The Choice is Ours is a documentary series presented by the Venus Project. Interviews by a variety of scientists, media professionals, and other thinkers explores a variety of issues that are of social, economic, and technical interest.
The Venus Project created this informative documentary to compel the viewer into rethinking what’s possible in our world. To question the values, behaviors, origins and consequences of our social structures is of vital importance to our survival as we look to the future.
Part 1 is introduction and discussion of determinants of behavior.
Part 2 is a breakdown of problems in our present system; an obsolete monetary system. It covers the media as a tool of the established political and economic elite, corruption of all politics in all nations, and environmental challenges.
Part 3 will show solutions and proposals and will depict and illustrate Jacque’s Fresco’s life work to redesign the culture.
Collage artist Eugenia Loli uses photography scanned from vintage magazines and science publications to create psychedelic visual narratives that borrow from aspects of pop art and traditional surrealism.
Loli gives much of her work away as high-resolution files which you can download and print directly from her Flickr account for personal usage. She also has a collection of official, signed art prints available here.
Life has found many ways to express itself over time. Now we are arriving at a point in our unified existence where many of us are questioning the logic of current societal values.
Do we really need to create a feeling of scarcity that does not exist in order to give false worth to material objects?
Is making money as important as making a creative breakthrough that offers a piece of yourself to society?
The questions go on and the feeling that a major shift in the way we view life is prevalent.
I currently hold a job in order to pay for my way of life and I do wonder if I can find a way to express myself to the fullest and feed myself while doing so, it is a fine line — it is possible! But I haven’t hit that point in my life yet but I move towards it everyday.
This Joe Rogan society trap rant strikes a chord and resonates with my current mentality. He lays it out on the table, simple and clean.
Do you contribute to society or do you merely exist within it?
Resources are being artificially bogarted as scarce, leaving the poorest to struggle for unnecessary reasons. Graham Hancock and Joe Rogan discuss how psychedelics can improve our current situation on the planet.
The blind exploitation of short-term profits and selfish gains is damaging our collective future.
The Distortion of Sound is a documentary about the decline of sound quality and how technology has changed the way we listen to music. It will open your ears and inspire you to reach for richer, more soul-stirring musical experiences
The last two decades have seen a striking decline in the quality of sound and listening experience. Compressed music, MP3s and streaming, have diminished the quality and flattened the emotion.
Marketing gimmicks and convenience now take the place of excellence.
Drug addiction is not a moral failing or mental malfunction, but an adaptive response to circumstances. It would be cruel to put rats in cages and then, when they start using drugs, punish them for it. That would be like suppressing the symptoms of a disease while maintaining the necessary conditions for the disease itself.
Are we like rats in cages? Are we putting human beings into intolerable conditions and then punishing them for their efforts to alleviate the anguish? If so, then the War on Drugs is based on false premises and can never succeed.
Here are some ways to waste human potential and create a society of mass consumption:
2.Destroy community bonds by casting people into a society of strangers, in which you don’t rely on and needn’t even know by name the people living around you.
4.Divide the world up into property, and confine people to spaces that they own or pay to occupy.
5.Move life, especially children’s lives indoors. Let as many sounds as possible be manufactured sounds, and as many sights be virtual sights.
6.Remove as much as possible all opportunities for meaningful self-expression and service. Instead, coerce people into dead end labor just to pay the bills and service the debts. Seduce others into living off such labor of others.
7.Cut people off from nature. At most let nature be a spectacle or venue for recreation, but remove any real intimacy with the land. Source food and medicine from thousands of miles away.
8.Destroy the local stories and relationships that build identity, and replace them with celebrity news, sports team identification, brand identification, and world views imposed by authority.
9.Replace the infinite variety of the natural and artisanal world, where every object is unique, with the sameness of commodity goods.
Cannabis and psychedelics can directly induce nonconformity, weaken consumer values, and make the prescribed normal life seem less tolerable, not more. The growing movement to end the drug war might reflect a paradigm shift away from judgment, blame, war, and control towards compassion and healing.
Erin of RT’s Boom and Bust brings you Peter Joseph, a filmmaker and founder of the Zeitgeist Movement.
Joseph believes that our current system is unsustainable, and he explains how the Zeitgeist Movement’s approach can improve the economy and society.
How would a non monetary society be more sustainable?
Because it would be based on actual technical premises of sustainability, things that we don’t do in the monetary system because market needs turnover. Market needs inefficiency. If you want to have a very robust market economy, you need an immense amount of things to service.
I’ll give you an example, cancer. If we’re able to resolve cancer, if we’re able to actually go after lifestyle factors, the genetic propensities, and stop this massive growth of cancer which is continuing on this planet, there would be billions if not trillions and millions of jobs lost tomorrow if this actual resolution was put forward.
Does the the price tag of a diamond prove how much you love someone? In this clip from Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Sut Jhally explains how “rare” diamonds are falsely marketed to the rich and poor.
Americans exchange diamond rings as part of the engagement process, because in 1938 De Beers decided that they would like us to. Prior to a stunningly successful marketing campaign in 1938, Americans occasionally exchanged engagement rings, but it wasn’t a pervasive occurrence. Not only is the demand for diamonds a marketing invention, but diamonds aren’t actually that rare. Only by carefully restricting the supply has De Beers kept the price of diamonds high.
Countless American dudes will attest that the societal obligation to procure an engagement ring is both stressful and needlessly expensive. But here’s the thing – this obligation only exists because the company that stands to profit from it willed it into existence.
The reason you haven’t felt it is because it doesn’t exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. – Don Draper, Diamonds Are Bullshit
Abby Martin speaks with Peter Joseph, founder to the Zeitgeist Movement about the philosophy behind the organization, the current unsustainable economic system and the model proposed by the movement for a sustainable future that works harmoniously with nature.
Poverty and Structural Violence
If you have inequality, you’re going to have conflict and psycho-social stress caused by relative deprivation. Relative deprivation is insidious and has to do with our social nature and how we perceive ourselves in the social hierarchy. When we see other people doing “better” at a higher class status, it creates tension – unfortunately this is exactly what wealth division is doing in our society.
Take a person and stick them in a poverty-stricken environment, and they develop heart disease which is known to have a direct link to low socioeconomic status. Studies have shown that if you’re just in the existence of low social economic status, the relative deprivation, the way you think about yourself has incredibly inhibiting effects over the way your body and mind works and you will develop high stress levels and cardiac problems.
What if that person with heart disease dies early at 50 because of poverty and low social status? This is a completely avoidable circumstance, which the Zeitgeist movement’s argument.
There’s no reason for anyone to be in poverty, there’s no reason to have massive wealth gaps. This is structural violence, and it has killed more people than any dictator and war combined.
Gandhi agrees, he said “Poverty, is the worst form of violence.”
Constant Consumption
You have all these factors that force economic consumption, which forces resource consumption. The entire façade of market capitalism looks at the earth as one big inventory. At its core philosophical foundation, you can’t have a society of this nature and assume it will ever be sustainable ecologically.
Scarcity and Greed
The economic system we have today is culturally unsustainable because it perpetuates inequality by design. Take a look at the incentive structure: in a scarcity driven world view, narrow self-interest will prevail. If you have a self-interest world view in a scarcity driven society, you’re going to lead to competitive behavior.
Competitive behavior will always develop into power consolidation, like the State, Federal Reserve, or FDA. Massive collusion working for self-interest for small isolated groups of people. If you have these pockets of consolidation and constant interest in competitive advantage, you’re going to have a constant and increasing wealth imbalance.
The market has an inherent propensity to create inequality which people love if you believe in social Darwinism, because everyone walks around reinforced to think that they’re better than everyone else because of all their property and status.
When it comes to public health, inequality is one of the most caustic things a society can generate.
Alan Watts was an English philosopher and writer who played a large part in popularising Zen Buddhism in the West. He gained a wide following after moving to the United States where he published numerous books on Zen and Eastern philosophy.
He is well known for his inquisitive nature and ability to cut through the bullshit of conventional thought to get to the meat of an issue.
In this comic strip penned by Zen Pencils, Watts delves deep into the eternal question:
What do you desire?
The answer may be more simple than you possibly imagined.
Culture in Decline is a satirical series that challenges various cultural issues existing today which most of society seems to take for granted.
Nothing is considered sacred in this series produced by Peter Joesph (The Zeitgeist Movement). The viewer is forced to step out of the box of “Normality” and to consider our societal practices without traditional baggage and biases.
What Democracy? – Culture in Decline #1
This opening show addresses the US Presidential Elections and the subject of what we perceive as “Democracy” in the world today.
Economics 101 – Culture in Decline #2
This episode deals with the subject of Economic Calculation, Market Rationale and its effects, along with considerations of the Scientific Principles of Sustainability.
Consumption Vanity Disorder – Culture in Decline #3
There is a new disease epidemic rapidly spreading across the world: “Consumption-Vanity Disorder” (CVD).
A disease spread not through a mutating virus or genetic predisposition – but through cultural “Memes” – turning the world into a cesspool of mini-malls, fashion obsessions, fake tits and belligerent gadgetry.
War on Nature – Culture in Decline #4
Peter Joseph investigates the nature of War and human conflict as the White House declares War On Nature itself.
Baby Go Boom – Culture in Decline #5
The subject of Security and True Safety is investigated in this episode. The evil terrorists are revealed to be at it again with a new airline scare.
Tale of Two Worlds – Culture in Decline #6
In this final episode of the season, Dr. Peter Joseph shows off his fresh new Time Machine, guiding the audience through a vision of two possible futures.
The first exploring the current trends that just may lead us all into vast new levels of decline.
The second showing what the world could be, if anyone actually gave a damn to make it happen. 😉
