectsubsidi4493]

Rather than democratically deciding about the nature of value and measuring it, private Tyrants control the Evaluation with their subjective decisions utilizing the monetary believe system whose familiarity is abused to the grotesque level of introducing the currency themselves. "Let there be value."

[@yv6eda]

The content was food for thoughts but the rhythm was disastrous!

[@ThorShaker]

He was probably pausing to let the interpreter have time to translate. The interpreter was edited out in this video. But, yes, it makes it harder to watch.

[@Anonymous247n]

Jeez i almost fell asleep :)

[@Wilson84KS]

He was nervous as hell, can't you see that guys, I'm sure he planned it a little different and wanted to tell more but freely, but then he only could say the things he wrote down.

[@ObjectiveAnalysis]

The root of the problem is not actually *money* in and of itself, its the *private ownership* (of the earth’s land, resources, infrastructure and technology) that it facilitates. Money is basically just a means to an end. The real problem is that it facilities private ownership, hierarchy, monopolisation and influence. Funnily enough this over-emphasis on “money” rather than “private ownership” is my only one and only major criticism of the Zeitgeist movies (along with no mention of inter-generational inheritance).

[@TZMOfficialChannel]

"Money is basically just a tool, a means to an end." Money is part of an infrastructure with rules inherent. It is not simply a "means" that exists in some vacuum. If you speak of money, you speak of markets. If you speak of markets you speak of capitalism by structure. If you speak of capitalism by structure, you speak of inequality and ecological decline.

[@colto2312]

@@TZMOfficialChannel On the Externalities bit; "saving the planet" will never be 'profitable' on a quarterly report.. That takes 40 years sometimes to see a ROI. What can we do to think more long term?

[@Wilson84KS]

No, money is the root of all evil, people know it already for thousands of years. There are only two ways to gain power, first way, the natural way, is violence and the second is money. Power itself means to have control over peoples life and death. You can control only a couple of people with violence but this will definitely come back and your own life will end by violence. Without money no one will do violence to other people for your will, because without money you can't give peole more than they can get themselves, except of you are superman and can produce thousands of tons of goods every day on your own. Money is the only way to have it all without ever done anything that has any value for anyone, this is the point where corruption/blackmailing begins. Was the people in 3. Reich all Nazis? No, they just did their jobs, first because of ignorance and the fear of loosing their fat and then they had really no other way to not obey, except of being killed, this point is even worse today, because people live from credits, just imagine a soldier got a credit for his house, his car/s, his tv/s, his phone/s, his kitches/s etc. do you think he will listen to the human inside of him, when the order comes to kill his neighbours? No, he won't. Privatization can only be within the monetary system, there is no other way, you need physical power, violence, to keep people away from their natural right to use room and ressources of mother earth and even deciding over their lifetime. Even if the story about barter was true, latest since the industrialization no one is producing any goods that he or she needs to trade, people are producing globally together all neccessary goods and trillions of tons of unneccessary and even unwanted goods, which are only sold because of mind control through marketing. So in fact there are no markets at all, which we all can see, it is just a word, sure, now you think "what about shops and supermarkets?" These are no markets, just points of distribution, they are a part of logistics, "sales depots" is the right name for it, not markets, if it where markets, there would be several people that barter for their goods. The key of progress is logistics, the most complex system humanity ever created, there are the "stars", the smart and intelligent people, but what the masses see there? They see retarded forklift drivers and donkey on two feet that didn't study, that didn't hide from being a productive members of society on universities with the goal to get as muc as possible by doing as less as possible. It is all there, we only need to stop using money, we are already doing all neccessary work and ways more, we have planned obsolescence and overproduction just for the reason that some hundret thousand people have a job, so have money, around 90% of done work nowadays is only there for this reason, 18,5 million tons of food are disposed every year, while around 9 million people die from hunger, there are not just empty houses, but even complete countries like Abchasia rotting, while millions of people die in winter because they have no money to pay for a place to live, which is absolutely disgusting, because this is an elementary right of every known lifeform.

[@ObjectiveAnalysis]

Wilson but you’re missing the point, money is meaningless without private ownership. Again, money is ultimately just a mathematical construct used to represent privately owned land, resources, companies etc and facilitate wage slavery (and also influence over people, democratic institutions etc).

[@Wilson84KS]

@Critical Thinker you miss the point that private onwership can't exist without money.

[@andrewmarkmusic]

Read David Graeber's, Debt!

[@ozwhistles]

Yes. Also Michael Hudson's book "And forgive us our debts". Graeber and Hudson present a far more accurate description than the presenter here. In fact, I find some of his assertions to be wildly inaccurate. For instance, the sharing of goods at the community level is far more than the binary one-on-one value exchange presented here - communities engage in multi-lateral networked value flows, and rarely binary exchange. Money is strictly purposed for use in binary exchange, and the practice of barter is almost unheard-of in archaeological record. Strict binary value exchange is only appropriate when there is not a trust basis - i.e. trade between strangers. If you use binary exchange with friends and familiars - you make them into strangers. And this is the true "wrong" with money. I was hoping the presenter here would see that - but he hasn't a clue.

[@Metaphysics-for-life]

There are no examples of barter based economies, now or in the past. The alternative to a money based economy is a "gift" economy, where people share surplus. We see this during the summer when people have too many zucchini in the garden, for example :-D . It is human nature to share, or gift, when we have more than we need. This falls apart when we introduce money because there is an "exchange" which leads to accounting and fear of lack and/or scarcity.

[@summondadrummin2868]

"Money is a form of measurement" this it appears is a very basic insight about money's useful aspect yet despite his impressive credentials he doesn't mention this? Money is numbers we use to measure the value of a good or service. While I like this talk Lawrence like most Zeitgeist oriented money talks completely leaves out the efforts, insights and inquiries of atleast 100 years of monetary reformers or monetary reinventors. Bernard Litaer, Thom Greco, Margrit Kennedy, Ben Dyson., Stephen Zarlenga, Richard Werner, Silvio Gesell, etc. It would be one thing if these monetary reformers efforts were brought to light and discussed for their possible merit but it seems the Zeitgeist movement maintains there is nothing there to discuss or learn from? This is a flaw I think in both strategy, logic and how to move forward...

[@kevinlinsley9594]

TZM and Peter Jospeh has made it clear that monetary reforms could ease inequality or other negative effects HOWEVER it needs to be constantly reminded that monetary values cant be the end game. We must work towards the abolishment of monetary measurements because the behavioral reinforcement from the most basic sense of trade or barterering is in itself corrupt and unsustainable

[@summondadrummin2868]

@@kevinlinsley9594 The question I have for TZM is how can this very very different economy be instituted short of total societal collapse which could be cataclysmic and set society back who knows how far? My point is modifying the monetary system and diversifying currencies could be just the transitional tools for bringing societies closer to RBE. Getting people to change is no easy task people are very habitual and willing to fight even over small issues. So slow transitional change is probably a reasonable guess as to to what needs to happen. An example of change~I hope TZM see's the advantages of Basic Income aka the Citizens Dividend and gets behind it with action.

[@kevinlinsley9594]

@@summondadrummin2868 read Peter Jospehs new book "The New Human Rights Movement" from there you will see the solutions suggested in the final few chapters but leading up to solutioms PJ addresses universal basic income. He is supportive of it but doesnt see it as a total solution.

[@ozwhistles]

I'm sorry. I'd like to continue watching, but this presentation has too many false assertions.

[@QualeQualeson]

This is some pretty weak, simplistic shit. The presentation is poor and positively sleep inducing, and the arguments are nowhere near properly examined or founded. It offers nothing the world can realistically use for anything. If this is representative of the current state of TZM, I think it is safe to announce it dead.

[@HerbalJah]

What's wrong with money? It's not being created by "the people" but is created by a private bank known as the federal reserve.

[@Contraflow01]

Boring

[@rave1704]

He makes many claims without any proof or strong arguments.. The fact that world is getting more egalitarian and that there is less and less poverty in the world somehow got dismissed without any arguments.. For TZM is only about sustainability.. all the other pillars are weak..

[@markjohnson5276]

I heard this story from a man that was a little boy in Greece, during the second world war. There was a Jewish merchant in his village who had extended credit to everyone, They all owed him money. When the Germans came and hauled the man away no one complained. With him went the debt and they were freed. Usury is a sin.

[@champprill1527]

what's wrong with money... jews