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  • RT America Presents

  • The dictionary defines Zeitgeist as the general intellectual,

  • moral, and cultural climate of an era.

  • And even though the 21st century has forced humanity

  • into so many different fractured elements,

  • there's an inescapable need to unify,

  • to ensure a future for our species.

  • It's with this in mind that the Zeitgeist Movement was formed:

  • as a collective call to challenge the global status quo.

  • And next month on October 4th in Los Angeles

  • the organization will host its 4th annual Zeitgeist Media Festival,

  • which has traditionally brought together artists, activists and musicians

  • to enthusiastically embrace the solutions to the global problems we face.

  • Earlier today I was joined by the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, Peter Joseph.

  • I first asked him why the themes of his festival are an integral

  • to the revolution of consciousness.

  • [Peter Joseph] Activism has been the cornerstone of ...

  • development, social development, experimentation,

  • technological development, all of these things have interweaved,

  • all the great scientists of the past, that have made

  • massive contributions have also been free thinkers and great artists.

  • From Arthur C. Clarke, who had basically invented

  • satellite communication was also, as you may well know,

  • one of the greatest non-fiction writers and

  • quite prolific in his view of the future world,

  • to Albert Einstein who played the violin and Nikola Tesla.

  • There is a deep-seated experimentation in art needless to say

  • as you well know, and that bridges open-mindedness,

  • that bridges creative thought, experimentation,

  • courage of course, which is something that's long lost in our world

  • when it comes to be willing to risk your identity,

  • risk your reputation to do something different, experiment.

  • So the Zeitgeist Media Festival in a lot of ways is a parallel

  • to our intellectual day, Z-Day as it’s called or Zeitgeist Day,

  • which occurs in March of each year,

  • which is a very intellectual day, highly organized

  • as far as trying to present solutions to global problems.

  • Very heavy, often depressing, as you might understand

  • considering the state of the world,

  • and so we try to balance it in the fall of each year

  • with the Zeitgeist Media Festival.

  • It’s an inspirational type of event and I encourage

  • anyone out there to come out if youre in Southern California.

  • - I’m really sad I’m missing it this year because it really was

  • such an amazing event when I was there; it was incredible.

  • I encourage everyone to definitely check it out if youre in the area.

  • And let’s talk about the Zeitgeist Movement as a whole Peter.

  • You famously created those three mind-blowing viral documentaries

  • breaking through some of those most dominating myths

  • that keeps humanity stunted,

  • which spawned an international organization pushing

  • for an alternative future.

  • Briefly talk about what the Zeitgeist Movement is all about.

  • - Sure.

  • The Zeitgeist Movement is a global sustainability advocacy organization

  • and what that means is we deal with three primary issues:

  • public health, ecological sustainability, and social stability.

  • And clearly all of those intertwine in a systems context.

  • And I’ll just jump to the end realization.

  • If we alter our basic socioeconomic system, the underpinning

  • of everything that we do - we can call it market economics,

  • we can call it capitalism, we can even go deeper to address

  • the actual foundation of what those words and what this system

  • actually organized out of -

  • if we take that and we modify it a certain way,

  • we can resolve all of the major problems we have in the world today.

  • From poverty, to the propensity towards conflict,

  • to the growing and developing mental illness,

  • to the huge lapse of public health, to these enormous flaws.

  • We don’t need to live this way anymore if we simply

  • obtain the type of efficiency and industrial practice

  • that were now capable of doing through technological development.

  • And that’s the big realization.

  • And if anyone wants to learn more about that

  • they can read the book that’s been written that's free online

  • called 'The Zeitgeist Movement Defined'

  • or they can go of course to the Zeitgeist Movement’s website

  • thezeitgeistmovement.com and see

  • hours and hours and hours of lectures and general media

  • on this subject. But I would add one more thing,

  • is that all the problems we see in the world today

  • are not going to be resolved within the framework

  • of the current socioeconomic model.

  • It’s a very bold statement,

  • but that unfortunately is the conclusion that’s drawn by the Movement

  • with an immense amount of supporting evidence,

  • and until we start to address this core source base root problem,

  • we have a lot of running in circles to do unfortunately.

  • - Right, youve said that activist groups

  • fighting for their respective causes working within the framework

  • of that system is failing. - Right.

  • - It’s basically because theyre merely patching the problem.

  • It’s mostly fruitless unfortunately.

  • Explain the difference between categorical and systems thinking

  • and how people CAN take effective direct action.

  • That’s a great polarized qualification:

  • categorical thinking versus systems thinking.

  • I’ll jump deep just for a moment, you know,

  • we evolved with a 5-sense perception and we are very tangible.

  • we want to palpably understand and perceive but it’s also very limited.

  • We think categorically.

  • We identify things by objects and words and subjects,

  • and we tend to organize our sense of causality categorically

  • in a very narrow or I would say truncated frame of reference.

  • And this has permeated just about every major social facet

  • from the way we think about the legal structure to the way

  • we think about economics of course.

  • Even of course as you mention activism which

  • everyone seems to really mean well,

  • they really want to resolve problems, they're going to their state legislatures

  • to try and get legal legislation in place to say

  • stop climate destabilization, stop the resource overshoot that is dramatic

  • (it’s been estimated well need 27 more Earths by 2050

  • to meet demand of the 9 and a half billion people coming),

  • and I’m sure youre very aware of all the other social and ecological issues

  • that pertain to this. And these resolutions are trying to use a system that,

  • in the interpretation of the Movement in which the "systems" awareness,

  • is actually flawed in and of itself as well;

  • is actually completely vulnerable to the wrong propensities,

  • which is essentially the nature of the market system

  • and its influence to stop this type of interest in efficiency,

  • preservation and sustainability.

  • Efficiency, preservation and sustainability

  • are the enemies of the current socioeconomic system.

  • Now that’s a slight deviation. Systems thinking,

  • which I’ll jump to in more of an intense manner,

  • has to do with the largest causal technical reality you can conceive of,

  • which wasn’t in our awareness in early evolution.

  • It was all purely tangible. It took the scientific method to come forward,

  • to start to realize say for example dynamic equilibrium:

  • to look at a forest,

  • and instead of cutting the whole thing down and realizing

  • that it’s not regenerating fast enough based on the consumption of it,

  • to actually to be able to measure this, to be able to measure the planet,

  • to be able to measure energy consumption versus resource availability.

  • These are basic fundamental sustainability and efficiency aspects

  • that youll see throughout, anyone that's involved in the technical sciences.

  • And sadly enough our social system doesn’t have any of those qualifications built in.

  • The legal system - I’ll throw that one out there as a final point

  • as again this contrast between categorical thinking

  • and systems thinking - the legal system is explicitly based

  • on the idea of humans' "free will" and their "decision"

  • as though there’s no other influences,

  • to make this or that choice that may or may not be socially offensive.

  • So when we throw people in jail, is that a solution to anything?

  • And statistically speaking most people that go to jail

  • come out with a higher propensity to commit more crimes.

  • So clearly it doesn’t work in the long run,

  • and it’s obviously not addressing the system consequence

  • and anyone that you talk to in the basic public health sciences will tell you that

  • the leading cause of crime and violence is deprivation.

  • What’s the leading cause of deprivation?

  • Social imbalance, inequity.

  • So if you want to stop a lot of these

  • huge negative tendencies and violence and aberrant behavior,

  • the best solution at this point is to reduce dramatically

  • class inequality, and give people what they need to limit deprivation.

  • So there’s a good example.

  • - Incredibly enough I found the most amazing statistic

  • that exemplifies exactly what youre saying. Right now Peter,

  • there are 356,000 Americans with severe mental illnesses in prison.

  • That’s 10 times the amount than in state psychiatric hospitals

  • which is an incredible statistic.

  • How does that play into the concept of structural violence

  • and how much of the current system necessitate that crime and poverty?

  • - Well there’s a few angles on that.

  • You can compare countries that have different levels of class imbalance

  • and then compare their public health outcomes.

  • I encourage people to read-...

  • there’s hundreds and hundreds of studies on this issue.

  • There’s one book called 'The Spirit Level' by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

  • that I encourage you to research,

  • which comprises the majority of this research.

  • And what they find is that there’s a

  • massive increase in mental illness, there's a massive increase

  • or I should say decrease in education levels,

  • a massive increase in violence,

  • The vast majority of negative public health attributes increase

  • in societies that have massive wealth imbalances.

  • So in America which has-...

  • Well, as a one brief aside, it is noted that

  • due to cost efficiency in the state,

  • they pretty much cut all mental health services in the 1970s

  • and decided that the prisons would be the new mental health facilities.

  • So that is a point of influence, but that of course is a deeper,

  • excuse me, a more shallow link in the chain, that leads to this.

  • Clearly all of the imbalance and shame

  • and inequality, which has a deep emotional impact,

  • generates all of these factors; statistically proven, it’s not a conjecture.

  • So anyone that questions that should go out and look into this.

  • If we don’t take a systems perspective,

  • nothing gets resolved; we run in circles.

  • Even the criminal propensity; everyone’s obsessed

  • with criminal politicians and corruption.

  • The analogy I use is that

  • you can stomp on the ants

  • that come out from under your refrigerator

  • and keep stomping on them and spraying them and trying to get rid of them,

  • or maybe you can remove the spoiled produce or food

  • that’s behind the refrigerator that’s actually causing them to come.

  • And that’s what this society doesn’t do.

  • It doesn’t resolve any of its problems and,

  • to add one more punchline to that,

  • it’s not profitable to resolve any problems in this society.

  • If peace and sustainability and efficiency,

  • these are things that if achieved, create a nice

  • equilibrium where little action is required.

  • And that is again the antithesis

  • of what our economic system demands, especially at this stage.

  • Given the unemployment,

  • it needs problems in order to keep persisting with GDP,

  • employment, growth, etc.

  • - I just don’t understand why people can’t see the link

  • between that structural violence and the millions of deaths,

  • hunger, poverty, inequality-...

  • - I will add one more thing since I don’t want to pass this up;

  • it’s a very dramatic statistic.

  • In one of the more seminal works in structural violence in 1976,

  • public health authors figured out that

  • back then there were 18 million deaths that were caused a year.

  • I suspect it’s much higher now. 18 million deaths a year.

  • And that’s what, 34 years later?

  • That’s about 700 million deaths that have been caused unnecessarily.

  • That outpaces the deaths of every dictator,

  • every war in the 20th century. This is-...

  • I mean we talk about terrorism when people are freaking out right now over ISIS.

  • And, as you know very well,

  • the statistics of any American or any in the West

  • dying of terrorism is about as nominal as you can get.

  • Were not focusing on the car death epidemic

  • that’s a true public health issue.

  • Were not focusing on people that simply die of mere allergies

  • and trying to help them to avoid these types of things

  • or get them into some type of medical condition where it doesn’t happen.

  • The spectrum, the relativism

  • of - the distortion of this relativism - is truly mind numbing.

  • If anything, anyone, people walk away with this interview is

  • really stop to think about what you see in the media as important,

  • and then ask yourself statistically, what is really important to public health?

  • What is really important to reducing human suffering?

  • and what you see in the media is just a big dog-and-pony show

  • for ulterior motives. So I’ll stop at that.

  • - Yeah, it is amazing. I mean the fear-mongering,

  • the 9/11 fear-mongering still today and,

  • I mean it’s basically- it’s very obvious that the military industry complex

  • needs this manufactured enemy continued.

  • First it’s Al-Qaeda, then it’s ISIS, what’s next?

  • It’s always going to be something Peter.

  • Let’s talk about how capitalism of course is unsustainable,

  • predatory, and you say it’s a contradiction unto itself.

  • But you also say it’s not the source of the problem, it’s merely a symptom.

  • Elaborate on why.

  • - You usually get a labeled really rapidly when you start to criticize capitalism,

  • given the decades of propaganda

  • and the kind of educational bias you have in traditional

  • educational circles: high schools in America and the West.

  • And it’s assumed that if youre not for capitalism,

  • which they block out as a particular socioeconomic ideology

  • (again in this truncated framing,

  • they don’t look at the system reality of how it emerged)

  • they assume that youre a either Marxist or a communist;

  • these things instantly go into people’s minds.

  • The first thing to point out is that it’s completely narrow

  • to even to decide that type of fact because capitalism is a symptom

  • of a larger deeper problem

  • that has happened in our socioeconomic understanding,

  • which goes back in my view, at least in a formalized sense,

  • to a man named Thomas Malthus

  • who was hired by the British East India Company

  • to do the first global survey of resources.

  • And basically Malthus said that humans...

  • humans multiply exponentially

  • while resources are acquired or regenerate geometrically.

  • So in this ethic he said

  • there are always gonna be more people than there are resources,

  • there are always gonna be poor,

  • and there are always gonna be people that are basically

  • gonna have to die for the benefit of the rest of the world.

  • You couple that in with a century and a half later

  • when Darwin comes around, writes a very profound book

  • about basic evolution. It was quickly bastardized

  • by the more militant interests in society that said

  • Oh! This proves everything that we thought all along:

  • social Darwinism, survival of the fittest.”

  • We live in Malthusian society,

  • we now have social Darwinism that says only the strong survive.

  • Boom! You have the entire basic ethic of war

  • instilled right into the model,

  • and you have the entire basic ethic of capitalism

  • instilled right into the value system of the social architecture that says:

  • there’s not enough to go around.

  • Therefore some will have to compete, well everyone will have to compete,

  • and some are gonna lose tremendously

  • and some are gonna win tremendously,

  • and it’s all natural. Let’s just let it happen.

  • And that’s clearly the state today with the 100 billionaires,

  • the 100 billionaires right now that can resolve

  • global extreme poverty four times over,

  • and the 3000 other billionaires that have now emerged.

  • And were gonna see that number increase through time,

  • with 43%, up to 46% based on some estimates,

  • of the wealth of the world owned by 1%.

  • This is considered a virtue in the deep-core ethic

  • and which is also deeply and atrociously offensive and wrong.

  • Now the final thing I’ll add is this contradiction

  • that’s happened throughout the evolution of capitalism itself.

  • Capitalism defends itself as being a scarcity-focus system, right?

  • It says: What? But there's scarcity!

  • We have to - it comes this Malthusian premise - there’s not enough to go around.

  • And some people distort this to say there's "infinite" wants,

  • that human beings, given their own free interests,

  • would want everything, which is another completely ludicrous social projection.

  • So it defends scarcity as its reasoning

  • but then what does it do?

  • It goes out and it promotes infinite consumption.

  • Because consumption is what drives the entire thing.

  • Consumption is what keeps the money moving between all the major actors.

  • If you have less consumption, it’s like the gas pedal on a car.

  • If you have less consumption, you have more unemployment,

  • you have reduced growth.

  • So it’s completely schizophrenic, do you see my point? It’s insane.

  • - That’s amazing. You just broke it down pretty well Peter.

  • But of course a common protest about it is that

  • human nature is competitive, you know.

  • I keep hearing this over and over again and I wanted you to address that.

  • - Sure. Human nature IS competitive, when it needs to be.

  • Human nature is many things; our neural plasticity is unbelievable.

  • If there’s anything that

  • neurological science has shown us in the past 50 years

  • is that our ability to adapt and change is absolutely incredible.

  • And to quote Stanford neuroscientist and anthropologist Robert Sapolsky,

  • Our nature in part is not being particularly restricted by our nature.”

  • And this is profound, and what I think

  • what happens in this system is people think it’s human nature

  • because it’s all they see. And there’s what I call a primal provocation.

  • If you have this Malthusian socially-Darwinistic basis over the society

  • and youre born into it, it’s constantly pinging

  • that element of your nature that is aggressive,

  • that does look out for itself,

  • that drives self-interest in this tribalistic need

  • to disregard the well-being of others.

  • So there’s no mystery

  • as to why people are continuing to behave this way,

  • but to confuse it with something that is considered to be empirical

  • to our condition that is inescapable, is absolutely ridiculous indeed,

  • and any qualified neuroscientist will tell you the same.

  • - Of course more common objections to this line of thinking

  • is that the Zeitgeist Movement is just repackaged Marxism,

  • and it’s gonna turn into some technological tyranny.

  • How is it different, how can it maintain

  • people’s agency, ownership, control over their lives

  • while establishing a civil rights imperative?

  • Well, back to my prior point,

  • there's that knee-jerk reaction to Marxism which tends to happen

  • by people that don’t even know what Marxism is/was!

  • They see that little encyclopedia blurb that

  • they basically read in high school and they think they understand

  • what happened in that historical period of time.

  • I’ll address that one briefly. Anyone that says it’s Marxism or communism,

  • needs to remember that communism and Marxism were based on a moral philosophy.

  • Marx talked about a lot of things, some of it actually very

  • cogent and proper and right,

  • but he also proposed solutions that were very much erroneous

  • and very unscientific.

  • And if you read the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels

  • youll find it has absolutely NO comparison to what the Zeitgeist Movement promotes.

  • The Zeitgeist Movement - back to my original statement -

  • it’s about public health, it’s about social sustainability,

  • excuse me, ecological sustainability which is social sustainability,

  • and social stability and all of that

  • I would say, is really about social sustainability.

  • And when you put this train of thought together -

  • there’s that term "train of thought" -

  • you have a ground-up realization based on the evidence that exists

  • of what actually makes a working society,

  • what actually will assure future generations-

  • which we by the way share the world with.

  • We don’t just share the world with the 7 billion people we have right now,

  • we share the world with our kids and our grandkids,

  • we have to keep that in mind. And the more we are irresponsible,

  • the more it hurts everybody in the future just as much as it hurts everybody right now.

  • And this type of awareness has no resemblance to communism in any facet,

  • it’s just that knee-jerk reaction that people have.

  • As far as the freedom neuroses ...

  • As far as the freedom neuroses that people have,

  • that’s a knee-jerk reaction once again,

  • to this propaganda of the market that says that

  • people are free, and they can achieve and they have infinite social mobility.

  • First of all, you need to debunk the fact that there’s no

  • real freedom in the market complex whatsoever.

  • It is structurally coercive.

  • It is a coercive system that puts certain people in power

  • in a completely dictatorial manner, as a system consequence,

  • a system orientation that deeply separates

  • owners and workers - this is the core characteristic -

  • and in that equation there are very limited options

  • the farther you go down on the stratified ladder.

  • And if youre like the majority of people that exist in this lower platform,

  • your freedom is so incredibly restricted,

  • your health options are so incredibly restricted,

  • and has been proven by statisticians,

  • the ability for social elevation

  • has been increasingly limited as time has moved forward,

  • as this system has compounded itself.

  • So I ask people that question: What freedom are they expecting?

  • See, it’s really a loss of creativity.

  • They only know what they perceive and what they feel

  • and theyve been brainwashed to think

  • that walking into a store and choosing between 40 different types of cereal is freedom,

  • while they have two political parties that pretty much

  • ignore everything the public says to begin with.

  • This isn’t freedom, and I think when people research the Movement

  • theyre gonna understand what true freedom actually means.

  • And that’s the freedom not to be held down to a slave job

  • (which is what it is at this point in time).

  • The vast majority of occupations in this world

  • are not necessary and counterproductive to human health,

  • and actually having freedom away from the property system,

  • which is another point we can talk about,

  • a different point of this address,

  • to actually have the freedom to get away from the property system

  • and to move around and not have the "liability" of ownership.

  • And that’s a very radical term,

  • that goes completely contrary to this consumption/materialistic

  • vanity-oriented society,

  • but I really believe that the true freedom of our future will be

  • NOT having property, NOT having ownership, having access!

  • We promote an access society in the Zeitgeist Movement

  • where people have access to everything that they need,

  • not hoarding property and value arbitrarily

  • in this archaic system we have now,

  • which is destroying the planet and human psychology.

  • - And let’s talk about mechanization.

  • You mentioned how technology is destroying the market system as well.

  • How? Because it seems to me like technological innovation

  • is constantly creating new markets.

  • - That seems to be what’s happening.

  • The defense, the Luddite fantasy defense,

  • is that we have displaced labor

  • in proportion to creating new jobs.

  • This is absolutely absurd.

  • In 1929 they actually wanted to put a halt -

  • during the Great Depression - they wanted to halt (this is in Congress),

  • halt technological development,

  • because they were so terrified and were so shocked

  • by what was happening by the early stages

  • of mechanization back then.

  • They literally tried to pass a law that said no one can apply

  • or create any more technology that relates to labor.

  • If you can imagine that. Now if that isn’t a telltale sign of what was in store.

  • Now there has been dramatic improvement in the goods and services

  • which is based on technology, not capitalism.

  • If I hear one more person say to me that: “Oh,

  • capitalism created your smartphoneorcapitalism did all...”

  • No, capitalism is a delivery system and a financing system of its own creation,

  • and there’s no other alternative to using this system in the world today.

  • It’s only technology and technological innovation

  • that has created these things;

  • capitalism is just along for the ride at this point.

  • So that out of the way,

  • technological unemployment is the core driver

  • of all unemployment in the world, if you take a system perspective.

  • Forget policies of government and all this stuff

  • that seems to come into play, our monetary policy and

  • injections to give big business more money so they can hire more people.

  • All of that is completely superficial in again that categorical narrow thought.

  • It’s actually the movement of technology,

  • the development I should say of technology,

  • throughout time that has changed everything!

  • that has moved every single labor role.

  • And the big thing now is that technological development

  • is exponentially increasing faster

  • than the human mind can redevelop to gain new occupations.

  • And then the big question becomes:

  • Why do we need new occupations?

  • Why can’t we reach a point, which we already really have,

  • where we have such an incredible range of activity within what weve developed,

  • and progress itself becomes actually

  • enduring what weve already generated in living life,

  • as opposed to this neurotic need for so-called "progress"

  • which I could talk about the neuroses of that word

  • at great length as well.

  • Punchline being is that this exponential increase in technology

  • will create more cost efficiency for corporations,

  • it will become cheaper to automate over time,

  • and they will, one way or another,

  • because the basic ethic of profit-seeking corporations,

  • displace human labor over and over again.

  • What does that do?

  • That removes purchasing power from the society

  • and that entire cyclical system

  • is going to slow down on its own accord.

  • It’s called the contradiction of capitalism.

  • It’s one of the strongest, and

  • it’s going to happen and youre going to see a lot of

  • loss of growth over the course of time,

  • inevitably because of these conflicting incentive structures.

  • So I hope that make sense.

  • - Right. And what’s so, I guess the biggest tragedy of all

  • is that America is one of the most overworked countries,

  • people are just working so hard to try to achieve this unattainable American goal.

  • Or people put money as the highest attribute of worth,

  • I mean the most important attribute here. What’s the first step

  • in the shift of this warped value system Peter? How can we start this?

  • I think it already is happening but I mean, I just...

  • Yeah... Going back to that point about

  • what it means to be successful in this,

  • this basic social value orientation we have,

  • that’s been distorted by advertising that we value each other

  • based on our perceived success because of materialism.

  • There’s a great shift that’s happening amazingly enough and

  • it’s a system pressure that’s generating this,

  • and people are finally starting to be offended

  • by the gross excess lifestyles of the world.

  • They see the climate destabilization, the resource overshoot,

  • they see all the social problems, the tremendous wealth imbalance.

  • And all of that glory that used to be

  • being super-wealthy as the sign of success,

  • that is starting to dissipate.

  • That is to me a very powerful marker,

  • because that implies that it’s really about balance in the world

  • that is going to create a high level of social respect and integrity.

  • People will look at each other and say: “Wow, that guy

  • is completely self-sustaining,

  • he lives in absolute equilibrium with his environment.

  • "His footprint (in other words) is the lowest I’ve ever seen!”

  • That is a hero; that is the highest level of status.

  • As far as how this transition works,

  • that type of value system has to come into play.

  • And I think again, it’s on pace.

  • Then concrete projects need to be set in motion; I'm talking about building.

  • As difficult as it is,

  • you have to start to build this type of ideology,

  • well excuse me, this type of society, it’s not really an ideology.

  • You have to build this framework,

  • and show people what’s possible to expand that creative realm,

  • and then theyll start to realize that they can do this.

  • And I advocate virtual building projects.

  • I have a project called the Global Redesign Institute.

  • The Movement has it; I actually have a few of these projects,

  • I'm going to organize into an offshoot of the Movement over the course of time,

  • dedicated only to technical construction,

  • to show the world what’s actually technically feasible

  • and a lot can be said on that issue.

  • As far as transition step-by-step,

  • we have to get away from thislabor for incomesystem.

  • I propose what Martin Luther King proposed:

  • a universal guaranteed income.

  • And I say that people should start to chop

  • the wealth of the top one percent

  • and start to give it to the rest of the population

  • at this point as a form of wealth distribution.

  • Ooh, a lot of people hate that, we got the socialism,

  • I can hear them yelling at me right now.

  • But what else do we do at this stage?

  • We have to have some type of resolution to stop

  • this type of increase in poverty and destabilization,

  • and that type of idea is not irrational.

  • And I think that any billionaire out there with any type of social consciousness

  • should be doing this themselves. As I stated earlier,

  • the top 100 billionaires out there can resolve

  • extreme poverty four times over.

  • I mean that’s incredible.

  • And there’s numerous other statistics that show

  • how much more capable they could be if this type of resource,

  • a monetary allocation, was done to the general population.

  • That aside, universal guaranteed income would raise the standard of living

  • of the vast majority of humans in America and on the planet if it was applied,

  • removing an enormous amount of public health stress.

  • You would see an absolute [de]crease in violence,

  • you would see an absolute [de]crease in mental health disorders,

  • you would see an absolute [de]crease in just about everything

  • that relates to general public health concerns,

  • if we did that. Then as another step (and I could go on and on,

  • so you stop me when you want me to),

  • you start to create technical applications in local cities for food production.

  • Localized food production through automated means,

  • not financial means, were not financing corporations.

  • You take the city government, and you get them to build

  • hi-tech food creation systems through aquaponics and aeroponics-

  • it’s in the book, that’s 'The Zeitgeist Movement Defined.'

  • I outline this specifically

  • because of the power of this; traditional our agriculture is over

  • and it’s a massive detriment given how much water it requires.

  • 70% of worlds water - we have a water shortage in California -

  • 70% of the world's water is going towards

  • traditional industrial agriculture,

  • and only about a 10th of that would be required

  • if we were to do this

  • through advanced means that are out there right now.

  • So you make food free!

  • You give it away through technical means again, not subsidization.

  • And then you begin this transition, where you go step-by-step

  • to making things free for technical reorientation.

  • Eventually you're gonna hit a halfway mark,

  • where you've offset all the labor displacement, excuse me,

  • all the income displacement because of unemployment,

  • by these free mechanisms, and of course universal guaranteed income.

  • And if you follow that train of thought which I’m gonna stop here,

  • you can do a step-by-step process. Now,

  • will corporate and the corporate in the state government

  • (which of course is a corporate institution),

  • will they facilitate or want that? Of course not.

  • And that’s where the massive necessity for global activism

  • towards this type of technical resolution is required,

  • and that’s why I recommend people to look into the Zeitgeist Movement.

  • It’s not an easy question; I wish I had

  • a complete plan but there are too many factors that come into play.

  • But we have to do something because everyone’s lives are at stake.

  • - Right, I mean, if we don’t want a bloody revolt, a bloody revolution,

  • we need to start really acting here Peter,

  • because the old guard is not gonna give up this old system without a fight

  • and without a lot of deaths,

  • and it’s time for us to step up to the plate really for the future of humanity.

  • Thank you so much Peter.

  • theZeitgeistMovement.com, everyone check it out.

  • Incredible to have you on as always.

  • - Thank you Abby, it’s an honor, thank you.

  • - Thanks so much Peter.

  • theZeitgeistMovement.com

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