Difference between revisions of "User:Ziggy"

Revision as of 01:05, 4 March 2013

Ziggy can be contacted via email at ziggy@rbem.org.

Contributor Details

See also Template:Infobox RBE10K_Members, and Table:RBE10K_Members.

Teams

• Team:Facebook Support English

Motivation for starting the RBEMWiki project

I consider that having a clear platform about our common objectives is paramount, and find that the information currently available about a RBEM is:

• fragmented
• plagued with opinions about the current system and how a society should be
• substantially explained through metaphorical speech
• inconsistent and even contradictory when explained by different people
• mostly lacking in referencing and academic quality
• mixed with information of dubious origin or accuracy
• polluted with binary thinking, unsubstantiated assumptions, and fallacies
• generally biased and mostly representative of specific situated knowledges

Personal understanding of what an RBEM is

My understanding is that a society implementing an RBEM system or model:

• require all activities to be fully sustainable in the long term
• does not require money or barter to provide for any and all needs of human life
• aims at releasing humankind from all dangerous or tedious labour through the use of technology

Critique

I'm openly critical of several characteristics of various advocates of RBE/RBEM, and very critical of other forms of activism, charity and general society.

Critique on RBE advocates

Critique on TVP

My criticism of The Venus Project's structure and transition style is the following:

• Structure
  • There is a dominant power structure in The Venus Project, headed by Jacque Fresco, and maintained by his core team of collaborators.
    • I consider this stifles the ability to transition to a RBE.
  • TVP claims to have a comprehensive plan for transition.
    • I can't find that plan anywhere. I can find a lot of talk about the supposed plan, but not the plan itself. Do I have to trust that they have one safely kept to publicise when they consider the time is ripe? How do I know if I like it? What if I don't? Should I just wait and see? I believe the lack of transparency cannot lead to any good outcomes.
  • The TVP website and the various materials it offers include a great number of comments and explanations.
    • The website does not enable or promote public discussion, and there are neither clear definitions about what exactly is a RBE nor how they plan to transition to it. Do they maintain this posture on purpose? Don't they see how vague, generic and rhetorical their articles and information are?
• Transition style
  • Requires that all governments of the world (or possibly at least just the most powerful ones) agree to transition to a RBE.
    • My view is that this would require a revolution, and will be highly unlikely in Capitalism (including China being State Capitalism).
  • The transition does not take into account minorities who would be opposed to the transition.
    • My view is that a RBE can only be successful if all their citizens choose it voluntarily, due to the lack of law and police. Disgruntled citizens would cause wreak havoc and be a danger to the whole community. I believe that a RBE cannot be imposed on anyone.
  • TVP makes statements like All resources become the common heritage of all of the world's people.
    • I don't see how such statements can be implemented in practice. Who would state them? Where? How would they be of any use? How would they be enforced? Also, about this particular statement, I find it disowns people by force of what they believe today to have ownership of, which in a way is forcefully imposing on them, just like Communism does with nationalisation of private property. I don't believe this is an attitude conducive to a global adoption of a RBE system.

Critique on TZM

• Objectives
  • It is my understanding that the objectives of TZM are the following: raising awareness of the social problems that lead to poverty and war, and promoting a RBEM as a way to solve these problems
    • I believe they don't make it clear enough to ensure the objectives are not hijacked by personal agendas. I've witnessed a great deal of irrelevant discussions on TZM meetings, forums and supporting or chapter websites, about issues from conspiratorial theories, politics, religion, alternative proposals or approaches for energy, healing and food production, and a plethora of other topics or objectives that have little or nothing to do with what TZM is about, creating confusion and contaminating the discussion

Notes about motivations to bring about RBE10K

By making reality wrong we place ourselves in a position of opposition, of resistance, and I believe such attitude results in becoming that which we resist. Accepting the world unfurled to what it has become, right now in the present, including both its beauty and its ugliness, allows us to choose freely what kind of world we want to build for ourselves and share it with the world.

Going out on a limb trying to save people who don't want to be saved I believe it has never worked. However, there is a crisis that affect us all, for example [[w:Hurricane Sandy|] was likely the result of the loss of 1/3 of the ice in the Arctic. Right now, in the world there're people dying of hunger, being bombed, or shot, or raped. Right now, and since none of these people have any market value, they will be disposed of without any considerations by the most powerful nations or much thoght by their citizens.

I don't believe there is a need to find who's responsible and to place an evil face on them (USA, banks, government, NWO, etc). We can easily see how everybody participates of the system, as there is little choice but integrating to it. Everybody buys into the marketing notions of a happy life: wants to have a house, a bedroom that is welcoming for intimacy, give in to impulses to feast on delicious foods, dominate others as a way to feel powerful and respected, and the list goes on and includes all sorts of abhorrent behaviours, behaviours that I believe are mostly a short-sighted attempt to proving to our parents we're worthwhile and deserving of their love. We all use the only tools we know and can access around us: jobs, credit, fashion, culture, drugs, art, special skills, humour, physical prowess, storytelling... We just don't think too much about why we do what we do. We just act the way others do, we copy the behaviour of people around us.

Gradual positive change is only possible when the positive outpaces the negative, and I have no faith that this fast paced society is capable of it. I hope that I'm wrong, but I'm not just going to sit an hope. I'm working on creating an alternative for all of those who want to start from scratch, eliminating corruption and perversion from the root. This alternative is based on what we know to be very close to the truth, as a result of having been long studied and experimented upon in a systematic way, and having been capable of making accurate predictions: i.e. science. We now know we're primates, what are our primal instincts (i.e. what makes us tick), what are our most basic needs, how our psyche works at the most basic levels, how we learn during childhood, what's required for relationships to thrive, we also now know about non-violent communication, or about the source of emotional disturbances, etc. We cannot undo hundreds or thousands of years of culture, because culture is what dominates in our society, culture is the society itself. By starting from scratch, planning the society the way we want it (i.e. creating it through social engineering), beginning by working on fulfilling needs (according to what science understands for needs), or promoting happiness for all and always ensuring there is room and opportunity for anyone to develop their own identity, to mature, to come to terms with their reality, and to be completely fulfilled and self expressed. That is what The RBE10K Project is about. The project is a community-based, democratic endeavour, that is shaped currently according to a perhaps crazy idea, but which has the potential to evolve and become more sophisticated and realistic as it grows with the help of input by the community. We need to do this and demonstrate to the world that a lifestyle based on RBEM is possible, that what don't have to conform ourselves with a lesser-evil kind of system, that the current system is not the pinnacle of civilisation. If it doesn't work, then at least we would have tried. And if it does work, then it will change the course of History and the destiny of Humankind forever.

WikiDB Tests

WikiDB is an extension for MediaWiki that enables the storage of records in different pages, and the display of such records unified on a special page under the section Table:. There is another example in Food/Tubers which can be seen in Table:Food (which is undefined but data can still be seen in the records tab), and the Template:Infobox food.

WikiDB tutorial page example

The following example doesn't include an infobox, and therefore the data is defined in the code (edit the page to see) but does not show in the page. Also, several records are included in this page, as opposed to the single record in the previous example. Field names of records were intentionally mismatching to show a feature of WikiDB. Take a look at the definition of the table Table:Companies2 and at the effect this has on its data.

See also

• RBE10K Project original idea and beginnings story

Personal hot links

• Configuration settings list
• MediaWiki FAQ
• MediaWiki release mailing list
• User's Guide