19.1.2010 von plepe.

A couple of days ago somebody gave me a DVD with the movie “Zeitgeist“, which is distributed freely over the internet and by DVD (if you like it you can burn a copy, make a special cover out of a A4 sheet of paper, and distribute it). I was quite curious about this movie, as it is about Change in our world.

Actually it was quite interesting, most of it questions our economic system based on monetary values, which - according to the movie - is one of the main reasons for inequalities on Earth, as one of its basics is debt and scarcity. Which is true in many ways, in the last century poverty and hunger massively increased and state debts multiplied, although progress developed many new inventions which might obsolete poverty, famines and diseases. It’s true, the “western world” exploits their inhabitants and the poorer regions of Earth.

A big part of the movie are world conspiracies, performed by the U.S.A., who are accused of assaulting leaders of developing countries to keep up their influence and fight against democratization of their countries. This is something where I don’t know what to think, I can’t believe that a nation can do this without noticing and being held responsible for this. On the other hand it sounds pretty reasonable, e.g. it’s a matter of fact, that (at least some) of the last wars (e.g. Iraque) have been fought due to economic reasons. Without 9/11 this war might not have been possible. 9/11 also helped to implement surveillance laws (to oppress its inhabitants, living in permanent fear). Another example is the U.S. ignorance of global climate change.

The last part of the movie was rather disappointing to me, it’s about the Venus Project (the makers of the movie as it turns out). I’ve read about this project before and I regard it as immature (not to say bullshit). The Venus Project develops ideas for a society based on a “resource based economy”. Technical progress should enable us to live without any inequalities, totally based on renewable energies and so on (that’s the good part). But it sounds like an Utopia from the 1950s-1970s, with all those huge buildings and transportation systems in tubes and everybody has their own car (which runs on renewables, with a lot of security measures, and so on). Sorry. But that’s too late, those Utopias are stories from the past.

My biggest concern: Who manages the resources?  There’s a long page about their mighty resource based economy, but no explanation about its function. Even if an economy is not based on monetary values, somebody has to distribute those resources. How do I get food, a new computer or a car? They will never “fall from the sky”. Somebody has to produce it. Even if it is produced by machines, somebody has to build those machines. Will somebody (a person, company, organization or entity) will create it, “just because it feels right”? Somebody has to decide what should be build. Somebody has to decide where to build something.

This “who” doesn’t have to be a single person. It can be a community. It could be an elite, but who decides who is that elite? It could be a democracy, but there are many kinds of democracies and most of them don’t produce equalities. I’m sure, we do need a new social system. Fast. Urgent. But the movie “Zeitgeist” and the Venus Project don’t answer this question.

Have you seen this movie? What do you think about it? Ideas for a new social system?

Geschrieben in Rant, Urbanism, Technix, Politix | Keine Kommentare »

23.7.2009 von plepe.

Unfortunately, Brussels was not one of my best experiences. The following things happened:

•  I couldn’t find any CouchSurfing-hosts, so I had to stay in a hostel (internet: 1,5€/½h)
•  The guy at the internet-cafe charged me for 70 minutes, although I couldn’t have been there for more than 30 minutes (4,50€).
• Checking out of the hostel I forgot my anorak in my room, when I came there in the evening to pick up my luggage it was not there any more (the anorak, I still have my luggage)

But the worst experience was the flight back to Vienna. Arriving at the airport at 18:30 everything still looked alright. The first time I was suspicious was, when at the gate were two flights at the same time (we were supposed to leave at 20:10), this shouldn’t happen. We were told our flight is one hour late. After some time our gate was changed, arriving at that gate our flight was no longer to Vienna, but to Bratislava and the departure time has been changed to 1:05. I decided to buy some newspaper (maybe a c’t, haven’t read it for a long time), but unfortunately everything was closing at 9pm. Some long hours later (internet: 3€/¼h - no way!) our flight arrived around 0:50 (already to late to leave at 1:05), and due to some additional delays we finally took off at 1:52. Arrival Bratislava 3:15, from there we had a bus … not to Vienna, but to Vienna Airport. Currently waiting for next train (4:54), looking forward to bed (maybe around 6am?).

Geschrieben in Rant, Travel | Keine Kommentare »