London Olympics: Police will have powers to enter private homes and seize posters

[Guest ezkerraldean]

i refuse to believe that this piece of news is real

[vertsk8er419]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vxED3o5w0Y

"With the close of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, much of the media was quick to declare them a total success. This goes against the mounds of journalism produced before and during the games by the Vancouver Media Co-op, the city’s newly launched independent media center. Believing that their might be more than one answer regarding the success of the games, and one of those should come from the host communities, The Real News spoke to Franklin López, Video Producer with the Co-op, to find out more about the legacy of the 2010 Olympics for the people of Vancouver."

 

 

...good piece of subversive media

[chenGOD]

There is a definite element of patriotism and nationalism in global sporting events. That's fairly obvious, especially since the 84 olympics where shit really started getting corporatized. Then the introduction of professional athletes.

I wouldn't be against the corporate olympics as long as they really were corporate, with no government spending necessary.

 

The olympics provides moments of wonderous human achievement in sport,which I think is something we should all be proud of. It's amazing to think that the human body can do things like that.

However, they also bring a host of other problems, like increased human trafficking for prostitution (I'm not against prostitution but forced prostitution is a different matter), displacement of homeless, regulating free speech etc.

 

I have to say however, living in Vancouver, that the police presence here was not oppressive. There were lots of them in the downtown core, but they spent most of their time giving directions to foreigners and directing traffic. There was that one incident where some idiots started smashing windows of the hudson bay company (cause they were big sponsors of this olympics) but aside from that they were generally pretty low key.

 

bread: what's the organization you're a part of?

[chenGOD]

There is a problem with the "money being spent on Games could have eradicated poverty". It's simply not true. The Canadian government throws bags and bags of money at poor people in Canada - I get government subsidies for my daughter's daycare as well as a monthly child allowance from the government for example, that adds up to about 800-850 a month, and I don't claim welfare or get other assistance (such as housing assistance or food provisions). i will be getting my health care paid for as soon as my tax returns show how little I made last year. So on just me and mine, the government will be spending 1100-1200 a month, and I'm not claiming anywhere near the maximum. They've done this for years, and yet poverty persists.

What needs to happen is - cap on rents, increase minimum wage, more protection of workers' rights.

 

Also: for people saying - oh this will never happen, blah blah, they're not talking about me:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

[Dale]

There is a definite element of patriotism and nationalism in global sporting events. That's fairly obvious, especially since the 84 olympics where shit really started getting corporatized

I get bored to tears of hearing people justifying patriotism in sporting events, none of it makes any sense. Boundaries and countries are completely imaginary. I'm glad to see you acknowledge that there is an element of patriotism in the games.

 

The olympics provides moments of wonderous human achievement in sport,which I think is something we should all be proud of. It's amazing to think that the human body can do things like that.

However, they also bring a host of other problems, like increased human trafficking for prostitution (I'm not against prostitution but forced prostitution is a different matter), displacement of homeless, regulating free speech etc.

There seems to be a misguidance in prioritising where money ought to be spent. Should we invest in the olympic games or put the money, time, man-power and resources into something that is a central problem in the country or the world for that matter? There's things that need to be resolved before we even consider putting on something as huge as the olympics. It just all seems a waste to me when considering how unimportant the olympics are on the grand scale of things happening in the world. After the olympics have finished it does not provide long term societal progression - some may argue it benefits the economy but my views on the monetary system are very different to others on here so I would not like to see this money economy being upheld or supported any longer because it is backwards and does not work - this is a different tangent, one which I will not go down.

 

bread: what's the organization you're a part of?

http://thezeitgeistmovement.com

Depending on where you are on March 13th, try and make your way to one of our events in the world. Give it a few more years and the public will take us seriously:

http://zday2010.org/index.php?option=com_events&view=events&layout=map&Itemid=69

Here is the map of international events - all events listed are run by members of the movement looking to actively spread and educate the public about the social direction we advocate. It's all about getting the numbers up at the moment. Most events will consist of lecture events for the public to attend.

Here's what the map looks like so far:

 

I will be at the main London event - there's a big one in New York if anyone from that area is interested.

[chenGOD]

There is a definite element of patriotism and nationalism in global sporting events. That's fairly obvious, especially since the 84 olympics where shit really started getting corporatized

I get bored to tears of hearing people justifying patriotism in sporting events, none of it makes any sense. Boundaries and countries are completely imaginary. I'm glad to see you acknowledge that there is an element of patriotism in the games.

 

 

 

thanks for not being too patronizing in your response. lol

Oh you're part of that zeitgeist bullshit. Nevermind then.

[Dan C]

Here is the map of international events - all events listed are run by members of the movement looking to actively spread and educate the public about the social direction we advocate. It's all about getting the numbers up at the moment. Most events will consist of lecture events for the public to attend.

Here's what the map looks like so far:

 

I will be at the main London event - there's a big one in New York if anyone from that area is interested.

 

Why do you hate Africa and Madagascar so much?

[Dale]

There is a definite element of patriotism and nationalism in global sporting events. That's fairly obvious, especially since the 84 olympics where shit really started getting corporatized

I get bored to tears of hearing people justifying patriotism in sporting events, none of it makes any sense. Boundaries and countries are completely imaginary. I'm glad to see you acknowledge that there is an element of patriotism in the games.

 

 

 

thanks for not being too patronizing in your response. lol

Oh you're part of that zeitgeist bullshit. Nevermind then.

Rather than calling a direction to help humanity as "bullshit", look into it before making such a judgment and give me specific details you don't understand or like about it.

 

Here is the map of international events - all events listed are run by members of the movement looking to actively spread and educate the public about the social direction we advocate. It's all about getting the numbers up at the moment. Most events will consist of lecture events for the public to attend.

Here's what the map looks like so far:

 

I will be at the main London event - there's a big one in New York if anyone from that area is interested.

 

Why do you hate Africa and Madagascar so much?

Considering we've only been going for one year, we've done pretty well don't you think?

The reason why these areas don't have many events is because of a general lack of exposure to the ideas we support. We want to get the whole world on-board.

[chenGOD]

Already looked at it, seen some video presentations on it. It's bullshit because it has no clear, concise goals - all it says is "oh we don't like the system, we gotta change".

The movement also fails to understand a basic simple premise, which is scarcity will always be a part of production, until we can break that pesky first law of thermodynamics.

 

p.s. you might want to check your own organization's history. This year will be the third annual Zday.

 

p.p.s. I just check the website again out of curiosity, lol they list 64 members in North Korea.

[Guest ezkerraldean]

even if humanity was post-scarcity, the world would still be shit because people are fucking retards, and national/ethnic/linguistic/religious groups would still fight eachother over historical/traditional sites/artefacts etc or even just for shits and giggles. humans love to hate people who are different to them (and preferably blow them up). was the disintegration of Yugoslavia about resources? nope, it was nothing but the old "us versus them" mentality in its most primitive and pointless form.

 

maybe i'm wrongly assuming that people think Zeitgeist etc will bring world peace. but if its supporters do think that then they are tossers

[Dale]

p.s. you might want to check your own organization's history. This year will be the third annual Zday.

The movement itself has only been in existence since around October/November 2008 as this was when the main website was up so that everyone could communicate with each other about locations/whereabouts of members and who are interested in setting up projects/meetings/lectures etc. So to be entirely correct, the movement has been around for over 1 year, and the "Z-days" have been named by Peter Joseph who originally founded the movement - note that the first Z-day was in 2007 and an official worldwide movement was not in existence at around this time due the direction of a resource based economy hardly having any publicity to get millions across the world interested.

 

Already looked at it, seen some video presentations on it. It's bullshit because it has no clear, concise goals - all it says is "oh we don't like the system, we gotta change".

The movement also fails to understand a basic simple premise, which is scarcity will always be a part of production, until we can break that pesky first law of thermodynamics.

Which video presentations have you watched? What do you find to be nonsense?

 

We acknowledge that the monetary system is not practical and is completely outdated - meaning that technologically speaking, we can create an abundance of resources without the need for trade/barter or an exchange of money between people - this can be done if everyone in the world cooperates, which I fully acknowledge is a difficult idea to grasp, but not impossible - and through the movement, we are looking to tell people about solutions to problems. There are too many groups of people out there who are quick to mention a problem, without offering a solution.

 

Firstly, as far as goals are concerned, it's now time to educate as many people as possible about a possible new direction for humanity, which we feel is a resource based economy whereby decisions are arrived at through the scientific method rather than a politicians opinion. This is probably the most important and fundamental description (in short) about how an RBE is governed. We also take into regard that the current social system has to collapse or fail so that people lose trust in their so-called "elected leaders". Unfortunately, it's going to take for mass unemployment to occur before anything changes. When people lose trust in the current system due to it's shortcomings, more people open up to other ideas that might be beneficial and more reliable than a system with money. Is it hard to realise that we have the technology to create an abundance of food and resources? We can not make an abundance of resources within a money system as it goes against the very basis of a money oriented economy: basic economics shows that keeping things scarce is profitable so access to goods and services comes at a cost, which then leads to employment (wage slavery).

 

Specifically, fully automated hydroponic farms can be made with current technology to allow for an abundance of food. Metals are a finite resource, however, substitutes will need to be discovered within scientific fields of research. When resources are finite and running low, a priority would need to be made on finding a substitute for that scarce resource - this is one way of how a possible solution could come about.

 

chengod: what would be your solution to world hunger within a monetary system? Do you think we have to eventually surpass the monetary phase before heading onto better and bigger things for humanity? Do you predict that there will never be such thing as a period of post-scarcity after capitalism?

[Dale]

humans love to hate people who are different to them (and preferably blow them up)

Human nature? If this is so.. how do you explain the effects of social conditioning on a human mind? When you say that humans love to hate, would you say that this emotion is ingrained into our genetic biology or is the hatred triggered by the environment? Does a baby know how to hate, or does it learn how to hate? You imply as though all humans share hatred as a common nature, which is not supported by any scientific evidence at all.. unless you can pin-point me to some information? - (take note that I keep an open mind during discussions)

 

maybe i'm wrongly assuming that people think Zeitgeist etc will bring world peace. but if its supporters do think that then they are tossers

Try and stay away from emotional reactions like this as you'll find that most who think logically during discussions will not take you seriously.

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

I agree with both sides of the argument on the zeitgeist movement

[Guest ezkerraldean]

Specifically, fully automated hydroponic farms can be made with current technology to allow for an abundance of food. Metals are a finite resource, however, substitutes will need to be discovered within scientific fields of research. When resources are finite and running low, a priority would need to be made on finding a substitute for that scarce resource - this is one way of how a possible solution could come about.

why would people bother looking for a substitute when they could just sit on their arses and suffer no personal consequence? much like fossil fuels today, minimal effort is going into finding alternatives because supply is currently still exceeding demand, innit.

 

 

Human nature? If this is so.. how do you explain the effects of social conditioning on a human mind? When you say that humans love to hate, would you say that this emotion is ingrained into our genetic biology or is the hatred triggered by the environment? Does a baby know how to hate, or does it learn how to hate? You imply as though all humans share hatred as a common nature, which is not supported by any scientific evidence at all.. unless you can pin-point me to some information? - (take note that I keep an open mind during discussions)

i hope it's not genetic but it screams out to me as being precisely that. i've seen tonnes of supposedly clever people, (even psychology/sociology students who study the very effects they themselves fall victim to) brought up in an environment of love and plenty, get involved in totally pointless, testosterone-fuelled fights, and highly venomous pack mentalities. assuming everyone will just be perfectly happy in a land of plenty seems like a dangerous simplification of the facts on the ground.

 

 

Try and stay away from emotional reactions like this as you'll find that most who think logically during discussions will not take you seriously.

lol

[chenGOD]

We've already had mass unemployment in the 30s, there was this little thing called the Great Depression (which makes the economic troubles we're undergoing now look like a minor dip). That didn't change people's minds much, and they'd had far less time to get sucked in to the whole free market economy.

 

You keep talking about an abundance of resources. This is what I'm talking about with the first law of thermodynamics. You can't get something for nothing. You can't create more resources than what you start with in a closed system, and the Earth is, for all intents and purposes, a closed system. Perhaps you're confusing resources with surplus? We already have an abundance of economic surplus, it's the unequal distribution of that surplus that's the problem. The creation of surplus has long been worked out. This sounds like I'm contradicting my earlier statement that "scarcity will always be a part of production"; it's more a modification - scarcity for production of some goods/surplus will always exist, as well as scarcity in distribution.

You mentioned the example of hydroponic farming. Hydroponic growing uses obscene amounts of energy (how do you think the police catch indoor grow ops? they monitor electricity usage) which has to come from somewhere. You want to add full automation to that? Where is the energy coming from to make the robots, and then power them? Again, after the crops have been harvested, you have to distribute that food. That takes energy, which...has to come from somewhere.

 

A resource based economy will lead us back to feudalism, which was great if you controlled the resources, not so much otherwise. Personally I would like to see a variety of means implemented to get past laissez-faire capitalism. Market-socialism combined with an increase in bartering is something I've been thinking about a lot. Restrictions on individual movement need to be reduced to allow people to move where better opportunities are. I dunno. It's 11:00 on a Saturday night, I want to finish watching this football match before revising a short paper. Don't have much desire to expound on these ideas at length here right now.

[Guest inteeliguntdesign]

even if humanity was post-scarcity, the world would still be shit because people are fucking retards, and national/ethnic/linguistic/religious groups would still fight eachother over historical/traditional sites/artefacts etc or even just for shits and giggles. humans love to hate people who are different to them (and preferably blow them up). was the disintegration of Yugoslavia about resources? nope, it was nothing but the old "us versus them" mentality in its most primitive and pointless form.

 

maybe i'm wrongly assuming that people think Zeitgeist etc will bring world peace. but if its supporters do think that then they are tossers

ah man, this has made me aroused. but what about iain m. banks books???

[AJW]

If pigs could fly, Scotland Yard would be Britains largest airport

[Dale]

why would people bother looking for a substitute when they could just sit on their arses and suffer no personal consequence? much like fossil fuels today, minimal effort is going into finding alternatives because supply is currently still exceeding demand, innit.

If you make people aware of the consequences from an early age, then people will grow up taking into account how important the Earth's resources are to our survival, but this sort of education would not go down well in a money economy as our current economy is based on:

- infinite growth (which is a fantasy)

- infinite growth then implies no consequences during mass consumption of resources

Is it really that hard to see that this system promotes mass consumption without educating the general public about the consequences of this? Am I right in saying you support the monetary system? and if so, how would you address this central problem? I know that a resource based economy is based on completely the opposite to this.. which is why I condone it fully. A monetary system is not sustainable, whereas a resource based economy is.

 

i hope it's not genetic but it screams out to me as being precisely that. i've seen tonnes of supposedly clever people, (even psychology/sociology students who study the very effects they themselves fall victim to) brought up in an environment of love and plenty, get involved in totally pointless, testosterone-fuelled fights, and highly venomous pack mentalities. assuming everyone will just be perfectly happy in a land of plenty seems like a dangerous simplification of the facts on the ground.

You're making your judgment based on personal experiences. Do you know precisely which genes your friends have inherited? No

So how do you conclude that their behaviour is based on human nature e.g. genetics? Have you heard of the case studies surrounding feral children? How do you explain the human nature of a girl who grew up with dogs from a young age yet did not demonstrate human characteristics in her behaviour like we do? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxana_Malaya

Oxana Malaya (Оксана Малая) (born November 4, 1983) was found as an 8-year-old feral child in Ukraine in 1991, having lived most of her life in the company of dogs. She picked up a number of dog-like habits and found it difficult to master language. She has lived in the Baraboy Clinic in Odessa for people with mental disabilities since her discovery.

 

When she was discovered, Oxana found it difficult to acquire normal human social and emotional skills. She had been deprived of intellectual and social stimulation, and her only emotional support had come from the dogs she lived with. Oxana's lack of exposure to language in a social context made it very difficult for her to improve her language skills.

 

Many, many case studies of feral children support the point of view that the environment is an important factor in shaping an individual's behaviour.

[Dale]

We've already had mass unemployment in the 30s, there was this little thing called the Great Depression (which makes the economic troubles we're undergoing now look like a minor dip). That didn't change people's minds much, and they'd had far less time to get sucked in to the whole free market economy.

The depression was not severe enough to warrant a total crash of the system. When you consider, for example, that a lot of our current industries (plastics, fuel companies etc.) rely heavily on oil which is finite in it's existence, and takes a very long time to be produced, we're probably much closer to a collapse than they were in the 30's due to peak oil now being more of a concern. Also, I don't know if you knew this but there were many people going out on the streets forming communist leagues, socialist meetings etc.. with many people trying to persuade the public of a different, possibly a better direction to prevent the same problems from happening again. The reason why these things did not take off was because the depression simply was not severe enough to cause a monumental crash, to a degree where worldwide violence and martial law comes about.. but as I said, we're much closer to martial law than the people were during the depression in the 30's.

 

You keep talking about an abundance of resources. This is what I'm talking about with the first law of thermodynamics. You can't get something for nothing. You can't create more resources than what you start with in a closed system, and the Earth is, for all intents and purposes, a closed system. Perhaps you're confusing resources with surplus? We already have an abundance of economic surplus, it's the unequal distribution of that surplus that's the problem. The creation of surplus has long been worked out. This sounds like I'm contradicting my earlier statement that "scarcity will always be a part of production"; it's more a modification - scarcity for production of some goods/surplus will always exist, as well as scarcity in distribution.

You mentioned the example of hydroponic farming. Hydroponic growing uses obscene amounts of energy (how do you think the police catch indoor grow ops? they monitor electricity usage) which has to come from somewhere. You want to add full automation to that? Where is the energy coming from to make the robots, and then power them? Again, after the crops have been harvested, you have to distribute that food. That takes energy, which...has to come from somewhere.

surplus/abundance = to me they are the same thing when talking about resource management

Re: hydroponics using high amount of energy = yes especially for a fully automated hydroponic farm whereby the water/nutrient distribution is equally spread over the farm. You are forgetting that renewable energy such as tidal power, wind energy, and most of all, solar and geothermal energy will all be used in an RBE to have a free flow of energy. Energy is not scarce, what matters however is how we harness the energy in our environment from a scientific point of view, but always applying science to human concern. All energy will be derived from renewable energy sources. At the moment, when living in a monetary system, abundance is an enemy to the profit system. It's much better for power companies to take over the management of electricity supply so that they can control the amount of energy overall for profit. If people had access to renewable energy sources, such as their own solar panels, winder turbines etc.. without a cost (which is what an RBE condones) then you'll see less people relying on power companies. Why is this? Because it's free energy for you to use.

 

A resource based economy will lead us back to feudalism, which was great if you controlled the resources, not so much otherwise. Personally I would like to see a variety of means implemented to get past laissez-faire capitalism. Market-socialism combined with an increase in bartering is something I've been thinking about a lot. Restrictions on individual movement need to be reduced to allow people to move where better opportunities are. I dunno. It's 11:00 on a Saturday night, I want to finish watching this football match before revising a short paper. Don't have much desire to expound on these ideas at length here right now.

I'm not sure how much research you have done on an RBE and would recommend for you to look at this FAQ if you have the time as your questions could be better answered over on the main site than I can do at the moment:

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=66

 

Define what you mean by market socialism please? Because I am not familiar with that term

Why would you want to have bartering in the first place when technology can be used to give everyone what they need without any cost, debt or servitude? It doesn't make any sense to me. Bartering should remain in the past because technology eliminates the need for this by giving both parties what they want and to prevent any exchange taking place.

[chenGOD]

I knew you would bring up renewable energy. Solar panel energy efficiency has improved markedly in the past decade, which is great. For example: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/caltech-plastic-solar-panels-nanowires-low-cost.php

But what are they made out of? Plastic. What is a key component in the manufacture of plastic? Oil. See where I'm going here? Wind turbines - iron and steel plus specialized compounds. The first two take energy to extract from the ground and then refine, the latter chemical compounds take energy to make. Then you have the issue of getting power from wind farms to where it needs to go. Geothermal is good, but is limited by the possible locales of wells.

 

 

As for reading the FAQ, great, I've done it before. It provides no information on how anything actually will get done, just how things might get done. Here's a great example:

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=66#19

 

 

You should do some reading on the great depression. Here's an easy primer.

http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/04/12_great-depression.html

 

Again, the problem is not production of resources, it is redistribution. Very very simply put, market-socialism is where the public owns and manages the means of production, the market takes care of distribution. Bartering because as I've said, you don't get something for nothing.

 

The zeitgeist guys think AI is going to change everything, but AI is severely limited, and some very very very smart people have been working on that shit for decades. The outlook ain't bright for the foreseeable future.

[SR4]

just wanted to make a quick point,

 

the rise of socialism/communist/anarchist movements in the US began far before the Great Depression...the first Red Scare post-Russian Revolution was an overreaction of course, but it wasn't without its basis. Agrarian unrest combined with the rise of populist and progression movements were in full swing by the 1900's and hit an apex around the 20's./...the Depression just fueled the fire and gave a lot of consumers pause on how successful capitalism was...a lot of people don't talk about FDR's domestic reforms in the sense that they were completely new in scope for US policy, Teddy laid the foundation for the government to well, IMO, overreach their boundaries...but the debate is was it necessary? Were these reforms really truely successful? The debate on this among historians has increased greatly post 1960's social history boom.

 

 

I really would like to say Zeitgeist is a great thing, but a lot of it seems far too easy to write and theorize about than implement it....change like this, especially like chen said, from an oil-based society to new forms of energy would take a long, long, gradual period of change...i cant see the oil economy collapsing and we are in a new Utopian society within a decade.

 

especially in terms of logistics, there would massive, MASSIVE migration movements to compliment the change in a new energy base...and that is guaranteed to cause social unrest in of itself.

[chaosmachine]

You guys sure type a lot of words.

[SR4]

ill admit im not nearly as into this as most people, but the video and movement are indeed intriguing.

[chenGOD]

I mean, obviously there are problems with the current economic system, but those stem from greed to a great degree, and as I've said, redistribution of surplus.

Changes need to be made to the market system, which is why I brought up market socialism. The market does work and can provide great efficiency in distribution. Ownership of means of production shouldn't be in the hands of a few.

Oil as an energy source needs to be complemented, and eventually replaced completely. But the problem again is that whole "can't get something for nothing" (unless the zeitgeist guys have discovered cold fusion and just aren't telling?)I'd actually like to see nuclear energy explored. New reactor designs are much safer, and I believe they take care of the problem of disposing nuclear waste by reusing it.

 

This whole "change everything at once" approach is a fantasy.

[SR4]

i just hae problems dealing with the cultural implications of such a change.

 

small island societies and decentralized communities would have to shape up and possibly even abandon their homelands, a lot of ethics and ideals with which these communities have adhered to for centuries

 

imagine the flux occurring with these people emigrating to other societies and struggling to incorporate themselves successfully, while simultaneously expecting the people that have lived in the area of immigration for centuries coping with the immigration...not an easy task