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	<title>Zeitgeist Louisiana</title>
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	<description>Zeitgeist Louisiana Blogs</description>
	<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:29:15 -0600</pubDate>
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		<title>No Forgiveness, No Condemnation</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=44</link>
		<description><![CDATA[In Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, James Gilligan stated, "I don't believe in forgiveness any more than I believe in condemnation." This seemingly simple statement, when analyzed, becomes a tall for profound notion when applied to those who we may perceive as the social villains at the top of business and government.I don't, personally, support the death penalty. When asked about it by proponents of the death penalty, they almost always respond, "So you think murderers should just get away with it!?" I reply, "No, I don't believe forgiveness either." I often receive befuddled reactions which I'll admit is the reason I over-simplify my position on this topic: because the reactions amuse me.Still, it is worth analyzing this apparent contradiction further to reveal the falseness of this dichotomy. In short, I don't believe in either forgiveneness nor condemnation because both include connotations outside their dictionary definitions with which I have a problem and neither should ever be applied universally.Forgiveness, is defined simply as the suspension of extreme emotional reaction (i.e. anger) as a result of the offense of another. I have no problem with the suspension of excess anger, but anger is a necessary means of expressing an unmistakably powerful disaproval of a given action. Like many things, anger has its purposes just like everything else and we can either use it or abuse it. Anger drives passion for improvement. On a social level, anger fuels outrage, which itself fuel social movements for change.]]></description>
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		<title>A Closer look at Burzynski: Updates (12/17/2011)</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=43</link>
		<description><![CDATA[A lot has happened since I posted my last blog expressing skepticism of the cancer treatment known as antineoplastons developed by the Burzynski Clinic. I want to express once more to everyone that, despite some erroneous accusations, I am not personally convinced that Dr. Burzynski nor his clinic are phonies or frauds. I am merely taking a position of skepticism pending further evidence and I encourage this of everyone.
So far, my position of skepticism has been met with some extraordinary opposition. I have received lots and lots of bald assertions that Burzynski has cured lots of people, but when I ask for evidence, most especially peer reviewed papers, I am often told in one way or another that my standards of evidence are not reasonable or that I should suspend critical thinking in this one case.

I have personally met dozens cured by [Burzynski]. In the end, I don't have time for the debate and nor do I really care in the broad view.His treatment should be public and wide open without federal inhibition. period. It's non-toxic and, in many cases, clearly works. I recommend everyone to him and have friends who are now in remission. ... If you want to draw tension to yourself for no reason and join the anti-B bandwagon - go head but you are wasting time in the end.

I highly respect the person who sent me the above nonsensical drivel and the correspondance was over a private medium, so I don't feel it's appropriate to reveal who he/she is. I will, however, show this as an example of a fallacious argument and why this fails to change my opinion.
Firstly, it doesn't matter who you have met or what you have seen. You're a human with a built-in reasonable probability of being mistaken. If you are claiming this as convincing evidence for you, then you cannot expect me to believe unless I have seen the same evidence too. In this particular case, I am, for a lot of reasons, highly skeptical of speaking to patience who claim to have been cured by something. People claim to have been cured of cancer by praying to God, taking homeopathic treatments, and other things. It's not unheardof that cancers get misdiagnosed, because doctors are also human, or go into remission on their own. These are all statistical realities. To determine with a high degree of certainty that antineoplastons actually work, you need expert testimony who have tried it and seen it work.
I'm willing to agree tentatively that the federal government needs to step aside for now. If Burzynski's treatments weren't so ungodly expensive, I'd agree with you entirely and say, "Let people consume what they want without government interference." However, since this product is being marketed to desperate people at high cost, I expect our science community to give us good information on whether or not it's worth that cost. In addition, I expect society, including you, to respect their collective consensus, because it's there to protect us from making bad decisions. My objection is based entirely on the fact that Burznski has not yet played the science game. Once he has done that and won a well-earned scientific consensus, I'll stand right beside you in telling the government to stick it.
What I find most baffling is that my last blog details lots of reasons why the scientific consensus should still be held as reliable despite the presence of the monetary influences. It was, by far, my most appreciated blog. I was invited to speak about it at the national TZM meeting and I've received e-mail from other coordinators and even people not in TZM. But once I applied what I discussed in my blog to something many of us considered true, the 180s emerged and the same arguments that my last article squashed reared their ugly heads again, revealing one great big special pleading fallacy in the minds of many of us in TZM. Let's nip that in the bud people, because it's an embarassing little stain for a movement promoting science to disregard it when it conflicts with us.
In closing, I'd like to point to Dr. David Gorski, MD, PhD. Dr. Gorski is surgical oncologist and researcher for the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery at Wayne State University in Detroit.
When Marc Stephens, representing the Burzynski Clinic, began harassing skeptical bloggers, Dr. Gorski turned his guns on Burzynski and wrote a triple threat 3-blog series. It's worth a thorough read. I want everyone to realize that it is easy for us laymen to be dazzled by watching medical records whiz by our eyes, but they look very different to a trained doctor who can recognize what important bits were not shown to us.
http://www.science...stanislaw-burzynski-bad-medicine-a-bad-movie/http://www.science...stanislaw-burzynskis-personalized-gene-targeted-cancer-therapy/http://www.science...stanislaw-burzynski-antineoplastons-and-the-orphan-drug-sodium-phenyl-butyrate/]]></description>
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		<title>A Closer look at Burzynski</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=42</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Earlier this year, a documentary film was released highlighting the emotional story of cancer patients, adults and children alike, outliving the grim predictions of their medical prophets. Their savior was none other than Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and the Burzynski Clinic in Houston, Texas. The documentary was well-made, enticing, and emotional. The first 30 minutes of the film are spent explaining Dr. Burzynski's revolutionary new approach to fighting cancer and showing us interviews with people who had allegedly been cured by it. The remainder of the film details an epic story of Dr. Burzynski in multiple court battles with the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners and FDA.
As far as the court battles, patent infringement on the part of the government, and trying to take Dr. Burzynski's medical license, well, the government has never displayed much intelligence to me, so that part is typical. I have a different question though and it is outside the scope of most of the film's presentation. I want to know if Dr. Burzynski's treatment, antineoplastons, have survived the gauntlet of the peer review process. You see, the film details that Dr. Burzynski has been in FDA medical trials for years, but these are NOT peer review. In peer review, Dr. Burzynski's science content would be reviewed double-blindly by other experts in other countries, working for a variety of other establishments. This is why peer review is reliable. Bias is minimal!
I know what you're probably thinking. "Lots of scientists over the years have been persecuted for having revolutionary ideas." On one hand, you're right. The humiliation of rejection or disapproval by the community is one of many incentives to do your work right and there's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, if you're thinking Galileo Galilei or Ignaz Semmelweis, you're in the wrong centuries. Peer review is a very different world now. If Galileo or Semmelweis had been afforded the system we have today, there is little doubt their experience would've been drastically different.
The Burzynski documentary goes out of its way to show that many other doctors and biologists believe Dr. Burzynski is a quack. The film implies a heavy bias, elements and science dogmatism, and unfair elitist rejection in the scientific community on par with Galileo and Semmelweis. This concerns me greatly because this very same tactic is also used by creationists to promote intelligent design and by homeopathy practitioners to push their expensive medical alternatives and BOTH go out of their way to attempt to undermine science. Asking why a given scientific claim is not consensus in the scientific community is reasonable. A reply that the scientific community is dogmatic and/or influenced by profit should throw up a red flag. Something is WRONG with this picture now!
So let's have a look at where Burzynski is in peer review. Some months ago, when I first saw the film, I was sitting at my computer and figuratively running my fingers through PubMed. For those of you who don't know, PubMed is an online archive of citations from Medline, life science journals, and online books. PubMed is not, itself, a medical journal, but it's not a bad place to start if you're looking for something in the medical field. It is worth noting a fact, which eluded me at the time, that not ALL entries in PubMed are peer reviewed studies! Let me say that again. Not ALL entries in PubMed are peer reviewed studies!!! Sure enough, I found Burzynski in there. The thought in my amateurish and layman brain was, "Well, he appears to be in peer review, so I'm tentatively satisfied." Fortunately, I didn't stop there. Since then, I have amassed a laundry list of other journals, skills on how to reference them, and a fair list of various experts I can contact should I have questions (my own little micro peerreview process). My standards of evidence have been refined progressively ever since.
I had largely been dormant on this issue lately until a scientist to whom I subscribe, Professor PZ Myers of the University of Minnesota Morris, made an extraordinary comment on his personal blog.

Marc Stephens, the lunatic who stirred up the recent blogospheric buzz with his clumsy thuggery, no longer has a 'professional relationship' with the Burzynski clinic, that warehouse of quackery. One thing about charlatans is that they have a fine-tuned sense of who might be hurting their bottom line. [1]

Well, it seems I've been out of loop. The Burzynski Clinic has been up to some strange things lately. This person, Marc Stephens, who claims to speak on behalf of the clinic has been harassing skeptical bloggers and threatening legal action. Apparently, a rapidly growing community (now in the hundreds) have been hammering on Burzynski with brutal skepticism. [2] I thought in my mind, "Well, the quickest way to silence a skeptic is to show your evidence in peer review." True to form, the Burzynski Clinic attempted to do exactly that. Fortunately, Professor PZ Meyers points us to biologist Jen McCreight who has done much of the work for us. [3]

The Burzynski clinic has responded to the flood of skeptical bloggers with a press release. [4] They've apparently fired (in so many words) Marc Stephens for his harassment, yet still plan to send attorneys after UK bloggers. ...
So let's have a look at Burzynski's research, shall we?

1. Burzynski, SR. Treatments for Astrocytic Tumors in Chi&igrave;dren: Current and Emerging Strategies. Pediatric Drugs 2006; 8: l67-178.

Pediatric Drugs: No impact factor. [6][9]

2. Burzynski, S.R., Janicki, T.J., Weaver, RA., Burzynski, B. Targeted therapy with Antineoplastons A10 and of high grade, recurrent, and progressive bre&iacute;nstem gliome. Integrative Cancer Therapies 2006; 5(1):40&shy;47.

Integrative Cancer Therapies ... describes itself as emphasizing 'scientific understanding of alternative medicine and traditional medicine therapies.' [3]

It's worth noting that the above study here (number 2) is the one I found in PubMed that deterred me in my na&iuml;vet&eacute; from researching any further when I initially granted my support for Dr. Burzynski.
Dr. McCreight shares a rather appropriate quote from comedian and poet, Tim Minchin. "By definition ... alternative medicine ... has either not been proved to work, or has been proved not to work. You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."
So what else does Jen McCreight find?


3. Burzynski, SR. Recent clinical trials in diffuse intrinsic brainstem glioma. Cancer Therapy 2007;5, 379-390.

Even more sketchy and unprofessional than the [website] is its repeated mentioning of its 'rapid review process.' I couldn't find out anything about the editorial board other than there's some guy in Greece you should submit things to. And after a lot of digging, I couldn't find an impact factor at all. [6]

4. Burzynski, SR., Weaver, R.A., Janicki, T.J., Jufida, G.F., Szymkowsk&igrave;, B,G., Kubove, E. Phase Il studies of Antineoplas&icirc;ons A10 and AS 2-1 (ANP) in chi&igrave;dren with newly diagnosed diffuse, intrinsic brainstem gliornas. Neuro-Oncology 2007;9:206.

[etc]
The final nine of his citations all seem to come from the Journal of Neuro-Oncology. Upon first glance, it seems legit ... until you search the journal for articles by Burzynski. The result? Burzynski has not published a single paper in this journal. Every single citation is an abstract from a presentation made at a conference. ... This means that none of Burzynski's research from this journal has actually been peer-reviewed by the journal. [3]

I encourage everyone to go read the rest of Jen McCreight's blog. In short, despite my past impressions, Dr. Burzynski has NOT been appropriately peer reviewed. I tried hard to find him in the Lancet, Science, Nature, the Journal of Oncology, and others. I couldn't find him.
I want to preface once more that I found his documentary very interesting. It made me aware of plausible corporate influence within the FDA by big pharma and I have made a note of that. However, peer review is NOT under the influence of big pharma or government, so there is no excuse. In the spirit of intellectual honesty, I am hereby retracting my support of the Burzynski Clinic pending Dr. Burzynski getting peer reviewed in a more prestigious journal. We may not have to wait long. [8]
Citations:[1] Professor PZ Meyers, http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula...boom/[2] Josephine Jones, http://josephinejones.wordpress.com/201...spartacus/[3] Dr. Jen McCreight, http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag...publications/[4] Burzynski Clinic Press Release, https://docs.google.com/viewer...en_US[5] Integrative Cancer Therapies, http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPr...bview=aimsAndScope[6] Impatch Factor, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor[7] Journal of Neuro-Oncology, http://neuro-oncology.oxfordjournals.org/[8] Turn up the heat on Burzynski, Pharyngula, http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyn...burzynski/[9] Pediatric Drugs, http://adisonline.com/pediatrics/Pages/default.aspx
Disclaimer:The above blog is the solely the opinions of the author and may not reflect the opinions of the Zeitgeist Movement and/or its chapters.]]></description>
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		<title>Hypocritical Science Denialism in TZM</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=41</link>
		<description><![CDATA[I have science-related debates with fellow Zeitgeist supporters on a regular basis. Many of us are avid and knowledgeable advocates of science, as it should be. However, when you mix science and counter-culture activism working against the establishment, there almost necessarily will be a demographic of science denialists floating around as well. Sadly, this is an embarrassing self-contradiction for the Zeitgeist Movement as we promote science above everything else as the way to align ourselves with the natural world, so let's try to nip these individuals in the bud through our favorite form of social persuasion: education. Many of these individuals don't know how science works and unwittingly propagate numerous myths about the scientific method and its interactions with business and the world of monetary profit. They use what they feel are justifiable anecdotes to dismiss any trust in scientific consensus because it, too, is viewed as part of the profit-motivated establishment.Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. The scientific process of establishing consensus through independent repeatable research and peer review has little interaction with the profit structures that most of us in counter-culture activism view as corrupted. In truth, peer review is semi-analogous to the process of open-source development of technology where individuals working on the project contribute their own additions and contributions are tested independently by the community of developers working on the same project. Useful additions are adopted into the overall development process while bad contributions are thrown aside and replaced by others that work better. To say that the profit motive could come along and mess up this harmony is to imply a complete misunderstanding about how this all works. Nobody in this structure owns anything, reports to anyone, or has any exclusive control to exploit. Open-source projects have been on-going for years and produced some of the most well-developed products we have (i.e. the Linux operating system).The Peer Review ProcessWhen a scientist has completed a research project, documented the experiment, and drawn all of the conclusions, it is time to submit the research to a peer review journal so that other scientists can review it. This has many benefits. This helps ensure that the research was done well, is most likely free of errors, and contributes to the sum of knowledge. Other scientists can also repeat the experiment and use the research to further related research of their own. Once a paper is submitted to the appropriate journal, an editor reviews the paper to ensure it is well-written and appropriate for the journal. For example, sloppy or unintelligible writing work won't get accepted and physics papers are not accepted in medical journals. Once a paper passes this step, it is sent anonymously to a handful of related peer scientists who will check the work for several things. Is it conclusive? Is it significant? Does the experiment make the conclusions being purposed? If the reviewers like the paper, it is recommended to be published in the journal. Most papers do not get accepted.The main difference between peer review and open-source development is that in peer review, a scientist submitting a new paper to a journal doesn't know who is reviewing his or her work nor does the reviewer know whose work he or she is reviewing. This eliminates bias right from the start. They could be in different countries or working for competing employers within the same industry. All of that in mind, let me hit the overall issue bluntly.Do business, government, or other profit-oriented bodies dictate what science concludes? No! Business and government cannot influence scientific consensus in the modern world. Most people reach this erroneous conclusion out of an ignorance of the peer review process and one of two other factors: 1. A disdain for corporate/government propaganda that they believed was the scientific consensus (implying a lack of knowledge or willingness to check it); 2. An erroneous assumption that business or government own the peer review journals. The spectacular truth is that most of prestigious peer review journals are operated pro bono by the global academic community, not by any government or business (or industry of businesses). Again, they don't report to anyone and, therefore, have no control structure to dictate what the conclusions should be.Does this mean science is completely free of influence by the profit motive? Unfortunately, it does not. One of the ways the profit motive has an unpredictable, but considerable, influence on the proper function of science is by denying scientists the resources to reproduce experiments described in peer review papers. This doesn't mean errors in research won't get caught. It means they won't get caught as quickly. The good news is that this is not a weakness one could exploit deliberately for any particular gain.Finding Scientific ConsensusSo how do we know what the scientific consensus is? As a non-scientist, peer review papers are infuriatingly dry and complicated, but there are a few avenues available to us for researching what the current understandings of science are on any given topic. First, and foremost, I check to see if the topic in question is being published in the appropriate journals. If so, I also want to know how many papers are being published, how many different experts are writing about it, how many citations the papers usually get, is the knowledge being applied for everyday use, and other such criteria. The more I find, the more compelled I become. If the topic is not something recently discovered within the past 10 years or so, I may e-mail any number of university professors I can find and inquire if the topic is being taught in university classrooms. Don't take the word of any one expert. Get a general idea from many of them! If I only find a small number of papers on the topic from very recent research, I'd be forced to contact some experts myself and ask. Again, don't get take the word of just one.Last Minute MythsHere are a few last minute concerns I often hear that I'd like to squash.1. Journals do not publish research revealing changes to already widely accepted scientific beliefs, revealing an inherent dogmatism in science. WRONG! There is a term for those, "scientific breakthrough." They not only happen, but they happen often enough that we award experts who reveal them with Nobel Prizes.2. Scientists review papers based on how their employers want them to do so. WRONG! Most scientists review papers pro bono on their own time.3. Big Pharmaceutical companies lie all the time, therefore science is not reliable. WRONG! Pharmaceutical companies produce their own propraganda for the people to read, but these may or may not reflect what is in the peer review journals. People have a bad habit of reading pseudo-science trash without checking it and blaming science when it turns out to be false.4. Science is responsible for a lot of atrocities (i.e. the atom bomb). Partially wrong. Science under the instruction of politics was responsible for the atom bomb. War is necessarily a failure in diplomacy, a duty we charge to our politicians. If winning the war required the use of an atom bomb, it is necessarily the fault of the government which required it. Aside from that, science has saved and extended far more lives as well as increased the standard of living over the centuries so a single anecdotal, albeit atrocious, case is hardly fair.5. Science gets things wrong all the time, so we can disregard it if we so choose. Right, but spectacularly stupid. Science is irrefutably the single most reliable way of assessing reality. It is as imperfect as we are, but it is self-correcting. If you choose to disregard science on the basis of some standard of perfection that nothing could ever possibly fulfill, my question to you is this. What do you fill that intellectual vacuum with: conjecture, a subjective hunch, an uneducated guess? No matter what you choose, it necessarily must be less accurate than science. This position is arrogant and logically fallacious.6. Scientists are arrogant, closed-minded, elitists. Partially right. They are elitists and that is as it should be. This position almost always stems from a person who has a personal preference toward a conclusion that disagrees with the experts. To hold that position out of choice in spite of what is evident and regardless of what is true is the height of arrogance and closed-mindedness.Final WordI have one final word to science denialists. Everything we have today from our computers and medicines to our cars and machines are the fruits of science. If you choose to be a science denialist, then you are necessarily stained with hypocrisy unless you opt to live the caveman's life without those fruits. Science...love it or hate it, but you can't have it both ways.Other sources:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twogpmM-SfYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcavPAFiG14]]></description>
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		<title>The Zeitgeist of Bad Science</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=40</link>
		<description><![CDATA[I'm sure I may make a few enemies within Zeitgeist by writing this, but I honestly can't keep it under my hat. Before I take the jigsaw to a piece of pseudo-science crap, I want to preface a few things. Firstly, I am relatively on the fence regarding the issue of vaccinations. I've not done enough research on the matter to confidently share my opinion. Regardless of which side of the issue you may take, I can be persuaded by compelling evidence on either side. I only ask that the evidence reflect the consensus of the knowledgeable experts in the relevant fields of science. I believe this is a reasonable request and it is not open for debate.Now, over the past 24 hours, the following "study" [sic] linked below has been propagating around Facebook and being pushed by a disturbing number of my fellow Zeitgeisters.http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/10/14/big-study-vaccinated-kids-2-5-more-diseases-than-unvaccinated/For a movement based on the application of the scientific method, there is no excuse for Zeitgeist proponents to have a standard of evidence that considers studies like this one even remotely worthy of attention. The study is a sloppy, vacuous, and suspiciously questionable piece of pseudo-science crap. I'm not in the habit of simply criticizing needlessly, so let me share a few objections I have with this study.1. This study is NOT published in ANY peer reviewed science journal! This is among the first thing I look for when assessing a scientific claim. I check where it was published, when it was published, who published it, and how many citations it has by other experts. I want to know if other experts are using this knowledge. It is repeatable? Is it falsifiable? The fact that this article has not been published at all almost automatically places it in the category of "lacking scientific merit" for me. But wait! There's more!2. Data for this study is being collected by polling the Internet! Wow! What a mind-blowing fuster-cluck. When real scientists conduct surveys, they have to carefully select and record all kinds of information about the individuals being surveyed in order to account for any variation or discrepancies in the data. When we talk about medical surveys, scientists need to know much about the medical histories of the subjects being surveyed. Polling the Internet is probably the least reliable way to get a conclusive result on anything. You don't know who fills out the survey (could be a person or could be a spam bot). A person filling out the form may or may not know what vaccines they have been given. They may or may not be living in an environment associated with high health risks, presenting a possible skew in the results. There are so many problems with this one detail that I am firmly confident that no journal would publish this if it had been submitted."X is true!""How do you know that?""I polled the Internet!"3. The study was being conducted by a "classical homeopathic practitioner," by the name of Andreas Bachmair. The article goes to extreme lengths to point out that this study could not have been influenced by profit-motivated business or government. Unfortunately, the sheer fact that a homeopathic practitioner is conducting it, this claim is now in serious question. For those of you who do not know, homeopathic therapists charge exorbitant amounts of money for their water-based medical alternatives. Homeopathy is promoted heavily by NaturalNews.com, but science has gone far out of its way to show homeopathy is little more than a placebo.[1] As such, any seemingly scientific evidence in opposition of mainstream medical science (like vaccinations) is "good business" if you're in the business of homeopathy. I was not able to clarify any scientific credentials held by Mr. Backmair as his personal website was in German.So let's be real, my friends. It only takes a few minutes to skim such a study for its legitimacy. If it is not published in any reputable journals, don't waste your time pushing it as evidence. This is especially so if the methodology of the study implies a complete lack of concern for whether or not the data is accurate. It also pays to know WHO is trying to persuade you. You can argue all you like for dishonest business and government, but this doesn't make individuals honest or the cargo cult science they would have you believe.Skepticism and open-mindedness is not about believing every little piece of evidence that agrees with you. It is about knowing what evidence is good and disregarding what is clearly bad. This is how you avoid filling you head with trash and make room for knowledge, leading you to believe things for good reasons.[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12492603]]></description>
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		<title>Occupy Wall Street: The Message?</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=38</link>
		<description><![CDATA[I fully endorse the Occuy Wall Street protests as well as the mirror events all over the country. My only concern is one that has been expressed numerous times by critics outside the protests and answers are few and far between. "What do the protesters want?"There is an Occupy Shreveport protest coming up and I am prepared to attend. I have observed some attendees asking what we should be prepared to say if the media should arrive.Well, here are some suggestions of my own:we're tired of this game where corrupt monetary powers controlling our access to resources and imposing measures that amount to little more than debt slavery that is effecting not only our way of life, but those of other nations as well.We're tired of the consistently dishonest political powers owned by the corporate lobbyists to maintain the monetary vote, drowning out the voice of the middle and lower classes who are supposedly free.We're tired of this plutocracy where our rights of free speech and privacy being violated in the name of the security of the few.We're tired of government being in bed with big corporations and banks, messing up absolutely everything for absolutely everybody and then having the audacity to not impose austerity measures on the middle and lower classes, but also mocking them by saying, "you need to work harder to help us fix this."We are tired of the decade of war, keeping us all afraid against foes with no flag, no solid distinction, and no uniform, protecting the profit interests in the middle east and costing our loved ones' lives.Ninety-nine years ago, we set out to break up the money trust banks in New York because they had far too much political influence with their wealth and became "too big to fail." To resolve this problem, the banks themselves imposed their Federal Reserve Act, lying to the people about would happen. It is time the voice of the people become louder than the monetary vote.]]></description>
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		<title>Wall-E, People would be Fat and Lazy?</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=37</link>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the questions I get asked fairly often when positing the ideas of a society where no one needs to work is in relation to the Pixar movie, Wall-E. I am asked, "Wouldn't we end up just like the people in Wall-E if we didn't have to work?"I could blow this concern away by simply reminding people that Wall-E is a kids' film, not meant to be taken seriously. While the characters in the film are designed such that we can easily relate to them and, hence, be entertained by them, they are not intended to accurately portray how humans behave in any environment, much less our own. I am not in the habit of spoiling a good movie by analyzing it, but since some people believe this movie shows what would become of us in a Resource Based Economy, it may be worth assessing it.The people aboard the space ship, the Axiom, in the movie could be described simply as fat, bored, unproductive, content, unaware, impressionable, uncompassionate, and ignorant of the world around them. Pixar designed the characters to be this way for, among other reasons, a commentary on how distracted and unaware people tend to be in the real world right now. Still, what environmental attributes were needed in order to make this impression more realistic? At first glance, I identified individuality and creativity were missing.Individuality is the result of our personal experiences which make us all unique. Creativity is the expression of those experiences. As we watch the film, we realize that not one person aboard the ship is shown doing anything creative. Living in the manmade environment of the Axiom, no one is curious, explorative, or concerned with expanding knowledge or free expression. There is nothing about which to be curious! Each person is limited to the common experiences of watching television programs and speaking to each other.In fact, I could probably make a case that the captain of the Axiom was, by far, the most accurately portrayed human in the film based on how we live here on Earth, albeit as dimwitted as any of the passengers. When he was finally made aware of how little he really knew about the universe outside the ship, the childlike curiousity and compassion for learning emerged and, like an autodidact, he spent much of the remainder of the film querying his computer for information. This is how people behave.Still, I can imagine being stuck on a cruise ship for 30 years of my life, never seeing land or meeting any new people. I would quickly memorize the ship itself and it would become an under-stimulating environment for me. I would become bored and perhaps train myself to be content with the most miniscule of perks as an outlet to keep my sanity for a sheer lack of knowledge of what else exists. So I could understand how a society could come to be this way in the specific environment we observe in Wall-E. However, the Axiom was clearly a much smaller and far less dynamic environment than Earth. If we abandoned our economic shackles and gained the absolute freedom to explore what the world has to offer, utterly ignoring the rest of our vast universe, could it ever be that our civilization would find it under-stimulating? I find this to be an absurd proposition as every rock turned over in our world hails mysteries to the curious observer.On the other hand, considering that our personal world, trapped within the confines of monetary limitations, holds few such opportunities for most of us, there is where you will truly find those bored with life and desperately seeking their freedom to live on Earth.
Fantasy is wonderful and a part of creative expression, so I'm not going to knock it. However, let's not cheapen the glorious human experience, especially when most of us have yet to know it.








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		<title>Using Money is Hypocrisy?</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=34</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Critics often say that because supporters of the Resource Based Economy necessarily must hold jobs, earn money, and use it, they are inherently hypocrital.Based on this erroneous logic, the following must also be true:

Cancer doctors researching better treatments should let their patients die rather than use the current treatments and be held as hypocrites.
The developers of the net protocols for e-mail were hypocrites because they continued using telephones.
Early developers of the Internet were hypocrites because they continued to read books while developing the communication medium that would render them obsolete.
Malcom X, Rosa Parks, and Dr. King were all hypocrites because they experienced racist provocation during their movement against it.

These are clearly not hypocrites. The reason why is because a better option is not an option until it is available. It is about our choices. Do we have them or not? Until we are allowed the choice, we work with what we have and strive for something better. This is progress, not hypocrisy.The game is such that we must have access to resources in order to survive and function in society as both individuals and as a movement. Society is currently such that access to resources requires money. We are not happy about this for a lot of reasons and we strive to educate and help the people understand that it is time we all switch to a new system where we need not be held down by such tyranny. Many proponents of the RBE are, indeed, holders of minimalist lifestyles or the impoverished. This is as close to a no-money situation as we can get without endangering ourselves or our pursuit. Thus, we escape the notion of hypocrisy.You want to see examples of REAL hypocrisy?

Knowingly demanding progress from dishonest politicians who you are reasonably convinced can't or won't deliver.
Boasting the moral highground in support of a social system that has consistently failed every attempt to provide a high standard of living for anyone except its top 5%.
Claiming your supported system is the only sustainable way while knowingly ignoring the environmental damage, and hence unsustainability, it not only causes, but encourages.
Criticisizing and provoking, with glorious passion, fellow human beings who want true progress because they are not as lethargic and apathetic as you are.
Slandering activists who seek a new social system with provocatives like "socialism" or "communism" while simultaneously demanding more government assistance, programs, security, regulation, taxation, and more tyrannical laws.

Hypocrisy is a weak argument even for the ignorant. Wake up, look around, and see that your own hypocrisy is far more disturbing.]]></description>
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		<title>Stop Coddling the Super-Rich</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=31</link>
		<description><![CDATA[OUR leaders have asked for "shared sacrifice." But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.
[...]
I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn&rsquo;t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.
[...]
My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.
Warren E. Buffett is the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway.
Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=2&amp;smid=fb-share]]></description>
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		<title>NWO vs Zeitgeist</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=26</link>
		<description><![CDATA[I have argued with supporters of the NWO notion before. These self-righteous watchdogs keep an eye on the government and try to whip us into a frenzied mob when things are looking crazy, as if they have a solid basis for comparison. Every now and then, one of them just gets my goat. Most of them, when I express a bit of informal skepticism toward any single piece of the seemingly scattered bits of Illuminati drivel, jump right to accusations of a kind that can only be called childish and condescending. "You're just afraid to see the truth! You are blindly blocking the evidence! Stop being a stupid, indoctrinated American and wake up!" To my amusement, I can respond to this by reusing an analogy by one of my favorite Atheist speakers, Pat Condell. Having an NWO groupie say that I'm afraid is rather like being called yellow by a bunch of bananas.

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Enemy? Really?

These NWO buffs presuppose a great deal regarding me and my position as a Zeitgeister. Not knowing who or what we are, they believe they are dealing with a common skeptic who has the same mindless, indoctrinated faith in the system and who must agree with many of the same political notions of freedom, democracy, and security. Having a position on science or epistemology is far from their expectations. I necessarily must be just some typical American who is comfortable in his little world and hasn't seen the abuses of the system and/or I'm not willing to admit to the degree of the suffering. WRONG! Seeing that my Zeitgeist affiliations currently place me firmly within the realms of radical politics, dealing with someone of my caliber is often a wake-up call for unsuspecting NWO buffs who are reasonably ignorant of what to expect from a Zeitgeister like me. It is rather like preparing to build your home with a hammer and nails when your best friend arrives with a contour crafting rig, prepared to go well over your head.

The fact is, you're not only talking to someone who disapproves of government and business abusing the system, but you're talking to someone who disapproves of the system itself simply because it can be abused! Therefore, to categorize me in the same group as your typical skeptics is your first mistake. It goes most amusingly beyond preaching to the choir.

What are you fighting against?

I won't claim to be thoroughly educated on this whole NWO topic, but I find the definition of the term is remarkably vague and flexible. What does the term even mean? I could dig up some dictionary definition for it, but it'd be a waste of time. Having argued this topic with various people from various angles, I've found that the term, like many others we have invented in pop culture, has a definition specific to the context of the person using it.

For all too many people who subscribe to this non-sense, NWO is anything that encourages global cooperation, global collaboration, or global [insert unifying label of choice]. I find this definition frightening. Peace inherently demands cooperation, so despite the fact that we have crowned numerous Miss Americas over the years who publicly encouraged world peace, we can wave bye bye to that pipe dream when the very notion of global cooperation is made taboo. So is that really the problem?

Among rational definitions, when one can be forced to use one, the commonalities are typically and simply "an oppressive world government." It is a government that has absolute authority over everyone, everywhere.

If that's your definition, then I'm right there beside you. But while we're on this topic, why play favorites? Let's oppose ALL oppression, regardless of what body is causing it, be it a state government, federal government, or global government. Maybe I'm being too ambitious, but I love to aim high.

With the understanding that we agree that oppression sucks, despite where it comes from, what's left? Why is a global system of any kind so scary? Why does it guarantee suffering? Most importantly, can a global system be designed that inherently cannot lead to suffering and corruption? Maybe we can remove the basis for corruptible authority off the top, the monetary system and the inequality that goes with it, so that when some tyrannical jerk shows up and says, "let's go to war," our needs already having been met, we can collectively deliver the appropriate response: "go fuck yourself."

Which Government do You Trust?

Despite how strenuously NWO buffs try to convince themselves, I am no more afraid of a global government than I am the federal government. As a Zeitgeist supporter, my perspective is already globally oriented, so my concern for the Iranian or Egyptian government is the same. Let me be clearer. I have ZERO faith in government, any government operated by people. So having me choose which one I'd want to deal with (a federal or global government), it is rather like asking me if I'd want to have a fatal accident in a vehicle going 500 mph or 5,000 mph. Who cares? The result for me is the same: death. Despite how it may appear to be a "lesser of two evils" choice on the surface, it amounts to the same thing for me.

I have increasing doubt of my political influence within my country as the years tick by, so I've lost nothing in particular if we did switch to a global system, especially if you assert that our liberties are already in question. It is one of many reasons I don't vote. I reject the political process. I have seen how dishonest, uncooperative, unorganized, and stupid politicians tend to be and I have little doubt that your NWO Kabbal buddies are much different, if they exist. I am, in every sense, apolitical. That means I not only reject your standard notions of global government, but I reject national governments too. So by whom would I prefer to be ruled? Well, if you don't know that by now, you've got your homework cut out for you.

Inequality is the Real Bad Guy

As for rich families of influence that tend to head the corporations (i.e. Rockefellers, Morgans, etc.), well, they suck because inequality sucks. The regrettable reality is that if it weren't them shoveling the bullshit while counting the money, it'd be other families doing it. Why? Because the system encourages it! That is why the system is my focus. We're in a competitive monetary market paradigm where profit is the goal and there must always be losers and that sucks!

In truth, I'm not all that worried about rich families either. Given enough oppression, the people (who are many) inevitably rise up. If you don't believe me, just ask Louis XVI if you can find where his citizens buried his head. No matter how bad things get, no matter how much power the government votes itself, when push comes to shove, the people inevitably take back the world, so I have no intolerance for people who'd rather whip the citizenry into a frenzied mob because the idea of a shadow council is exciting. Unfortunately, once the masses realize that governing themselves is a hassle, they usually elect a "responsible group" to do the legwork and we would probably agree where that will end up.

Above the Evidence

Personally, I'm getting rather tired of hearing these NWO buffs tell me that I don't believe them because I'm ignoring the evidence. No, I'm not. You have no impact on me, because your notions and evidence won't change my perspective whether they are true or not. To me, it doesn't matter. You're not dealing with a closed-minded, dumb American inside a warm, comfy shell, rejecting anything that shakes up his little world. You're dealing with someone who rejects everything you do and more! I don't care what the Bilderberg Group, World Bank, IMF, or Trilateral Commission are doing, except to say, "I reject all of it, so let's move on to a better system where those things no longer even have a basis to exist. Let's rise to a Resource Based Economy."

You see, it's not that I'm ignoring your evidence. My position is beyond it. Get over it.

So you might be asking yourself by now, "If you oppose the same things I do, why argue against us?" Well, there are a few simple reasons; one of them is discussed above. You NWO buffs are aiming too low and blaming specific people for doing exactly what this monetary paradigm encourages them to do. I find that absurd. What I find even more absurd is that you willfully and deliberately setup an "us and them" mentality and reinforce it with condescending arguments and accusing people of sheer ignorance because they don't agree. It's divisive. It is bigotry and that too is on my list of behaviors bound for extinction, right alongside oppressive authority, so congratulations. You make the cut.

Evil Doesn't Exist

I not only don't buy this false notion that the problem is certain particularly evil or greedy people that just HAPPEN to have bought their way up top with money they just HAPPEN to have in their pockets. On one hand, the notion that people are genetically evil by an act of human nature even on an individual level is a demonstrable absurdity. Review lectures by Robert Sapolsky, James Gilligan, and Gabor Mate. You will find that humans are aptly shaped by the environment in which they live and notions of a genetic nature are simply a cop out that offers the luxury of pinning offensive behaviors to something beyond our control so we don't have to question the system. If you don't want greedy people at the top of government, stop perpetuating a system propped up by it. On the other hand, the notion that the people in power just happen to be the most irresponsible and untrustworthy is laughable when you realize that the politicians have always been shady no matter how many times we switch them out. No matter how many of the business elites die off and are replaced by others, the game is always the same.

Don't hate the players. Hate the game.]]></description>
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		<title>The Economic Calculation Argument</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=23</link>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a blog response to a supporter of Ludwig von Mises and his ideals for a free market. This is currently a popular subject of debate. I will highlight the free market advocate's responses in gray, my responses will be in black, commentary through the fourth wall will be in bold red.
I think it would be unreasonable for anyone to take Muertos', Brandy, or my challenge without fully understanding what we are advocating. TVP has a lot of in and outs that does differentiates itself from other ideologies. It would be a pain in the&nbsp;*** if she constantly had to quote TVP FAQ every time someone made an assumption. This was my problem. It's a method to enforce honesty.
Agreed. And I thank you for acknowledging that the RBE does present differences in approach. I will encourage my TZM peers to not engage anyone in debate unless they are willing to make their own case, not send their opponents to the books.
You cannot be honest in a, regardless of your intentions, if you don't understand their position. If you want to do a live debate, I'll welcome it.
I'm not sure I fully understand this statement, but I think you're saying that one cannot present an honest argument if one doesn't understand the thing being argued. I'll partially agree. One can present an erroneous argument honestly. It happens all the time. I'm willing to have a discussion with you about Mises and the free market. I am also willing to encourage my peers in TZM to have such discussions. However, I cannot possibly debate with you if we're going to bring Mises into it, because I have not read any of his work. I will try to clear some time to do so, though.
If this 50 page article is correct, you now know not to waste more time reading/watching those unless they address this issue. If it isn't correct, it will provide you with an insight to the argument so you can now have a foundation to debate with on libertarians, voluntarists, paleoconservatives..etc. So no time is ever wasted in the pursuit of knowledge.
Point taken, which is why I am probably going to read it anyway. If I do, I'll probably want a discussion even more so as to be sure I understood it properly.&nbsp;However, the general role of a person challenging an opposing position is to present the argument themselves and cite experts where additional credibility is needed. Otherwise, you risk sending the person with whom you are debating off to locate your argument in potentially hours of research and risk reaching a different conclusion than you because there might be an obscure premise that defeats your argument and it didn't come out because you chose not to hold the discussion. Therefore, saying "go read Mises and you'll understand." is not an argument. It's not even necessarily true.&nbsp;It is promoting an opposing position, side-steping the argument, which is what you're saying that we're doing and I think we both agree that this is not proper discussion.
Question: How do you define "value"?
It's [the term "value"]&nbsp;a culmination of everyones subjective inputs to create an objective value of an item. i.e. everyone decides what they are willing to exchange for a particular good. The entrepreneur's job is to see if it's economic to provide those goods at that cost by calculating cost of production vs. revenue generated. This return on investment provides more capital to reduce the cost of production, thus allowing him to have competitive (lower) prices.
You define "value" as "the culmination of efforts to&nbsp;create&nbsp;an objective value"? Either I'm not understanding you correctly or you may have misarticulated that definition. Ok, I'll try to extrapolate what you meant based on your analogy.
So you are saying that value is determined based on the profits gained by the production and sale (profits earned)&nbsp;of a given product. The problem I have with that is that products must already be in production and on the market before you know if there is demand. This is a wasteful tactic and seems&nbsp;*** backwards to me. On top of that, it seems to apply only if there is a trading market of some kind. The RBE has no such market. It only has the resources, what products we are capable of making (not necessarily on the assembly lines right now, but what is available to produce), and what the people are demonstrating they want. In a Resource Based Economy, the news of what is currently available to produce would be rampant. People would inquire what they have an immediate need for and a computer system may return many various technological approaches&nbsp;from which they may&nbsp;choose, not all that dissimilar from a shopping website. Distribution centers would also be aware of their products no longer available for distribution (in use) and order more as needed.
Question: Based on your definition of "value," why would we still need to know the value in an economic system with no trading and no market?
Well there's still scarcity/time/energy/labor that goes into all of these, even in an RBE. Even with unlimited access to resources, theres only so much iron you can ore in a given time frame.
This is why we have the access strategy rather than promoting ownership of goods. It reduces the rate of necessary production by granting access to products rather than encouraging everyone to buy one. This reduces waste and impact on environment, which meshes with the concepts of strategic safety and dynamic equilibrium. Imagine going to a store and checking out the "peek efficiency" camera for a few hours, using it for what you needed, and then returning it for someone else to use. It's simply not necessary for you or anyone else to own one at this point (although you can if you want), so it's not necessary to produce one for every person.
The electric output from alternate energies can only have so much output. The engineers who come in and plan out the new facilities, production lines. So all of these things are your capital investment.
We can prove that the combined utilization of all alternative energy sources can provide for the world's energy needs many times over. If you're comparing just energy, you're talking about more capital than you could ever use. We would definitely still have engineers, but the planning of production lines would probably&nbsp;be more&nbsp;standardized. I can't really speak intelligently on that.
Are you going to utilize this capital to their most efficient uses? If you don't, how would you know without a homogeneous system thats putting all these heterogeneous services and resources into account. It is possible in a household economy to succeed with this, but when you're dealing with an industrial economy you need a way to measure if it's feasible to offer these services for free. In a system without proper calculation, you would not know you are making an error until you have an economic collapse.
Stefan Molyneux acknowledged two definitions for the word "efficiency." One refers to economic efficiency (efficient use of capital, which seems to be your usage) and the other is engineering efficiency (which is our primary concern). It's important not to conflate the two, so you need to be a bit more clear.
It's possible for a household economy because the necessary resources are smaller in scale and easy to account for in mind. Try hypothetically scaling that up and including systemic inventory systems via computers and sensors tracking where everything is. If the central computer in every city has a checklist of every resource available, all resources coming in from extraction and recycling, all resources going out to production, and everything currently in use, it becomes a relatively complex, but feasible, algorithmic process to determine what needs to go where to keep up. We'd know if a shortage was coming LOOOOOONG before an economic collapse would occur and would then have time to research alternatives.
Question: Can a central computer system with sufficient historic data calculate within a reasonable degree of error what the resource consumption will probably look like in the near future and allocate the calculated available pool of resources accordingly?
The historic data can not tell you to the utmost efficiency of today. This is known as the static economy argument. If everyone did the exact same thing they did today as they did yesterday, and the same as tomorrow ad infinitum, sure this will work. People's desires (not even due to marketing) change every single minute of every single day.
No, this is not the static economy argument and I'll explain why. You are thinking on a scale of individual behavior. If you leave that scope and think in a wholistic scale, you have some individuals deviating from their standard behavior and others doing the same to fill those deviations. The market does, indeed, change due to human behavior, which is impossible to account for on an individual scale, but you don't need to account for each one. You only need to account for general averages within a reasonable degree of error in favor surplus based on historic trends of consumption, adjusting accordingly where circumstances change (also based on historic precedent). Natural disasters would be such a circumstance requiring change.&nbsp;This is being done right now! Stores already have inventory tracking systems to place orders for more product when consumers begin to use up what is currently in stock. They don't account for each and every purchase. They don't need to! They only need to know roughly how fast they can expect products to be moved out in order to keep up and they error on the side of a little surplus in order to make sure there is always some available.
Hold onto your lunch, people, because this next response might make you ill. I wonder if this guy knows I live in Louisiana.
Price gouging is good. This is an example at good market practices. Hurricane Katrina, for example, knocked out clean water for most people. Now, If I have 100 gallons of fresh water that I drove in from out of state and I get there and the demand for water is hundreds of thousands gallons I have an advantage to make ALL KINDS OF MONEY AND EXPLOIT THEM, BUHAHAHAHAHAHA! So why is this good? Because, if I charged the normal 25 cents a gallon for a commodity that is extremely scarce at that moment, people wouldn't take it's current scarcity into account when they use it. They'll wash their faces with it, use it to make iced tea...etc. None of these are helping people who actually need the water. Let's say I sell it for 20 bucks a gallon. The people who feel they have the most utility of this water will bid higher for it, and the people who just want to use it to make henna tattoos or hose off their roof won't. That way, I am ensuring that the people who need this this water can now outbid those who are just going to squander it. People who need it who cannot afford it can bid together.
People are not going to be hosing their roof off or making henna tattoos&nbsp;while others are dying of thirst. If they did, they'd be looted or socially outcast.&nbsp;Otherwise, you and your truck would be looted and you'd deserve it. This kind of bogus bulls**t free market crap is exactly why the free market (in ALL of its forms) needs to go, in my humble opinion. If you showed up to a disaster area with $20 bottles of water, you'd make Youtube as the most greedy and unaltruistic individual who has ever walked this Earth, right up there with the most sadistic tyrants of history. This is an example of the "value system disorder." That being said, I am almost no longer willing to read Mises, because if he advocates what you just described, he can become merely&nbsp;a footnote in history.
It's not perfect, but let's look at both sides:
Free-Market: Most of the people who needed the water got it.
Most? That's it? What about everyone else who needed water and did NOT get it!?
Managed market: some people who need it got it, as well as a lot more people who squandered this precious need. Which is what we saw.
Like the rich guy in town couldn't buy up your water truck in a free-market?
RBE: there would *have* been no possible way to tell who needed what more and would be distributed arbitrarily and people could not respect it's value. Therefore, it could not be rationally allocated.
Oh, that is just bogus in every way. You're assuming that&nbsp;resources in any given situation must necessarily be below the rate of demand.&nbsp;For one, if a young girl with no money showed up to your water truck by herself, would she do without or would your free market, pricing gouging crap step aside for her?
You COMPLETELY misrepresented what would occur in a RBE. If a natural disaster occured, the city central computer would prepare for possible emergency procedures as the storm or distaster approached, assuming it was predicted. The central computer would then be sending out distress calls to&nbsp;many other cities the instant its sensored detected something wrong, requesting emergency resource allocations of food, water, and any necessities that MIGHT become short during the disaster, erroring on the side of excess. These resources, which would likely be made up of excess surpluses from around the country/world would be loaded up and rocketed toward the disaster area and made available for immediate distribution. Building and repair utilities would be dispatched from other nearby cities to begin the recovery process the moment it was safe to do so. This is an almost rythmic ballet or organization and preparedness.
Mises never said the socialist/Marxist regimes couldn't possess the technical knowledge to know what to make, how to make, and how to distribute it. The USSR was very tech savvy and even sent the first cosmonaut to space. The RBE will do this part even better given the superior technology of today combined with the removal of painfully ineffecent bureaucratic institutions and brutal dictators. The problem that it's not possible to calculate correctly if this is the most efficient allocation of resources compared to something similar or something completely different until you have a collapse.
"It's not possible"? Either you possess an exhaustive knowledge of every possible method of doing so, which I heavily doubt considering most of this discussion is hypothetical,&nbsp;or you're using an argument of ignorance. You are saying, "I can't see how else it can be done, therefore it can't be done." It's a logical fallacy and even Stefan stepped on this one.
With all of that said and done, the most important argument I have heard yet for The RBE says it could calculate on 'life value analysis,' but this algorithm has yet to be created or even detailed how it will work. When they do, it will throw the economic schools into upheval as they attempt to figure out why this exception to the rule exists. Until they can, they need to address Mises' argument.
We already have small scale inventory systems with such algorithms in place. We only need to scale them up as it becomes necessary to do so. If you refuse to recognize them, then I don't know what to tell you.&nbsp;I think between my response, Brandy's,&nbsp;Niel's, and Peter's, we've discussed this topic in detail, so you don't get to say on your blog that we're avoiding it.]]></description>
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		<title>Louisiana can Afford Solar Panels!</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=4</link>
		<description><![CDATA[During Zeitgeist Addendum, Peter Joseph alludes that solar panels are now an affordable reality for the people of America. As a prominant supporter of the Zeitgeist Movement, I'm sure I do not have to tell you how much an interest this topic is to me. I've recently been scouring around my local listings and looking for a means to purchase, install, and finance solar panels for my home. I will probably have more to report on this matter while I continue my research, but here is one option I would like to share with my fellow supporters of sustainable technologies.
I stumbled onto a company right here in Shreveport, LA called Wilhite Solar Solutions who does the necessary solar services for the entire state of Louisiana. I just finished a meeting with a representative from the company here in my home. I was halfway impressed by and halfway expecting exactly what I was told. A basic 3 kw solar system would cost about $25,000. Don't spew your soda yet though, because it will not cost the buyer that amount. The rep told me that after state and federal incentive programs are applied for, the panels will only cost the buyer about $6,000. This is still a little high for someone like me who lives in the low-income bracket, but there is more still.
The rep told me the process involved in financing the solar panel system. Roughly speaking, a rep would place you (the buyer) on the phone with a financing agent (a bank). I know banks are evil, but bear with me. If you are approved for financing, you are required to pay no money or interest for 12 months. After the first of the year, you apply for state and federal incentives which reduce the amount you need to pay. Interest on the remainder becomes high after 12 months, so buyers are heavily encouraged to pay off their panels (the remaining $6,000) before the 12 months is up. If this is done, the panels are paid for as if in cash.
In short, a person can call Wilhite Solar Solutions, get approved for financing, and pay nothing up front. Within a few weeks, the buyer will have panels on their home and making unrequired payments at their own pace. After 12 months, they begin making required payments with interest, assuming they didn't already pay off the debt before that time.
I am not here to advertise for this company. I'm just informing everyone how one can go about getting this system on their home. As I discover other viable options, I will post them here as well. If you live in Louisiana and are interested in contacting Wilhite Solar Solutions to explore purchasing solar panels for your home, it is VERY important for you to contact me here at the Zeitgeist Movement - Shreveport first and I will provide all of the necessary information on who to call at Wilhite Solar Solutions and what to expect from them. Let me say that once more. It is VERY important that you contact me first and I will direct you to someone at Wilhite Solar Solutions who has been previously briefed on the Zeitgeist Movement's presence in Louisiana. This will help us immensely.
The rep to whom I spoke informed me that they have 6 installation teams, yet installation jobs are backed up by at least 3 weeks. I was incredibly glad to hear this. It is clear people here in Louisiana are becoming aware that solar panels are viable options. I only hope to have more contact with professional peddlers of sustainable technologies as our monetary system sinks.
~Chris G.&nbsp;a.k.a TanoroLouisiana State coordinator, The Zeitgeist Movement]]></description>
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		<title>Anirban Zeitgeist India: RBE vs Communism</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=3</link>
		<description><![CDATA[A Zeitgeist supporter in India highlights how the Resource Based Economy differs from the 10 key points which describe Communism as defined in the Communist Manifesto.While overlooking the grammar and spelling errors, which I forgive because English may not be the author's first language, this article was most excellent. I was a little downed by it because I was in the process of writing a blog myself which details the RBE vs the 10 points of Communism. Oh well, such is life. The article itself appears to point out much of what I was going to say in my blog. Of the 10 key points of Communism, the RBE agrees with perhaps half of one of them (the abolition of land ownership). Good job, Zeitgeist India! Keep up the good work!Source: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=398097317806&amp;id=1015300655]]></description>
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		<title>The more spills change the more they stay the same</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=2</link>
		<description><![CDATA[History shows that emergency oil spill recovery has changed very little while the processes of wrecklessly drilling have grown in strides, making such emergencies increasingly more difficult to resolve.]]></description>
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		<title>Agricultural Adjustment Act and Bailouts</title>
		<link>http://www.lazeitgeist.com/viewblog?id=1</link>
		<description><![CDATA[The Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed in 1933 as part of our Great Depression recovery efforts. This act does a number of things. However, its most notable action to us Zeitgeist supporters is that it allows the government to subsidize farmers for leaving crop fallow. This is a fancy way of saying, "they pay the farmers NOT to grow at all or at maximum capacity." The reason why this is done is simple Supply and Demand.
The government knows that farmers and the growing of food is crucial to society, so it is essential to keep farmers happy. In a monetary economy, this means keeping farming profitable. If farmers cannot be paid well for their work, they are unable to survive and, thus, no one would want to be a farmer. This means less food for the country and a lower standard of living all around.
If farmers collectively grow too much of a given crop, then its logical to assume the unit price of that crop will drop, making the selling of the crop less profitable. This leads to angry farmers who are now unable to keep their farms. So how does the government make sure farming stays profitable? By making farmers grow less and paying them a little subsidy for their fallow crops. I'd like to point out that this obviously means we CAN grow more than we need if we can do so enough to make farming unprofitable. This supports exactly what the movement purposes when we point out that mankind can now produce more than we can consume and it's making the monetary system unstable.
So lets look at the big picture here. We pay the government a little MORE while they pay the farmers to grow LESS, so we can all pay MORE again just to eat. Knowing this, you begin to realize that abundance at low cost is not only impossible in this system, but the system inherently works against it. This is merely one example of how polarizing the monetary system has become.
Another related issue is the government bailout. These are just small examples of economic adjustments not unlike the Agricultural Adjustment Act. People are beginning to realize that we cannot afford to sustain spending binges on useless products and are beginning to rediscover the old values of thrift and saving. This is causing large manufacturers (i.e. General Motors) to lose profit. In GM's case, people are driving more used cars and fewer people are attempting to purchase brand new cars.
There are only two ways to sustain a business in a monetary system: 1. the business produces goods or services which is purchased by consumers for profit; 2. the business requests a bailout from the government who pays to sustain the business when #1 fails. In both cases, the taxpayers are giving money to the business in order to sustain it. But the real absurdity emerges when you realize that only in option #1 do we actually get the products for which we are paying!
The monetary system is being propped up this way everyday because it is no longer sustainable! We must move on to a better system. Product distribution in the Resource Based Economy will not depend on the trade of money or the concept of profit, so economic adjustments would be entirely irrelevant. We would be free to produce at capacity if needed, ensuring constant abundance with no monetary value in our technological society.]]></description>
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