Every so often something comes your way that changes the way you think about life, the planet, the world and humanity itself. Maybe that’s someone dying, making a million, having a child or just waking up to something new that you never saw before. Tonight i was doing some research on the similarities of the Great Depression of the 30s to the current “credit crunch” after we discussing the very scary thought that the conditions we are walking into now are very similar to those that allowed Adolf Hitler to come to power.

And i remembered Jim mentioned Zeitgeist II was coming out in October. So i loaded it up out of curiosity.  Although i may not agree with everything said in it, my world changed tonight. My thinking shifted. Essentially it illustrates how monetary systems work, why we have wars and drug problems, and how the need to profit has ruined almost everything we know. It’s very similar to what Sir Ken Robinson said in his TED.com talk about modern education systems being created to meet the needs of industrialisation and slanted in favour of training worker bees rather than encouraging creativity. Money and debt are the same - without debt, there is no money. Debt is a means of power.

We’ve heard all that before of course. What’s proposed here is very simple and provocative: we no longer have any need for money, so let’s just get rid of it and replace it with something more effective and beneficial.

Consider that for a second. What would a world without money look like? Curious? Watch it.

Zeitgeist: Addendum
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

You have grown up in a monetary system that only evolved a few hundred years ago. You know nothing else. Open your mind for a second. What if we eradicated money and the monetary system? Can you conceive in your mind of world where money doesn’t exist like it was for all time except the last few centuries?

“In a world where 1% of the population owns 40% of the planet’s wealth, where 34,000 children die every single day from poverty and preventable diseases, and where 50% of the world’s population lives on less than $2 USD a day, one thing is very clear - something is very wrong.”

None of that is going to be solved by money. Money is what causes it.

No buying things or bills. No advertising. No jobs or labour. Everything we need available as something exchanged or for free. It’s an upgrade to a more advanced operating system for humanity. Solve the problems by taking out the root instead of just fighting fires and coping with them.

What an idea. What a vision.

The premise is equally simple. The earth already has everything we need. 70% of the earth is water. Plant and animal life is self-sustaining for food. The sun, earth’s core and weather are self-sustaining energy sources that can provide all our electricity needs. Work can be automated with machines. Technology is the key (and only) factor that improves quality of life, and it comes freely from human ingenuity and creativity if the resources are available.

Funnily enough, it’s a key theme in Star Trek. The assumed history is that money was just a very primitive way of doing things and was actually the cause of the planet’s problems that was being used as a way to cure itself, which is absurd. In a few hundred years, will the generations study us in total disbelief that we were so basic, neanderthal and outdated as to live around a monetary system?

To appear credible, you need an alternative. One of those alternatives is a resource-based economy proposed by the Venus Project think-tank.

What is a “resource-based economy”?
Simply stated, a Resource-Based Economy utilizes existing resources rather than money and provides an equitable method of distributing these resources in the most efficient manner for the entire population. It is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of debt or servitude.

Read more about the Venus Project here:
http://www.thevenusproject.com/

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti