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Topic: A Resource Based Economy - page 72. (Read 288375 times)

hero member
Activity: 840
Merit: 1000
November 06, 2012, 01:52:35 PM
Scarcity will never go away. Technology reduces it's impact, but no technology will ever produce a complete lack of scarcity. Free is not possible. Cheap is.

Scarcity can go away if you let your imagination go wild.  There is no physical principle preventing  a post-scarcity economy from happening.

Sorry. Yes, there is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

Physics allows for you to have a lot of stuff, but not for infinite stuff. Scarcity will always be.

I think we would have to discuss something like 'relativistic scarcity' because in such a situation scarcity would propably travel at the speed of light!
Smiley
hero member
Activity: 840
Merit: 1000
November 06, 2012, 01:50:48 PM
Scarcity will never go away. Technology reduces it's impact, but no technology will ever produce a complete lack of scarcity. Free is not possible. Cheap is.

Scarcity can go away if you let your imagination go wild.  There is no physical principle preventing  a post-scarcity economy from happening.


I beg to differ.
To remove scarcity you need indefinite ammounts of energy.
Once we consume our sun there will be a very real physical principle preventing more consumption.
We would have to find either a way to transport energy at superluminous speeds of we need a local energy well that matches our consumption.

If you let your imagination go wild you will come up with lots of imaginary situations.
From there you cannot simply talk about physical principles.
Otherwise you could have called Superman and ask for his help.

hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
November 06, 2012, 01:46:52 PM
Scarcity will never go away. Technology reduces it's impact, but no technology will ever produce a complete lack of scarcity. Free is not possible. Cheap is.

Scarcity can go away if you let your imagination go wild.  There is no physical principle preventing  a post-scarcity economy from happening.

Sorry. Yes, there is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

Physics allows for you to have a lot of stuff, but not for infinite stuff. Scarcity will always be.
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1080
November 06, 2012, 01:33:24 PM
You can never have such a technology because norms change with technology. Things you could only dream of 100 years ago are now almost free for everyone, yet we are still going through almost the same levels of hectic struggle throughout our lives. This has natural reasons. There is nothing that prevents the existence of beings that do not seek higher power, but they are naturally overcome and obsoleted by those that do. When we have a cure for cancer, we'll focus on the cure for getting old. When we can visit the stars, we'll seek to reach the galaxies. Pain and suffering is a part of this very mechanism, it's not independent. If you aren't craving for more, pain (and lack of it) loses meaning. Life, including being human, loses purpose. If you weren't craving for more, why did you even go through all the struggle to be able to walk and talk?

Talking about post-scarcity economy does not mean you have no more desires.

In a post-scarcity economy, you can still have the will to have more stuff.  But in order to acquire those stuff, you don't have to compete with other people.  You can make those stuff yourself (i.e. with your machines) without bothering anyone.  You don't have to share or buy anything.
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1080
November 06, 2012, 01:29:20 PM
Scarcity will never go away. Technology reduces it's impact, but no technology will ever produce a complete lack of scarcity. Free is not possible. Cheap is.

Scarcity can go away if you let your imagination go wild.  There is no physical principle preventing  a post-scarcity economy from happening.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
November 06, 2012, 01:05:13 PM
Scarcity will never go away. Technology reduces it's impact, but no technology will ever produce a complete lack of scarcity. Free is not possible. Cheap is.
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 1002
November 06, 2012, 12:50:42 PM
Until we have such technology

You can never have such a technology because norms change with technology. Things you could only dream of 100 years ago are now almost free for everyone, yet we are still going through almost the same levels of hectic struggle throughout our lives. This has natural reasons. There is nothing that prevents the existence of beings that do not seek higher power, but they are naturally overcome and obsoleted by those that do. When we have a cure for cancer, we'll focus on the cure for getting old. When we can visit the stars, we'll seek to reach the galaxies. Pain and suffering is a part of this very mechanism, it's not independent. If you aren't craving for more, pain (and lack of it) loses meaning. Life, including being human, loses purpose. If you weren't craving for more, why did you even go through all the struggle to be able to walk and talk?
legendary
Activity: 1288
Merit: 1080
November 06, 2012, 11:54:32 AM

Kaku talking about post-scarcity economy on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzgVWpa4fzU

Yeah sure, in a world where we can create anything by pressing a button, we won't need money and we won't need to work.  And yes, that'd be great.   But that has nothing to do with a social or political project.  It's purely technological.

Until we have such technology, we still need money to deal with scarcity.  When two people want a same thing, the one who will get it must be the one who is willing to do an effort to get it, to work for it, to give something in exchange.  In a nutshell:  to pay the price.

Saying that we should give up on money now because we might reach a post-scarcity in the future is just silly.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
November 05, 2012, 05:56:47 PM
Why isn’t everyone here running to join the Free State Project?

<----- I am already a member. (that's the Shire Society seal on my picture)

"Wearing a gun and not paying a lot of taxes" are two tiny pieces of the liberty movement. We also support your right to own whatever plants you'd like, and marry/sleep with whoever you like.
sr. member
Activity: 314
Merit: 251
November 04, 2012, 02:54:33 PM
Why isn’t everyone here running to join the Free State Project?

Because I find it weird that these people define freedom by being able to wear guns and and not paying a lot of taxes. Maybe I am wrong, but this sounds like they'd have a very narrow view on freedom.

I thought they also advocate the idea that you should be able to do anything you want with your body as long as you don't hurt anyone. If so, it's not narrow at all.


But they also use weird statistics on how good their crime rate is:

"New Hampshire is the safest state in the country." and they cite a source that ranks New Hampshire first and New York spot 14.

Murders in New York: 26
Murders in New Hampshire: 49

I don't know how the health stuff is actually calculated, but if you count cancers and have a state where you most likely die rather quickly it would also make health better. Using such statistics doesn't work. It's a major flaw when you create societies based on such pseudo-rational facts and I feel rather sorry and really mean it as productive criticism, but (capitalist) libertarians tend to often argument using such pseudo-facts. I think it relates to the fact that they are way too much into mathematics, but lack skills in other areas. You know, like Euler or Pythagoras were also into other sciences, but these days a lot of people are either into natural sciences or humane discipline, which appears to make people rather dumb. Really, I don't say libertarians are like that or anything, I just kinda want to warn from being like this, cause it could take the liberty we care for so much.

You know, being rich and free really isn't just about the money you make or the right to carry a gun. It's also about stuff like being open to people that you might consider to be irrational and the opposite of freedom loving. It's the freedom to agree with them. I think in a truly free society people would love to pay taxes on their own, even if it would be more a form of donation (or investment into future/society/mankind). The real question is how do we get there? Do we get there by giving everyone the freedom to wear guns, pay no/low taxes and be economically/politically/socially independent, which is more like the right wing/capitalist libertarian approach I guess or by giving everyone the freedom to get education, get health care, take risks with always having a social net that will prevent them in case they are not successful with their ambitions, be it because of simply being wrong, bad luck or whatever.

I think it takes a sane portion of both of them and doubt that there is a clear rule set that really could be considered best, because you can't measure things like freedom in a rational way, also because the decision to be pro-freedom isn't rational (in the way math is) in first place. Still think we should fight for it, but I doubt it will work out if you take a hard decision on being a left or right libertarian. Instead common sense would make more sense.

Despite my criticism, I think that the FSP is an awesome project. It has some parallels with Seasteading, which is even more utopian (btw. don't judge them by their front page. They actually are more serious and way less utopian, than I thought they were).
hero member
Activity: 938
Merit: 1002
November 04, 2012, 12:57:56 AM
Why isn’t everyone here running to join the Free State Project?

Because I find it weird that these people define freedom by being able to wear guns and and not paying a lot of taxes. Maybe I am wrong, but this sounds like they'd have a very narrow view on freedom.

I thought they also advocate the idea that you should be able to do anything you want with your body as long as you don't hurt anyone. If so, it's not narrow at all.
sr. member
Activity: 314
Merit: 251
November 03, 2012, 11:51:42 PM
Why isn’t everyone here running to join the Free State Project?

Because I find it weird that these people define freedom by being able to wear guns and and not paying a lot of taxes. Maybe I am wrong, but this sounds like they'd have a very narrow view on freedom.
hero member
Activity: 840
Merit: 1000
October 07, 2012, 10:39:17 AM
Why isn’t everyone here running to join the Free State Project?

Because they are dependant on the internet...
legendary
Activity: 1666
Merit: 1057
Marketing manager - GO MP
October 07, 2012, 09:26:22 AM
how is this at all like a tribe? it's a loose association of strangers that really don't know anything about each other or care about each other or depend on each other, and are only tangentially associated in one small aspect of their lives
I'm sad you feel about it that way.
Forums usually have a sense of identey which grows independently of the main site. Of course every forum is differnt. and some exibit this behavoir more than others.

FYI I have been on forums since over a decade. If you are new to this you'll notice it after a year or two.

Forums are not tribes in the primitivist sense.
In fact, a primitivist would propably puke when he/she learns how much technology is required to run a forum on the internet.


Well there are 3 different schools to anarchism one strictly socialist one stictly capitalist and one strictly primitvist. I am not strictly bound by any of those.
And primitivism isn't necessarily about abolishing the use of technology.

In one way, yes I find the current network topology of the Internet disgusting. But that will not stop me for using it to my advantage. It should be replaced by mesh networks based on devices you can construct at home. Low orbit relays should replace sealines and landlines in unpoulated areas.

If you would describe that proposal as something else, show me if it can be categorized some way better.

But this is already feasable. Why not switch?
Ever heared of natural monopolies? Smiley


Because I haven't found anybody willing to go through with it and lives nearby.
I went to my local 'hackerspace' and suggested builing RONJA devices. They were convinced that they need a professional precision engineer to do it. After I told them that we wouldn't need to create a new world record in modulated light communnication they went ahead with excuses of why using commercial wlan routers was better. A member of another group told me that they don't wanna have anything to do with them because they use high gain antennas and pollute the frequency band so much that everybody else gets problems. People seem to be stuck in their thinking somehow.

That was a few years ago though, I might give it another go, maybe build 2 of them first and do a demonstration. We'll see.
hero member
Activity: 840
Merit: 1000
October 06, 2012, 11:15:08 PM
Nobody is going to read that, especially when it's not clear how it's related to bitcoin economics

I read it. Do you believe I am nobody?
You could be, but i'm going for this guy...
legendary
Activity: 1500
Merit: 1022
I advocate the Zeitgeist Movement & Venus Project.
October 06, 2012, 10:54:42 PM
Nobody is going to read that, especially when it's not clear how it's related to bitcoin economics

I read it. Do you believe I am nobody?
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
October 06, 2012, 10:20:57 PM
Nobody is going to read that, especially when it's not clear how it's related to bitcoin economics
legendary
Activity: 1500
Merit: 1022
I advocate the Zeitgeist Movement & Venus Project.
October 06, 2012, 10:04:35 PM
Quote
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

>

[ To link to this article online, please go here:
http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/press_releases/tzm-exclusive-a-tragedy-of-circumstance
]

To jump to the Petition in Question: Click Here for Petition


>

TZM Exclusive : A Tragedy of Circumstance
by Peter Joseph

-Love Story:
The love story - A staple of our history and culture. As much as
modern economic theory and the dubious claims about our supposed
“Human Nature” would have us believe that all humans are merely
selfish organisms that would rather sacrifice each other than save
each other for the sake of mere convenience, the archetypal love story
prolific in our artwork challenges all - and reminds us of our deeply
empathic and social nature – a clear characteristic of our
evolutionary psychology and perhaps even the hidden saving grace of
our evolutionary fitness as a species.

However, likely the most grand of all love stories in our history
might be the heartbreaking depiction found in Shakespeare's classic:
Romeo and Juliet. Among the many themes in this play is the taboo of
their love due to their feuding, enemy families and in their pressured
attempts to overcome - they meet a doleful, epic demise.

The reaction of the audience to this tragic romance is fairly
predictable. Rarely does the sympathy of the reader turn to support
the families, which were at odds, while thinking that Romeo and Juliet
got what they deserved. Rather, we identify with the desperate, loving
couple whose lives are vanquished due to the circumstance they found
themselves in.

At the core of this play, love story aside, is a broader concept we
will call the “Tragedy of Circumstance”. Perhaps the true
brilliance of this work is its hidden message of how each of us are
born into familial, cultural, political, religious and other
preexisting sociological “establishments” which, without our
choice in many ways, influence our thoughts, biases, loyalties,
ambitions, ideas, social affiliations and the like.

In this sense, we are all victims, just like Romeo and Juliet, and
likely the most tragic part of all comes when these influences, once
given a human face or group association, clash with the influences of
other persons or groups – each side having no idea they are both
victims of circumstance in their ultimately vain opposition.

-Miss Orly Weinerman:
In early September 2012 I was introduced to an Israeli actress named
Orly Weinerman through a friend involved in the Israeli Chapter of
“The Zeitgeist Movement”, a Global Sustainability Advocacy Group
seeking social reformation. A glamorous model as well, quite famous in
Israel and blessed with the prestige and comforts of her successful
career, she has recently taken a very bold position which many in her
home country and in the Western world might gawk in moral outrage.

She wishes to see her now incarcerated love, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,
son of the infamous, so called “Tyrant Dictator” Muammar Gaddafi,
be removed from his current Libyan rebel captors, who intend to try
him for war crimes, and brought to the International Criminal Court
instead for his pending trial. No proof has been given as to these
accusations and the ongoing postponement of the trial suggests the
opposition might be struggling to manifest such evidence.

Here is her petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/surrender-saif-al-islam-gaddafi-to-the-icc

Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011, some of the now captive
Gaddafi family and loyalists face severe charges, many under the most
despised of distinctions: Crimes Against Humanity. Saif is currently
facing the death penalty in Libya, where he is, most notably, accused
of participating in the killing of civilian protesters during last
year’s Western backed coup d'état against his father. Weinerman's
concern is that Saif has no chance of a fair trial in the hands of the
new power establishment in Libya and also feels the nature of the
Western backed invasion was not for the interests of the Libyan people
but rather for geo-political and geo-economic advantage - a criminal
act.

British Prime Minister David Cameron's notable public statement:
“We must not tolerate this regime using military force against its
own people”, was just one of many sound bites heard from US and UK
politicians as they worked with NATO to take out the Gaddafi regime
under the guise of a “humanitarian mandate”. The mainstream media
describes the Libyan Revolution as an organic rebellion originating
from an opposing group of citizens, often categorizing the event as
part of the mass protests and revolutions now known as the “Arab
Spring” uprisings that effected Tunisia, Egypt and many others.
However, a closer look at the rapid dethroning of the Gaddafi regime
starts to take a different picture – a picture all too familiar to
those who have had the sad fortune of following the history of covert
warfare coming from Western powers and their economic interests.

-A History Lesson:
In the past 70 years, the idea of using the facade of civil uprisings
to execute Geo-Economic/Politic reformations favorable to Western
economic interests has become increasingly more common. We know this
not only because of the now declassified CIA documents that boast of
such measures - such as the overthrow of the democratically elected
Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 which returned commercial
power to Western oil interests as a response to the unwanted
nationalization of Iranian oil fields by Mosaddegh prior - we also
have the testimony of whistleblowers, such as famed “Economic Hit
Man” John Perkins, who has admitted in great detail as to his
involvement in such affairs in Latin America.

Another little known yet declassified example of a CIA sponsored
overthrow for corporate and financial interests was the 1954 coup
d'état that ousted President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán of Guatemala. The
United States engineered this for the benefit of the United Fruit
Company which had been lobbying the CIA to oust reformist governments
in the Republic of Guatemala for years prior to secure its commercial
interests. Similar CIA behavior can also be linked in one variation or
another to the overthrows and/or assassinations of Ecuador's Jaime
Roldós Aguilera in 1981 due to energy interests; Panama's Omar
Torrijos also in 1981, due to conflicts over the Panama Canal (a key
conduit for international maritime trade), along with perhaps the most
interesting recent example - the failed 2002 coup d'état against
President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

As detailed by journalist Eva Golinger who obtained top-secret
documents from the CIA and State Department through the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), the United States' Bush administration had
prior knowledge of and was complicit in the 2002 coup against
President Hugo Chávez and had apparently provided over $30 million in
funding aid to opposition groups to help execute the public uprising
against him. Why? Oil Interests.

Not to say it is a new thing for CIA to covertly arm rebel forces in
other countries as they try to remove the power structure, as can be
exemplified from Afghanistan to Cuba to Iraq to Argentina to Honduras
to many, many other cases – but the recipe for the covert war that
doesn't cause public outcry within the invading nation, without
serious military commitment, is a special circumstance.

The basic requirement is an initial, ideally organic public
rebellion. From there, the task is to fuel the conflict and escalate
destabilization which serves as a cover for covert moves. Public
perception can be exploited with the conflict artificially magnified
by the media. Then, some type of knee-jerk accusation that draws
public sympathy is needed to generate acute disdain for the targeted
parties and enable follow through.

For example, before the 1991 invasion of Iraq, a 15-year-old Kuwaiti
girl gave public testimony stating she watched Iraqi soldiers “come
into the hospital with guns and go into the room where...babies were
in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the
incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.” This
testimony was repeated as fact in further Congressional Testimony, on
TV and radio shows, at the UN Security Council and even by then
President George H.W. Bush. It had a clearly relevant effect on public
opinion and support for the 1991 invasion. However, what was not
discussed, was that this 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl was a member of the
Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's
Ambassador to the USA and her entire testimony was a lie. Again, this
is public record.

-Libya Decoded:
So what is the story with Libya? Does it fit any of these profiles?
Were the US & UK simply being good parents and working to
altruistically protect humanity from some rouge tyrant or is there
something else going on? Is there evidence to show they were complicit
in the uprising, exploiting mass sympathy by some event, while holding
deep ulterior motives to serve their financial and political
interests? Yes. In fact, the event appears to be just about as
textbook as the case was with Mosaddegh in 1954 and Chavez in 2002.

First, let's start with the state of affairs. If you are like most
Westerners, you have likely never met anyone from Libya nor do you
know anything about it other than that odd looking man with the funky
sunglasses who had been in charge for 40 some years. The idea of
autocratic rule is deeply opposed in the West and perhaps that is a
legitimate concern given the patterns of history in general. However,
let's leave our ideologies aside and ask about the relative state of
the culture before the uprising and invasion.

In 2010, Libya ranked 53rd on the Human Development Index (out of 170
U.N. member states), making it a “high human development” country.
The U.N. Development Program said Libya had “high human
development” in every major index category, including education,
empowerment, economy and infrastructure, access to information, civic
and community well being, and gender inequality. In a 2005 Country
Profile report by the Library of Congress’ Federal Research
Division, it noted: “In comparison to other states in the Middle
East, the health status of the population is relatively good.
Childhood immunization is almost universal. The clean water supply has
increased, and sanitation has been improved.”

As far as accusations of terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, it
also stated: “During the period 1999–2003, Qadhafi, ever the
pragmatist, eventually fulfilled all the terms of the UN Security
Council Resolutions required to lift the sanctions against Libya. He
accepted responsibility for the actions of his officials and agreed to
provide financial compensation to the families of the victims of Pan
Am 103. As a result, the UN sanctions were lifted on September 12,
2003. In December 2003, Qadhafi publicly announced that Libya was
ridding itself of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile
development programs, and fully cooperated with the United States, the
United Kingdom, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Through these
actions and decisions, Qadhafi brought Libya back into the world
community.”

Any general research on Libya shows that it was improving and stable
and while accusations of social oppression and misdeeds might hold
true on some level, as with many countries in that region, we need to
be honest with ourselves and consider the realistic nature of the
circumstance in comparison. If we were to examine all the oppressive
regimes the United States and United Kingdom coexist with without
objection, Libya was far from the worst and it wasn't until the 2011
uprising that the accusation of Libya using force against its own
citizens become a heated claim for intervention.

If the Western powers cared about the humanitarian crisis in Africa
or the Middle-East, both general and oppressive, forces would have
taken control of the Sudan long ago, where the genocide and barbarian
abuses are almost beyond comprehension, not to mention intervene to
end the virtual prison still existing in the West Bank due to the
illegal, US sponsored Israeli occupation. This list could go on and on
and the bottom line is that the very idea that the West “cares”
about the citizenry of any such country to inspire such intervention
is enormously naive and completely ignorant of history.

The central “war crime” accusation itself, which gives the
appearance that Gaddafi forces just decided to start killing civilian
protestors for fun, is void of its true context, which was a response
to an armed conflict from rebel forces. Does this justify the death of
human beings? Of course not but this is an issue of circumstance. If
an armed militia began to make its way towards the White House, do you
have any doubt that once the first shot was fired, the Police,
Military and Secret Service would not hesitate to shoot anyone in
their line of fire under such pressure? Again, this justifies nothing
in and of itself but such is the nature of circumstance in the
discordant, power sick zeitgeist we share today and the “Crimes
Against Humanity” charges being propagated around the now fallen
regime needs a much closer examination.

The central charge against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who actually didn't
hold any political office, is this claim of “civilian murder”,
which appears as an act of defense, not cold blooded execution that
would define a “war crime”. It is estimated that the United States
and its allies are responsible for ¾ to a million civilian deaths in
Iraq and likely 10s of thousands more during the prior UN sanctions
that crippled the nation for many years prior - yet we see no one on
trial here. Let’s also not discount the score of civilian deaths
achieved by NATO as it bombed Libya for months.

-Currency Wars:
Have you ever wondered how the United States can operate with 16
trillion dollars in debt and growing? It has the Global Reserve
Currency. Of all the Macro Economic factors that favor Western
domination in the world today, the fact the Euro and the US Dollar are
used for not only the majority of oil transactions, which in many ways
serves as the virtual “backing” of these fiat currencies, many
other major goods are priced in Dollars and Euros, requiring most
nations to purchase these currencies in order to engage in global
trade, maintaining demand.

In fact, approximately two thirds of world trade is done in dollars
and two thirds of central banks' currency reserves are held in the
American currency, which remains the sole currency used by global
institutions such as the IMF. This gives the US a major economic
advantage as they have the ability to run a constant trade deficit
because foreign countries need those dollars to repay their debts to
the IMF; to conduct international trade and to build up their currency
reserves. As long as the dollar remains the main international
currency, the US can continue consuming more than it produces, as it
has been doing for decades now.

Well, guess what? Muammar Gaddafi had been openly advocating the
creation of a new currency that would counter the dollar and the euro.
He called upon African and Muslim nations to join an alliance that
would make this new currency, the “Gold Dinar”, their main
currency. They would sell oil and other resources to the US and the
rest of the world only for gold dinars. If this were to happen, it
would have had dramatic effects on US economic hegemony. In fact, some
might remember that Saddam Hussein was pushing for a similar
petrodollar shift before the 2003 US Invasion. This is a very serious
yet little discussed reality.

That noted, we shouldn't dismiss the energy interests even though
they may be secondary in importance. The National Oil Corporation,
Libya’s nationalized oil company, was ranked 25 among the world's
Top 100 oil companies and while its reserves might be minor compared
to the reserves of Saudi Arabia, the liberating of previously
off-limit business contracts is clearly a positive for the West.

-NATO Intervention:
The Libyan “rebel” forces that took to the street in February
2011 were depicted by the media and Western political commentary as an
unexpected organic uprising mirroring the Arab Spring revolts nearby.
Yet, a closer examination reveals a deep premeditation and clear
connection to CIA involvement. Former Gaddafi army commander, Khalifa
Haftar, who had been living in exile for 20 years essentially next to
CIA headquarters in Virginia, with tremendous evidence to indicate
ties to the agency, was quickly brought to Libya after the uprising
and put into position as commander for the rebel forces. How
convenient.

All that was left was a trigger for intervention and it wasn’t long
before Libya fought back against what could very well have been a
mercenary group set in motion to enable a larger mobilization against
Gaddafi. This violence was quickly emphasized and set the stage for
the so called “Humanitarian Intervention” less than 2 weeks after
with “Resolution 1973” from the UN Security Council. Quickly and
semi-covertly, the US began to add more arms to the rebels. Something,
again, they have done in so many other cases to secure their
interests, such as with the tens of millions of dollars going to
anti-Soviet Afghan rebels for the 1980's Afghanistan War.

This is the earmark. The earmark that links dozens of US covert
interventions in the past 100 years and there is even evidence the US
has been funding opposition groups in Iran, if not many other places
in this turbulent world we see rising. It's a great strategy - low
budget; mostly hidden from the general public – and completely
against international law.

And once the fireworks started with NATO, there was no turning back -
another coup d'état success. Today Libya is a fragmented and
destabilized terrain. Apparently is it now a “Democracy” for
whatever that is really worth since it is looking more like another
post-war Iraq than anything else and it will likely be a long time
before progress is achieved.

-Saving Face:
Now coming back to our “Love Story”, there is little that can be
done now with respect to the irresponsible overthrow of Libya but
perhaps a little poetic sensitivity could heal these global wounds in
some small way... So let's return to Ms. Weinerman's struggle to save
someone dear to her - someone who might be deeply misunderstood –
Muammar's son: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Today, she has not only spoken out in praise of Saif's moral
character, interest to reform Libya into a true democracy, defiance of
his father on many issues regarding needed change and equality, she
has also publicly implored Saif's known associate and long time
friend, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, to intervene. She is also
working to petition for his release from the Libyan successors – an
effort the reader is encouraged to review and hopefully participate
in:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/surrender-saif-al-islam-gaddafi-to-the-icc

Since that time she has been criticized and even targeted for
criminal wrong-doing by political powers in her home country, such as
by a member of the National Union Party who wrote to the attorney
general that she was involved with a ‘terrorist’ who wanted to
‘destroy the Jewish people’, as reported by The Times of Israel.

A fascinating circumstance indeed. Geo-Politics, warfare and
corruption aside, their very relationship challenges some common
taboos all too common in the world today. In the story of Romeo and
Juliet the tragedy of circumstance rested mostly with a disruption of
traditional loyalty to the feuding families. In this story, there is a
disruption of loyalty across multiple cultural lines.

First, we have the Nationalist disruption: If the state of Israel is
against another state and vice versa, the implication is that citizens
of that state must also be opposed. Second, we have the Religious
disruption: Ms. Weinerman of the Jewish faith and Saif of the Muslim
faith, which, unlike other combinations, is particularly rare. Third,
we have the Race disruption, which is a corollary to the Nationalist
loyalty, and while less relevant today in general, is still notable
given the deep racial tension still existing in the Middle East; and
fourth we have what we will call the Disruption of Associated Bias
which, in this case, is the prima facie assumption that Saif, who,
again, never officially held political office and has yet to be named
in any documents for such criminal evidence, is still to be associated
with the alleged crimes of his father.

That determination, of course, is the role and importance of the fair
trial to which Ms. Weinerman pursues. This Bias of Association is a
powerful influence of perspective and to expect a fair trial from what
is to be, in effect, a court run by the ”rebel opposition” in
Libya, might be wishful thinking.

-Interview:
Below is an exclusive interview with Ms.Weinerman:

Question: Please briefly discuss your upbringing, especially given
the context of tension in your homeland, Israel; in the Middle East.

O.W.: “I was born in Tel Aviv to a pianist mother and an engineer
father who specializes in the field of renewable energy. I’ve been
acting and modeling since I was a child and as a teenager I already
started being socially and politically involved. However, activism
wasn’t something I picked up at home but was rather my natural
response to all the wrongdoings I witnessed growing up. Spending 3
years in South Africa during the apartheid years in the mid 1980’s,
between the ages of 13-16, shaped the way I view the world today.

I was constantly asking questions about the human inequality and
neglect that I saw around me, rather than accept it as “natural”
or “normal”. I’ve always been a social activist in Israel with a
special interest in human rights, especially around the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I worked with “B’tselem”- a
non-governmental non-profit organization promoting human rights in the
occupied territories. I worked in fundraising for “Alon”- an
association dedicated to bridging social gaps through education, and
am currently working in fundraising for Israeli Flying Aid. It has
always been important to me to use my “celebrity” and my
connections for a greater cause.”

Question: Please describe your impression and experience with Saif.

O.W.: “Saif is the best person I’ve ever known. He’s a warm,
kind, friendly, open-minded, peaceful, calm and loving man. A real
gentleman and pure hearted. He is honest and that’s something
admirable in a time like ours. Saif’s vision was to turn Libya into
a modern society and he did the best within his power to help the
Libyan people. He brought reforms to his country and had so many more
ideas of reforms to bring about. Saif had an agenda for promoting
human rights not only in his country but in the international
community as well. He worked on a roadmap for peace in Cashmere,
amongst other human rights projects and charities he was involved in.
He was the one to convince his father to give up his program for
weapons of mass destruction.

Saif has always been very popular amongst the people of his country,
and especially loved by the younger generation there. He used to meet
with the people directly in the city square every week and talk to
them without the protection of any guards. He was always challenging
and even openly criticizing his father’s regime. He even set up a
free media organization that his father kept shutting down, so he had
to keep relocating it, from Libya, to Jordan, to London, etc.

He was also popular outside his country; he was the one connecting
Libya to the west in his efforts to open his country to the world and
bring balance and peace to his region. He had a good relationship with
the west, especially England, to the extent that he was titled
“Europe’s darling”, before the west (mainly the US, France and
the UK) decided to invade his country for corporate profit. Then, all
of a sudden, they started to portray him very differently, in order to
manipulate public opinion to legitimize their acts.

The accusations made against him sound even more unbelievable, when
you consider he wasn’t even a part of the regime, he had no
political or military position in the time of the war. If there were
any concrete evidence against him- be sure we would be bombarded with
it, brainwashed with it in the mainstream media. It’s very
convenient for the west to leave him
there to silence the facts & hide the evidence. The sad truth is that
they turned their back on him once they had taken over the country and
its resources and they don’t need him anymore.

Question: Please explain the Petition
(Click Here for Petition)


you are pushing and why you feel Saif must to be removed from Libya
in order to achieve a fair trial?

O.W.: “Firstly, the underlying meaning of this petition, or every
other petition, really, is the people’s understanding that we need
to empower ourselves, unite and take responsibility for the affairs of
our world, because justice will not be served by the powers that be. I
think there is a growing understanding that we can’t let the super
powers lead our world anymore, as we found they are immoral in their
deeds. Using the people’s ignorance to fool them with cheap
propaganda, the powers that be allow themselves, on our behalf (the
international community), to harm the innocent & portray their victims
as “evil”.

Specifically, the same Security Council that had passed a resolution
allowing the NATO forces to intervene in the Libya conflict has also
passed a resolution giving the International Criminal Court a
jurisdiction over crimes committed during the conflict. It is obvious
that the so-called “justice system” of the current Libyan
administration is unable to conduct a fair trial which will ensure
basic human rights and due process.

Therefore, in accordance with its resolution & the importance of true
justice, the security council & every member state within it has a
moral interest, responsibility, and obligation to bring Saif to
justice before the ICC, where he can receive a fair trial before a
competent court. Moreover, the fact that Saif was captured during an
armed conflict makes him a prisoner of war, and therefore he is
entitled to the full legal protection declared by the Geneva
Convention, which includes visits from the Red Cross or the Red
Crescent representatives, but he has been held incommunicado and no
information about his captive conditions or his health condition has
been provided.

We can’t go on looking the other way or shutting our mouths about
these violations of human rights sponsored by USA, France, England and
their corporations. Somebody must be gaining something out of all of
this... and those ones should be the ones to be put on trial.”

Question: Do you feel Tony Blair is avoiding intervention due to his
need to preserve his political persona? If you had anything to say to
him directly, in person, what would it be?

O.W.: “It’s no secret that Saif and Mr. Blair were good friends,
have worked together and Mr. Blair has even helped Saif with his PHD.
I do believe Mr. Blair is not doing or saying anything not because he
thinks Saif deserves anything he’s been going through, or that he
should have an unfair trial before an incompetent court. But that his
silence and his inactivity about the injustice that Saif is dealing
with comes from fear of losing his own position and more than that, he
is probably threatened that if he says or does anything about the
matter, he will be punished by people and entities that don’t want
anything done to change this horrible policy of silencing the truth
about western corporate crime in the international arena.

Mr. Blair and other high-profile influential politicians and
corporate businessmen that were good friends with Saif, have now
renounced him as it’s no longer in their interest, they now have
free access to all they needed from him. If I was to meet Mr. Blair, I
would ask him if everything that he has, position-wise,
materialistic-wise, is worth giving up the values of being human, and
that means being loyal to your friends, not letting them be victims of
propaganda intended to wash off other people’s sins. As a Christian
man he should help his friend and speak the truth.

All we have in our lives is our word, and a man who doesn’t live
telling the truth, speaking out what he knows, has nothing, for our
property in this life is nothing. Not even our bodies. When we leave
this world we take nothing with us, and the only thing that will be
left of us is our good words, good deeds and the influence they will
keep on making long after we are gone.”

Question: In the course of this mission you have reached out to The
Zeitgeist Movement, a Global Sustainability Advocacy group interested
in declaring all the world's resources as common heritage for all the
world's people and works with new economic ideas to unify humanity and
improve conditions. Why do you feel this audience might well
understand your circumstance? Do you identify with such broad cultural
changes?

O.W: “Of course. The people who are now in control of the world’s
wealth, and therefore control the rest of the population (through the
use of the monetary system and the state system) are being cruel &
thoughtless in their actions, seeing the entire world as their own
playground back yard. They do not show any regard to the way our
economy is destroying our planet, as if we have more than one, or as
if there would be no one left to live here after them. However, I do
not accuse them of being “evil” but I see them as victims of their
own disproportionate power.

I agree with The Zeitgeist Movement’s understanding that a new
system that will allow us a more open-source, “flat” way of
managing our affairs on this planet, is the only way to build a more
humane and environmentally responsible society, and I think that now,
for the first time in history, we have the technology that can enable
us to do just that.”

-Hope:

In many ways, what is done is done and Libya will never be the same.
We can speculate upon its future and even try to be optimistic that it
will recover and maybe even progress to a level never known before.
Yet, that doesn’t change history and the Means never justifies the
End. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is still in prison and awaiting a trial
that may decide if he is to live or die. He also sits in a symbolic
position in many ways as the corruption inherent to the Libyan
invasion has yet to find an end and the outcome of Saif sets the tone
for what we as a people are willing to tolerate within the criminal
meltdown of power abuse so common on the tragic global stage today.

Orly Weinerman’s plead works on many levels. We can’t return the
many lives taken when NATO blanketed bombs over Libya nor can we bring
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi back so he can face a trial to determine the
legitimacy of the accusations against him. However, we can reduce
ourselves to the recognition of one shared mortal reality and that is
that we are all human and our personal relationships can transcend the
circumstantial baggage and cultural victimizations that seem to divide
us in the broad view. The saving of just one life in this play might
be the key to shift it from tragedy to redemption.

What if we as a species were able elevate to ourselves outside the
ongoing Tragedy of Thought we all to often find our values and
loyalties. What if we were to show compassion for a man who just might
have been trying to change an outdated regime from the inside, but was
not given enough time to do so and was taken down prematurely by a
criminal mafia that has no concern for the well being of the state of
Libya.

What if our loyalist illusions of “peace keeping”, “protecting
civilians” and other clearly hypocritical and false claims used to
justify the overtaking of other societies recently by the Western
powers, [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuqZfaj34nc ] were seen for
what they were? How would that affect your sense of responsibility?

And most broadly, what if our loyalty to retribution and the
reciprocated hatred of each other's misdeeds was relinquished and
replaced by a more rational understanding of how we are all Victims of
Circumstance - Victims of Culture - involved in a seemingly never
ending play of tragic proportions where we harm those who harm us or
our loyalties – all justified under the guise of an ideological
perversion of “Justice” itself.

All human actions are consequences of conditions, past or present,
and it is only when we shed the primitive, narrow loyalties to our
ancient traditions of Nation, Religion, Race & Circumstance that we
will likely see that the only loyalty we can possibly have is to truth
and each other - as one species, sharing one habitat.

If you wish to support Ms. Weinerman's mission to protect another
human being from this Tragedy of Circumstance, creating instead a
Triumph of Dignity, here is her petition. Click Here for Petition


[ To link to this article online, please go here:
http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/press_releases/tzm-exclusive-a-tragedy-of-circumstance
]
sr. member
Activity: 314
Merit: 251
October 06, 2012, 08:28:24 PM
What generally prevents us from doing so is the idea of money...

I stopped reading right there.

Money is a tool that allows people to easily convert their labors and goods. It's an essential tool that allows for wealth creation otherwise bartering would add an unsustainable amount of overhead.

I award you no points...

No offense, but I can't agree with you here. There have been effectively (because of no/just a small overhead) working societies without money, especially around revolution (see the Spanish one). From what you said it's only about bartering. The last thing about an "unsustainable amount of overhead" is just as true in our societies with money.

Do you want me to award points? Wink
hero member
Activity: 840
Merit: 1000
October 06, 2012, 08:07:18 PM
how is this at all like a tribe? it's a loose association of strangers that really don't know anything about each other or care about each other or depend on each other, and are only tangentially associated in one small aspect of their lives
I'm sad you feel about it that way.
Forums usually have a sense of identey which grows independently of the main site. Of course every forum is differnt. and some exibit this behavoir more than others.

FYI I have been on forums since over a decade. If you are new to this you'll notice it after a year or two.

Forums are not tribes in the primitivist sense.
In fact, a primitivist would propably puke when he/she learns how much technology is required to run a forum on the internet.


Well there are 3 different schools to anarchism one strictly socialist one stictly capitalist and one strictly primitvist. I am not strictly bound by any of those.
And primitivism isn't necessarily about abolishing the use of technology.

In one way, yes I find the current network topology of the Internet disgusting. But that will not stop me for using it to my advantage. It should be replaced by mesh networks based on devices you can construct at home. Low orbit relays should replace sealines and landlines in unpoulated areas.

If you would describe that proposal as something else, show me if it can be categorized some way better.

But this is already feasable. Why not switch?
Ever heared of natural monopolies? Smiley
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