Why the name 'The Zeitgeist Movement'?

As some might know, I'm a filmmaker and I've used that term

but it really has nothing to do with it.

The term 'zeitgeist' is defined

as the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.

The term movement simply implies motion or change

so The Zeitgeist Movement by definition

is an organization, which seeks to change

the dominant intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of a time

for reasons of which will be discussed in a moment.

The Movement was founded in 2008

and since that time it's gained over half million subscribers

with about 1100 chapters across 70 countries

(in a very short period of time which is quite impressive

in my sense of history).

Originally the movement was partnered with an organization

called The Venus Project and we're still very much in support

of the work of Jacque Fresco, of course, absolutely

[Applause]

but this relationship has disbanded for a number of reasons

and the two organizations coexist with very similar pursuits.

The Zeitgeist Movement chooses not to be grounded

to a singular institution or figure, or even data set.

Rather, we're interested in developing an emerging train of thought

and highlighting that train of thought for others to absorb

and identify with and expand upon

in the emergent nature of any type of intellectual development.

The model of The Movement is really nothing original.

It's fundamentally based on the Civil Rights Movements' structures

that have proven effective over time in different areas of the world.

This includes the use of educational programs, events

and eventually, as our phases unfold

mass, non-violent protest actions.

Jason is going to be talking about the basic structure

and activism of The Movement later on but I want to quickly throw out

that The Zeitgeist Movement is really defined by its chapters.

Everyone listening that's in a chapter, or maybe isn't in a chapter

please understand that this is a chapter-based movement structure.

We have project teams that emerge out of those chapters

and the actual projects and events themselves

are just another attribute of that

of the communication process that we work on.

The structural goal, which isn't something

that's brought up very often for those that follow The Movement

is what you could call critical mass on a global scale:

a mass strong enough to affect the operation of society

by its collective efforts from a grassroots level.

The Zeitgeist Movement isn't a political movement

nor, for many reasons I don't have time to explain

do we identify with the political structure and the way it unfolds.

It is basically an elitist structure

coming out of a long history of elitist mentalities

and it's been an illusion

that this sort of democratic process that everyone throws around

has actually served the majority of the population.

Why are we here then?

I'm going to present a very generalize statement as the basic goal

and then work backwards to define the terms that comprise this.

As stated: "We seek a new economic model

based not on the movement of money

and the dynamics associated with such a system

but rather on truly objective

scientific resource management and allocation

strategically seeking to enable

an equitable distribution of all goods and services

to meet the needs of the entire, global human population

while ensuring maximum environmental sustainability

over generational time."

That's a big mouthful.

Let's break this down. What does this mean?

First, we have the concept of an economic model.

What is economics?

The Greek root of the word

basically means 'management of a household'

also implying concepts of thrift or conservation

hence the term 'economize'.

Therefore, an economy is a method of organizing materials

that seeks to reduce waste, hence increase efficiency

in its process of providing for a population.

Simple enough.

Next we have our qualifier.

Where this economic model we speak of is quote

'not based on the movement of money and the dynamics associated.'

Why are we ruling out the monetary system?

Because as radical as this may seem

the model cannot be logically considered a true economy

by the definition we've just described.

The inherent strategies associated with the monetary model

actually reinforces the opposite

of what a true economy is supposed to be

as we just defined.

The notions of preservation, efficiency, sustainability

hence the need to economize, are actually the enemies

as I will point out, of our current model.

We live, in fact, in an anti-economy.

The first thing to understand

is that the only thing that keeps you employed in our system

is constant or cyclical consumption.

The fuel of our world economy

is the interest to keep buying and consuming

and buying and consuming.

The more turnover, the greater our GDP

and so-called 'economic growth' we keep hearing people talk about

as though it actually represents something tangible

in an empirical sense.

If a computer company actually decided

to make strategically optimized products

(Apple Computer for example)

if they decided to create goods that would evolve

they would be designed to last, not to be replaced.

Product development would be with the most durable design

scientifically evaluated, enabling structural updates

to current equipment that's already in existence

in the interest to extend the life

and maximize preservation and efficiency

rather than the constant replacement of things.

I can assure you that computer company

would suffer tremendously in profit

not to mention the labor levels they have would drop substantially.

This train of thought goes for all industries.

I would say the core driving force of the system today

is really inefficiency.

Efficiency and sustainability are the enemies

and this issue is more apparent today than ever before

because of the tremendous advancement in technology.

When the monetary, market-exchange model as we know it

began many centuries ago

this inefficiency that's inherent was masked

by the fact that there was a great deal of raw human labor

involved in the production of goods and services.

Imagine the amount of time and energy it took

for a farmer with a plough to plant and harvest

without the modern equipment we have today.

When you compare the two you begin to see something very interesting.

What's happened essentially, is that our technological ingenuity

our ability to create tools that help us to ease our labor

and make our lives easier in abstraction

has 'shifted the tides'

from people being actually required to do work

to get the necessities of life

in a very real, tangible, utilitarian way

to the existence of this advanced automation society

that we're harboring into

where we now have to invent arbitrary occupations

over and over again, structurally purposeless jobs

(if you're willing to take the time to see it

even though it's very hard when you're born into this

to recognize them as such)

just for the sake of monetary circulation alone.

That's what is needed to keep this model going

and unfortunately it's not working. We can't do it fast enough.

Inefficiency in a broad scheme

is now the current path, whether advertent or not

for keeping consumption and hence the system

(outdated, archaic system) going

and it comes in many forms.

Fortunately for the system itself

yet to our human and social detriment

inefficiency is built right in to the structure, as noted prior.

'Cost efficiency' is defined as:

productive, relative to the cost

or being effective without wasting expense.

This modern economic concept based on money

has nothing to do with materials or with design.

It's about saving capital, not resources.

This is a classic example of how our system is utterly decoupled

from any natural state or processes.

One of the most misleading statements

about this capitalist system that we all share

is the classic phrase you might have all heard in Economics 101:

"The role is to produce the highest quality goods

at the lowest possible prices."

If you really think about that statement

it is an explicitly circular rationale

based only on the observation of money

and the intrinsic value of money

but yet completely decoupled and devoid of any physical reference

or scientific integrity.

It serves to support the false idea that market competition

is a good thing.

The result in short is the following:

1. Every item produced in our society is immediately inferior

the moment it is created.

It is a mathematical impossibility

to produce the most strategically, conscious goods we can.

This system simply will not allow it.

The result is copious waste and pollution.

2. Jobs will always be mechanized

when it becomes cheaper than human labor.

This is an ongoing, unstoppable process

called 'technological unemployment'

and is currently reducing employment and purchasing power

at an accelerating rate

even though very few people will ever have the nerve

to talk about this in the economic or news media.

3. Environmental negligence is built in. It's constant.

Not only [are] disposal methods not done correctly

in a scientific, appropriate way

due to the need to cut costs (the cost efficiency mechanism)

but there is also, elusively, a built-in indifference

at the end of the day

to the natural order and preservation of the environment.

Problems generate profit.

Industry thrives on problems

and solutions, which are again a form of efficiency

is the enemy.

Tangible physical efficiency is inverse

to actual market economic efficiency.

If you took all the money spent today

producing bottled water on this planet...

I was just joking to someone earlier. I was like

"God, we've got to get rid of these bottled waters on stage."

But what do you do in this society? You walk around;

this is what people do. It becomes normality to be so inefficient

where you just accept it because our lives...

It's built into our structure and

it's hard for us to be conscious or sometimes to even be active

with the type of preservation methods that are required.

But if you took all the money

spent on bottled water production on this planet for drinking

and applied it to a massive public filtration system

desalination, clean infrastructure channels

I suspect it would be paid for many times over.

But pollution, as alluded to prior

is another form of inefficiency to be capitalized on.

Pollution creates jobs and markets

just as any other form of inefficiency does.

Just as all of us having more cancer would improve

the GDP of our country, because we'd have to be treated for it.

A final form of inefficiency that I'm just going to throw in there

is the creation of false needs for the populous.

This is done through advertising and marketing.

If you can convince a person that a $5000 handbag

has more use than a $10 one, even though there's absolutely

no real utilitarian difference between the two

just because of relative status notions

you've created a new level of emotional

and status inefficiency to exploit

and false needs to be filled to conform to the culture

and this is a very rampant thing and you see this epidemic everywhere.

The movement of money

through the mechanism of systematic and intrinsic efficiency

cannot be called an economy

[and] therefore is not valid as a working methodology.

Coming back to our statement