Main Page
Welcome to the TZMWiki Knowledgebase for The Zeitgeist Movement and Resource Based Economy matters.
This project intends on being a repository of information relevant to activism in The Zeitgeist Movement in particular, and to a Resource Based Economy in general.
This is a Knowledgebase in the form of a Wiki, NOT a discussion forum. Please refrain from making personal remarks, opinions or preferences. The Talk pages are also not to vent personal opinion but to challenge the accuracy of information in its wiki page, and such challenges must also include valid references. All edits are to be written in English, based on facts, with appropriate references, and with an intention to inform as opposed to push personal views. Edits violating these policies will be promptly removed and their contributors banned. |
This Wiki is not the proprietary contstruct of The Zeitgeist Movement, but a tool for the development of a train of thought. This Wiki does not formally represent The Zeitgeist Movement nor The Venus Project, and maintains openness with those non-affiliated with either. |
For information about how to contribute to this knowledgebase you may want consult the following:
- User's Guide: information on using the wiki software.
- Configuration settings list
- MediaWiki FAQ
- MediaWiki release mailing list
Contents |
Mission
Constant Growth in a Finite Planet
The basic common denominator mission of movements and projects of the likes of The Zeitgeist Movement, The Venus Project, The Free World Charter, The RBE10K Project, is to prevent the collapse in Human society, and that of the Earth's natural environment as we have known it since the beginnings of Human History, resulting from constant growth in s finite planet.
In the Natural world constant growth always reaches a point of saturation, usually followed by a collapse. A simple example is a malign tumor, which grows without stopping until it severely interferes with the metabolism of the organism that hosts it, causing its death. Another example is herds of buffalo in Africa, which tend to grow until the savannahs they live on cannot sustain them all equally, causing the individuals to starve more or less equally, sometimes leading to mass famine.
Exponential trends
Naturally for many people, in the knowledge of the impossibility of constant growth, they experience a tendency to want to avoid such fate for Humanity, even if it is not absolutely certain, when they realise that business as usuall is very likely to reach such saturation and consequent collapse. With the help of arithmetics and knowledge ofa variety of trends in the latest 200 years, the likes of population growth, deforestation, carbonisation of the atmosphere, rise in average temperatures, acidification of oceans, loss of habitat and species diversity, collapse of fisheries, depletion of petroleum reserves, loss or salinisation of topsoil, exhaustion of nutrients in crop land, risk of a pandemic, risk of a devastating world war, and many other trends that seem to be exponential (a telltale signature of constant growth), it is not difficult to conclude that our species is accelerating toward a catastrophic end, of ourvery own, and possibly every other species with it.
Sustainability
The heart of the solution to constant growth is Sustainability, and unlike the many organisations that that promote Sustainability as an important issue where we have to make progress being less wasteful and achieve it someday somehow, all of the projects and movements which promote a Resource-Based Economy consider that Sustainability is paramount, is the only way we can hope to survive in the long term, and that it is critical that we globally adopt systems and behaviours to ensure Sustainability from the head go, as a matter of non-negotiable top priority.
Resource-Based Economy
The social engineer and inventor Jacque Fresco coined a group of social and economic guidelines with the name of Resource-Based Economy, or Resource-Based Economic Model, or simply RBE. These social and economic guidelines cannot be derived from the meaning of the words Resource-Based Economy, so the name must be thought of just as an identifier, very loosely related to the actual concept. A Resource-Based Economy is not (that the editor of this page is aware of) described with any accuracy so as to know exactly what makes part of an RBE and what doesn't. However the are a number of premises that seem to be agreed by all those whe actively support the idea of an RBE:
- Every action or endevour Humanity takes must be sustainable, i.e. must ensure the feasability of an age-long continuity of such action or endevuor
- Technology must be expanded and used in any and all areas in which it can be used to allow for, or increase efficiency of, a capacity for full freedom for any and every person, provided that Sustainability is maintained
From those understandings, a great deal of principles and values can be derived, such as the replacement of authority with systems, the equality of all people on Earth, physical and psychological health (personal Sustainability) becomes a top priority, property makes no sense anymore, etc.
Resource Based Economy
A Resource Based Economic Model is an emerging economic model based on the works by Jacque Fresco from The Venus Project, Buckminster Fuller from the Buckminster Fuller Institute, and other philosophers and scientists.
Understandings
Technology
References
<ref>
tag defined in <references>
has group attribute "" which does not appear in prior text.