New Golden Age Ahead

[Lloyd]

- Videos on Resource Based Economy to replace current corrupt economy. Looks like a sensible idea, founded on science. A new Golden Age awaits. Yes, no?
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 3163636261

[nick c]

The yearning for the return to the Golden Age is strong.

No matter how you cut it, this plan comes down to a small group of "enlightened" (the zeitgeist group?) individuals making decisions for the common folk, who are not capable of making the correct decisions for their own good.
That is, telling you...what you want is irrelevent, so here is what we think you need.
The assumption that resources can be unlimited is unfounded, what if resources are not unlimited? then how will those limited resources be allocated amongst the individual wants and needs? Will the computers (programmed by who?) decide who is important and who is expendable?
Wasn't there a "Twighlight Zone" or "Outer Limits" episode about this? You know the society that was run by a computer in a cave.
Where ever he is, I am sure that George Orwell is smiling.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson:
Any government capable of giving you everything you want is powerful enough to take everything you have.
And make no mistake, this is a plan for a huge "Big Brother" type central government.
Of course people who resist will have to be dealt with in some manner...mental institutions? elimination? reprogramming? etc.

nick c

[Grey Cloud]

You can't have a Golden Age without Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages. They are actual historical periods, i.e. 'seasons' in the Great Year, not the result of wishful thinking.

Thomas Jefferson is always worth listening to. I am a great admirer of the gentleman, not least for his views on education.

[Grey Cloud]

The zeitgeist thing is materialistic so it's part of the problem not the solution.
I agree with Nick:

That is, telling you...what you want is irrelevent, so here is what we think you need.

In a word: 'experts'. We already have far too many of them. What we need is Democracy, not the plutocracy / oligarchy we currently 'enjoy'. In order to have true democracy an educated demos is required. (A democratic society is horizontal). Beside which, the Universe works along Marxist lines: 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs'. I apologise for using the M-word around you Americans but that was one of the few things that Marx got right.

[Plasmatic]

Hitler was elected democratically. Marx dictum is the very heart of what is destroying civilization today.Altrusim/ collectivism = the disaster that is the current state of the world. Jefferson would not approve!

[saturnine]

Too many people think "needs" equals "wants". A new golden age is certainly ahead... just don't get suckered into falling for pyrite though

[mague]

Hitler was elected democratically. Marx dictum is the very heart of what is destroying civilization today.Altrusim/ collectivism = the disaster that is the current state of the world. Jefferson would not approve!

Me thinks someone should actually read Marx Marx was a very clever man. He was not against capitalism, he understood the capiltalist mechanics very well and did basically only show what was wrong with them. For example he wrote about how the exploit of workpower (humans) is actually contraproductive and less profit.

Ford had almost to close his assembly lines , because the fluctuation of workers was extremely high. The cowboys worked for a day or a week or a month and then just left without telling a word. This wasnt working for Ford. Then he used a method of Marx and gave his workers social benefits if they stayed long enough in his factory. And.. *drumroll*.. that worked until today

However, none of those systems will bring a golden age. Nature itself is the only system that has prooven to be a sustaining system. Did you know that birds are the descendants of the dinosaurs ? Now thats what i call a successful evolution

[Plasmatic]

Mague ,methinks someone should actually read my comments before stating irrelevent nonsense that doesnt pertain to my objection. My comment was related to the direct quote from GC that elevates the need of those who abdicate responsibility over desert and is the mechanism of enslaving those who are good for being exactly that .

[Grey Cloud]

Plasmatic,
In no way does the Marx quote I used elevate the needs of those who abdicate responsibility. It does not elevate the needs of anyone. And who is to judge who deserves what? According to your logic, the old, the physically and mentally handicapped, orphans would get what? Who are you to judge the worth of another human being? There are no pockets in a shroud.
P.S. Perhaps we could send the orphans to work cleaning chimneys or down in coal mines?

[Plasmatic]

"According to his need" makes need the standard and destroys desert. In order to give something to someone who did not earn it you have to take from those who did. The immorality of collectivism and altruism in a nutshell. "Who" am I? Im the one who declares my own life as the foundation and standard for morality and virtue.

I SWEAR BY MY LIFE AND MY LOVE OF IT THAT I WILL NEVER LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF ANOTHER MAN, NOR ASK ANOTHER MAN TO LIVE FOR MINE.

Rand

[Grey Cloud]

Im the one who declares my own life as the foundation and standard for morality and virtue.

Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot couldn't have put it better. And to who or on what is Rand swearing her oath to - her bank book?

[bboyer]

Im the one who declares my own life as the foundation and standard for morality and virtue.

Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot couldn't have put it better. And to who or on what is Rand swearing her oath to - her bank book?

Or the likes of Bernie Madoff, Carlo/Charles Ponzi, and all the other lauded gurus of this that and the other thing.

[bboyer]

Though a bit romanticized and subject to the rose-colored tint of nostalgia, we could nonetheless stand to learn and apply a few principles from this culture, http://www.airpi.org/research/tdlead.html.

[Grey Cloud]

Though a bit romanticized and subject to the rose-colored tint of nostalgia, we could nonetheless stand to learn and apply a few principles from this culture, http://www.airpi.org/research/tdlead.html.

Hi Arc-us,
Very nice article. I see many similarities there with the Greek idea of aristocracy - rule by the best. It is also very similar to the leadership qualities and decision-making processes which appear in the Iliad.
The non-judgmentalism is similar to the Toltec way as laid out by Don Miguel Ruiz.
I remember listening to a lecture by Manly P. Hall who was talking about democracy existing in the USA before the Europeans arrived. He mentioned the Iroquios nation. The council was all male but they were elected by the females. I love the yin-yang in that.
This:

Elders were the source of information for younger generations, and passed on knowledge through oral traditions.

reminded me of the Chinese proverb:

Experience is a comb that Nature gives to the bald.

My experience is growing daily.

[bboyer]

I remember listening to a lecture by Manly P. Hall who was talking about democracy existing in the USA before the Europeans arrived. He mentioned the Iroquios nation. The council was all male but they were elected by the females. I love the yin-yang in that.

I guess it's controversial, like most things of existence, but rumor has it that the formation of the U.S. Constitution was influenced by the Iroquois Confederation.

The Iroquois people with their Iroquois Confederation were among the most powerful native groups on the American continent at the time of European contact. They remained powerful through the American Revolution. The Iroquois Confederacy and the Great Binding Law is the oldest example of a constitution on the American continent (Lutz 1998:2) It has been argued since the nineteenth century, when Lewis Henry Morgan wrote "It is worthy of remembrance that the Iroquois commended to our forefathers a union of colonies similar to their own as early as 1775" (Payne 1996:605) that the Iroquois Confederation had a degree of influence over the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. To this day, scholars are locked in a heated debate over the accuracy of that claim.

http://www.campton.sau48.k12.nh.us/iroqconf.htm

The Six Nations:
Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/

This:

Elders were the source of information for younger generations, and passed on knowledge through oral traditions.

reminded me of the Chinese proverb:

Experience is a comb that Nature gives to the bald.

My experience is growing daily.

Timely comb. Just close-cropped my locks in anticipation of the likely early summer doldrums here.

I also enjoyed the articles from the American Indian Policy Center having to do with sovereignty. I love that word. Inherent within the concept I think is the linking bridge to what Plasmatic may have been driving at, without all the excess baggage and complexity of contemporary political philosophical idealism and labels and so forth. A concept of the sovereignty of a distinct culture and it's individual members. Thought this was an interesting comment from one of the sovereignty articles at the site.

As a side note, it is interesting to look at the language used in treaties right around 1800. Before 1800, when Indian tribes still represented a significant threat to the United States, the federal government called Indians their "red brothers." After 1800, when tribes were no longer seen as powerful enough to drive the white man off the continent, the federal government began calling Indians their "red children."

It was also around this time-during the 1800s-that many Indian tribes entered into what can be described as large "real estate transactions" with the United States. Those transactions have colored the dynamics of federal-tribal relationships ever since.

Framework of tribal sovereignty
http://www.airpi.org/projects/marge1.html

I want to talk about our original treaties because we not only made treaties with the United States, but we also made treaties with other foreign countries, and perhaps the first one that we made was with the Dutch. We used a wampum belt. That is, a two row wampum belt with two parallel lines on a field of white. We used wampum belts to help us commemorate our treaties. Wampum, as you may know, is made of shell, a combination of quahog and the periwinkle shell, cut and made into tubular beads and then strung into a belt. The purpose of the belt, to use an anthropological term, is as a mnemonic device for remembering important ideas, so that when the reader of the belt holds it in his hands, the idea literally comes from the belt.[2]
These two parallel lines signify this to us: On the one hand, we are travelling in our canoe, down the river of life, and travelling in a parallel line in their boat are those Europeans or Euro-Americans who are here on our land, Turtle Island. We are travelling along and we have an agreement with one another. I am not going to get out of my canoe and get into your boat and try to steer it, and I am going to ask you not to get out of your boat and get into my canoe and try to steer it. We are going to allow one another to exist. We are going to accept the notion, that we are sovereign, that we have our own form of government and that you have yours. We have our own way of life, and that you have yours, and that we are not trying to convince you to be us; we are trying to convince you that because of our long history here, we have a knowledge of this place where we live. And so, we use this two row wampum belt even now, as the basis for all of the other treaties that we made after this time.

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/