Zeitgeist was one of the first “new” pipelines to the alt-right. I went down it when it came out some 15 something years ago. When someone mentioned to me that I was using the same tropes as Nazi’s without even realizing it I snapped out of it. I was so focused on the Rothchild’s and what not and didn’t realize that the common denominator was that they were all Jewish. It was all anti-Semitic propaganda.
But I think what you want to discuss is rather “the Venus project” that was spearheaded by Jacque Fresco. I haven’t seen anything relating to that since Fresco’s passing though.
The Frescos idea seemed like a technocratic utopia. I think what we are seeing now is a technocratic dystopia. If A.I is privatized then the common man will be screwed… the gains are privatized and the loses socialized as my favorite streamer HasanAbi states.
I’d put forth that by definition technocrats optimize for dystopia in the structure of society, but that’s well for another thread!
Yeah, Zeitgeist was started as the “activist wing” of the Venus Project, wikipedia suggests they officially split from the Venus Project in 2011.
Indeed. It’s one wing of many where that reactionary mindset thrives, ecofascism is pretty correlated with similar tropes, we can see it at work (and testing the waters of useful aesthetic to don) with other “societal collapse” themed orgs.
And like leeroy and the rest of us, we do care a great deal about things, and it’s easy to get wrapped up in a compelling narrative about real problems around us, even if the sleight-of hand finds a way to redirect to the old, convenient “enemies of society”.
Charismatic auth-right agitprop movements split all the time!
They have their enemies but authoritarians love testing their power and finding the time to rise and leave their old allies behind. You’ll find similar squabbles within the alt-right.
…one of my old and pretty dystopian songs is called “nothing grows forever”…
and anybody who does’nt want to see, that the actual economic model, it’s global oh so free markets and the only money makes money and the world go around gambling clubs are leading to nothing but a death match for almost every living thing on earth is defenitly blinded by some cult…
but everything goes in cycles…before we live in a technocratic utopia, we gotto survive the technocratic dystopia…the kids of our kids’ kids might be the first gen to consider themselves grown ups for real…
My YouTube algorithm has been going through a bit of a “you should be watching more people shouting about politics” phase. As part of all this it recommended me a video of Russell Brand talking about an interview he had on Fox with Tucker Carlson. , I thought. What is Russell “progressive lefty shoutface” Brand doing talking to Tucker Carlson? Turns out he was finding out that he has a lot in common with old Carlson and was very enthusiastic about teaming up with lots of very right wing Americans to take on those awful bastards at Big Pharma and those terrible Centralised Power Structures (Newscorp anyone?).
I thought to myself, “what a naive prick”. It just shows yet again how easily the “progressive” mindset can turn into a conspiratorial one, and that that usually only ends one way. I was reminded of the time I watched the first couple of Zeitgeist films. I remember how they started off with this narrative of how corruption has permeated our society and Capitalism is bad and all that stuff that most of us kind of agree with. Then they started with the 9/11 shit and I was out. Because there’s far more obvious and real examples of corruption and conspiracy to get angry about. Using 9/11 was an immediate red flag to me that the people behind Zeitgeist aren’t to be taken seriously.
Karl Marx told us what was wrong with Capitalism 150 years ago. His disciples also showed us how many people you’ll have to kill to get rid of it. And it’s this uncomfortable reality that the left has never been able to reconcile, as how can you be the good guys and do what needs to be done. It’s this part that the people behind Zeitgeist are pretending they can fix, that people like Tucker Carlson pretend they care about (along with telling women what they can and can’t do with their own bodies).
Brand got a lot of stick during his very public political awakening a few years ago, because he started telling people not to vote, but was unable to offer any sort of coherent alternative beyond constantly pointing out the problems we all already know about. He kind of became a personification of the left in the 21st century, lots of finger waving, lots of moralising, but not much in the way of solutions. It is this search for some sort of a solution that has led Brand into the arms of the American right wing and it is that same search in all of us who might think ourselves progressives that can lead us down the conspiratorial, somewhat alternative reality being offered by the people behind Zeitgeist.
Anyone who tells you we can destroy capitalism without the blood of millions on our hands is lying to you. What Zeitgeist is offering us is more of the same, but with a different set of hands on the tiller.
I mean, aside from the cult stuff, I had a watch and found it to be pretty naff annd unstructured. There’s no premise or narrative arc that I could discern from the first half an hour. The animation was pretty nice, but the whole thing starts with this hammy re-enaction.
The comparison with Adam Curtis is interesting some parts of this doc are clearly trying to capture that feel). Curtis could quite easily be a cult leader, the way he forms his monological arguments is compelling, and it’s all very didactic.
Difference is, his documentaries don’t seem to really care what we think, whereas this - from the first moment - feels like it’s trying to convince me something. Plus Curtis is a master of editing and a great storyteller, this is, I’m afraid to say, pretty dull.
…meanwhile all paradigms are shifting again…and again.
left wingers become right wingers…right wingers become left wingers…
whoever pays the bills…
no one listens while everybody talks…everybody is cought in some narrative or the other…
tmi terror all over the place…we’re all lost in too much information…
common sense and common ground are constantly close by and always out of reach…
no solutions to find in a world where creating problems simply generate the bigger profit…
in a rigged game that’s all about profit…
natural born reflex to adress somebody else’s fault instead of adressing the inner problem…
@Fin25 …i really like ur sense of humour…countless times u made me smile here…while hear u talking in good old standard terms of status quo just makes me sad…just a little sad…no worries…just the usual sad…
aslong we stay focussed on our differences, we’ll never face all the things we have in common…
i deeply regret my attempt to discuss anything…
let’s stay a little offended by each other and just watch it happen…
i’m too smart and too naive at once…just like u guys.
let’s talk gas and gear again and conspire together about what’s next to buy or not to buy and try a little harder, not to loose our humour…
I see his brand of podcast “conspirituality” psychedelic-populism as more about the aesthetic of revolutionary posturing but a very insincere interest beyond positioning the shoutyman as some sort of big thinker based on how seriously he takes himself.
Zeitgeist would funnily enough suggest the blood of millions should begin with anyone with a Jewish surname (rinse, repeat.)
Different faux-revolutionaries, same scapegoat as ever.
You misunderstand me.
I’m not arguing for the status quo, I’m just saying that, if millions of people are going to die for an idea, it needs to be a much better idea than the shite that the people behind zeitgeist are peddling.
Let’s be real, if the revolution comes, they’re probably coming for people like me, so I need to take this shit seriously, but I don’t think a lot of these so called revolutionaries are taking it nearly seriously enough, certainly not enough to convince me to back them.
, I thought. What is Russell “progressive lefty shoutface” Brand doing talking to Tucker Carlson? Turns out he was finding out that he has a lot in common with old Carlson and was very enthusiastic about teaming up with lots of very right wing Americans to take on those awful bastards at Big Pharma and those terrible Centralised Power Structures (Newscorp anyone?).