I say YAY

Nay. OWS is inchoate.. participants are still learning how to build a consensus by which they can express their grievances and state their demands. TZM is fairly mature, and has lots of resources in place with which to exert ideological initiative and influence. It also has a longstanding association with easily discredited conspiracy beliefs about Pearl Harbor and 9/11. OWS participants are naturally drawn to TZM's high priority commitment for sustainability, but that commitment can be advanced without taking on TZM's burdensome ideological baggage.

I thought this group resonated with a lot of my thought especially the use of science and technology to help create an effective global economic systemic change until I read the details in their activitist orientation guide: http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/The%20Zeitgeist%20Movement.pdf
There is plenty of appealing critic of status quo including the economic and monetary system and the government, however, starting on page 55 it starts getting creepy. On page 56 we read

''The bottom line here is that there really is no area of human operation that cannot be highly perfected by delegating decision-making processes to computer intelligence. In fact, the only thing that now separates us from machines on a cognitive, utilitarian level is our ability to create complex associations in our mind. No computer today has yet to respond effectively to being “asked a complex question” in the English language. It requires that the language be transformed into one that it is
programmed to understand, such as mathematics.
However, new fields, such as ‘Artificial Intelligence’, (AI) are beginning to grow with incredible possibilities for this kind of “awareness”. In time, computers will be able to achieve complex thought processes that were formerly only attributed to humans. There is no evidence to support the contrary.''

This seems to be straight out of an old frightening sci-fi movie (e.g., twilight zone, or another one I used to watch in the 90's which I forgot the name). It is incredible that they claim use of computer intelligence as ''science'' while computer intelligence is a technology and science is a method and has inherently nothing to do with technology. ''Scientific Method'' and ''Technology'' are touted repeatedly as saviors as in p.58:

''In a Resource-Based Economy, people do not make decisions; they arrive at them through the use of advanced technological tools that incorporate The Scientific Method''

People do not make decisions?? At least that is being honest. But then who does? What about these guys? (p.59)

"Interdisciplinary Teams of technicians oversee the system and orient research projects to continue growth, efficiency and social evolution. In an optimized version of this system, no more than 5% of the population would likely be needed to run the show. The more optimized and powerful our technology and methods become, the more that number decreases."

Run the show? Meaning there are minority active and majority passive members? Isn't that another form of class system (i.e., based on division of labor)? Aren't these technocrats effectively the privileged class (if not by possession then by position and power)? What if everyone wanted to run the show?

p.60
"In a Resource-Based, Global Economy, where “industry” and “government” are combined into a Cybernated System that incorporates advanced problem solving database computers, coupled with vast planetary wide observation sensors, the traditional concepts of politics, elections and the like have no relevance or basis.

Are these computers self-programmed?? lol. We know computers don't program themselves. Who programmed them in the first place? Based on what criteria? Will these programmers be living in these communes or some other planet? Could it be they could intentionally or not make their situation more cozy if they were living in the commune by their "contributions"? What if there is a conflict. How will it be resolved? By the computer (i.e., its programmer(s))?

p.60 cont'd
"These Interdisciplinary Teams would be selected and organized by the Central Database Program, based on what they have already contributed to the system. This is a true “election”, based on what a person has done, not what they say they will do."

Based on what they have already contributed to the system? - i.e., inbreeding? Wouldn't this lead to monopoly? / entrenchment? / another master class? What other selection biases does this program have? Who can change the program? Who has the power to oversee and accept / reject the changes?


p. 61
Summary of Chapter 5:
Who makes the decisions in a Resource-Based Economy? No one does. Decisions are arrived at by the use of The Scientific Method, utilizing computers that gain real-time feedback from the environment, along with a Central Historical Database of all known technical information, and maintained by evolving Interdisciplinary Teams. This combination could be called the Cybernated Industrial System. This reduces erroneous opinions and subjectivity. We don’t want people in control of government. We want to utilize Scientific Methods for arriving at more appropriate decisions

How is this use of "The Scientific Method"?? There is not even talk of experimentation (the basis of any claim to the scientific method) not to mention how these will be funded, who will perform them and draw conclusions from them, who is the experimenter and who the guinea pig? One thing is certain. Somebody (i.e., not nobody) will make the decisions and with lack of further detail that somebody is the programmer / programmers - i.e., effectively the master class / the government. Restating use of "Scientific Methods" without giving details of its application is wildly suspicious and is an abuse of the word "science". The devil is in the details.

This project could be a way to discredit "science" and even technology and their powerful benefits in creating an alternative economic system.

Another Utopia exposed (despite allegations to the contrary).

Well and generously spoken slave, the devil is INDEED in the details.

Hi marchelo,
I only found out about TZM today and was very disappointed about their severe shortcomings. Here is what I prepared (somewhat lengthy) when I signed up to OWS a few days ago. I welcome your comments and others:

http://www.occupytogether.org/discuss/#/discussion/599/strategy-know-your-political-economy-to-avoid-co-option-by-global-capitalism

Hey slave (yeah that is just uncomfortable to type, nicely done),
I am right there with ya. I had seen the first two Zeitgeist films and, while in love with the concept, found very little of substance. Supposedly the third one "connects the dots" as it were, but I don't know. Technological advancement is one thing, but technological dependence is another.

Absolutely NOT. I cannot stress more loudly what a horrible idea this is. NO, NO, NO. It is technologically nutso, and the conspiracy stuff is equally insane. Please, we need PRAGMATIC VISIONARIES. Have you seen the Venus Project they are associated with? Just awful and totally unfeasible and could never be cost effective. Please, just take this off the board and do not waste such prominent space to them!

I say Yay, I think the ideas of Zeitgeist are a basis for possibilities, I think the point they are trying to make is to actually do what people want, take the control of resources out of one groups hands. I am not saying this will be easy, I am not saying this won't require super brainstorming... I think the point Zeitgeist is trying to make is simply to allow human beings to focus their energy on advancing our species all together, in health of mind and body.... without the suffocation of a minority controlling what we all need basically to live....

I will take this moment to ask please let us all be careful not to fall for the promises of revolutionary actions by the same politicians and governments.... to change things and then once they get the movement to quiet down go back to business as usual. We really need to get the 1% away from the power to decide the future for the other 99%

I agree with your sentiments Shadeonyx. But we should be careful about false prophets. There are too many out there with false promises and dead-ends. That is why we should take charge of our brains and become independent thinkers. It is not easy but there is no way around it. We have to be able to analyze what is presented and look for consistencies and inconsistencies of what is being promised rather than relying on a third party (like our friend, buddy, or an expert) to help make up our mind. That is what "non-representative democracy" or "horizontal" (i.e., egalitarian) "decision making" requires. We must invest the time and energy to learn these analytical and investigational skills, otherwise pay for them dearly down the road like or worse than a bad loan.

One suggestion I give you is follow the money - e.g., how is the idea being funded behind the scenes. Another what is the organizational character - e.g., is it hierarchical / how open are they to criticism / how easily can you challenge the ideas and have them change them if they cannot effectively defend them with evidence / are the rank and file just a sounding board i.e., indoctrinated like a record player or have they thought through the concepts so they can actually respond to your questions and concerns instead of sounding like a recording.

Nay

We need real solutions for everyday people, not pipe dreams of a techno-utopian future.

Pragmatism is the right path. You're not going to completely change this system unless we're all willing to fight a war. Peaceful demonstrations only earn small steps, short changes, and that is fine so long as those involved keep their heads out of the clouds.

For all of my enjoyment in watching the Zeigesit movies it is still very radical. OWS has done very well building momentum this far, it would do well to stay realistic and continue to build that, not alienate itself from those who've yet to pay attention or catch on.

Yay.

We need to change the system, not reform it. The monetary economy needs to be abolished. Slave, I appreciate your thoroughness and your hesitancy, and I think that the Zeitgeist movement would be open to addressing your concerns and any others that may arise.

chuckles, you and me seem to be the only people who see zeitgeisst and venus project as science fiction creepy stuff. twenty years ago i compiled a solutions directory, and i got a tape from venus project. i would not include them in any was as a pragmatic solution.

Zeitgeist need to grow up and fast or be left in the dustbin of history like many other fossilized groups. This is a time of global upheaval and rising social consciousness. Everybody and every idea needs to prove their relevance to the survival imperative everyday or go "extinct" - from the bankster / head CEO's and their thinktanks to little "radical" groups.

NAY!

Love the message but co-opting would kill the momentum.

It is my understanding that the Occupy movement is a platform where diverse ideas can be heard and where solutions can be put forward for discussion. The entire Zeitgeist plan and agenda as it currently stands may not be acceptable to all, but I do believe that it is worth more than a cursory glance.

The world could stand to use some more radical thinkers. I urge the Occupy movement to not dismiss TZM entirely (and to not accept it entirely, either), but to study it closely and to see if some of the solutions it proposes may be workable.

there is nothing particularly radical, pragmatic or visionary about Zeitgeist, IMO, in fact, their vision is extremely narrow and would make us a laughing stock. http://www.thevenusproject.com/ i have no idea what this futuristic disneyland seaworld expensive utopia has to do with our current affairs. If you want to embrace a better prepared group, from which many many Occupy members were already well established with prior to this this wall street action, that would be the TRANSITION TOWN MOVEMENTs which had more clearly understood the limitations to globalization and the need for relocalization - and the reduction of commercial culture. After all, this is about restoring MAIN STREET not WALL ST.

One, just so you know understand where I am coming from. I studied their program (as I quoted in my first post). There was a significant amount of information that seemed valuable especially in critic of the status quo / capitalism. However, when it came to the solution(s) it TZM presents "Science and Technology" as a dogma. Whereas, these are just tools and it is their practice by individuals which determines their utility. "Science" in particular depends on experimentation and continuous reevaluation. It is an evolving concept not an absolute one as presented under "Scientific Method" without further explanation. Computers are technologic creations totally dependent on their subjective biased prejudiced creators and programmers. None of these are a panacea for avoiding conflict because conflict is essentially based on private ownership or private power of any kind.

I am a scientist and believe science and technology will play a big role as catalysts for the future alternative economic system. But these are only catalysts and catalysts accelerate the reaction they do not make the reaction. The making of reaction depends on having all the necessary ingredients. Science and technology are only two of the ingredients. The more important ingredients are the fundamental economic principles of ownership, production, exchange and distribution. Accordingly, for TZM's program to work in establishing an egaliterian society replacing capitalism, it must first address these by providing a practical plan of action (i.e., experimental proposal) to establish common (i.e., non-private) ownership, cooperative production with dissolution of division of labor (i.e., shared area of labor / shared risk / shared position of power and responsibility), equitable exchange and distribution based on ability and need. TZM must remove pretense of certainty as this is anti-scientific. According to the "Scientific Method" it must help to engage the public (the 99%) to accomplish establishment of a sustainable economic system through experimentation, proof, shared results / discussion / conclusions = transparency, and above all shared funding and design / control of experiments by the public (99%).

The means must justify the end.

I just found this important and current information regarding THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT. http://zeitgeistmovements.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/peter-joseph-exposes-the-venus-project/

there are so many other wonderful groups to create alliances with that i painstakingly put into my solutions handbook, groups that are tried and tested and pragmatic, why pick Zeitgeist who apparently has wasted good time with their obsession with the venus project? I have studied thousands of organizations and intentional communities over the years, many who have demonstrated great success. But, what we need now is a short list of items that will break the stronghold larger government and big business has on us by getting money out of politics, nationalizing or localizing banking, and relocalizing.

@Macrocosm

The Zeitgeist Movement is merely advocating The Venus Project, they used to be united, but are no more.

When you look past the fancy 1960's interpretation of the future that you see on The Venus Project's website, and actually see the basis of the project's logic, not what it envisions the future to be, it's actually very simple.

The reason the people are protesting on Wall Street and around the world is because they have in one way or another been rendered redundant by either automation or sophisticated software, directly or indirectly. The very impact of automated machines doing much of corporations work, is conflicting with the money-cycle, which sets the very basis of our society, and automation is interfering by not getting money into the hands of the masses.

What the Venus Project wants, is to take this technology and use it to set an entirely new basis, wherein every single person on the planet is guaranteed (food, shelter, energy, transport, etc) without any human involvement (at least not in form of labor - which can be defined as jobs you HAVE to pay people to do). So whereas our current system NEEDS humans to engage, this system could function without any human involvement.

Do you realize what this means? A new level of freedom. Not only will everybody have the same range of opportunities, it will create an environment where success is not measured in how many cars you have, or how big your house is - things that do not make you happy as a person - and instead pursue more socially-oriented things and personal growth. It will essentially create a basis where there would be no sense in being greedy, powerful or do any form of crime.

And add to that, research have shown that once people are free, feel like they can contribute on a larger scale and do not have any survival-related concerns, they engage in very sophisticated things, without expecting anything in return.

And finally, on this platform, you can create a truly democratic system, focused on specific ideas, as opposed to having your democracy end at the ballot box, and then being prevented on voting on important things like, I don't know, wars? A system like this could resemble the following: An online software, where people, when they identify an issue with society, or think of an invention can post it. Everyone can then browse over these ideas at their leisure and 'Like' the ones they agree with. Then, when 5% of the population in the society has 'Liked' it, it will be put to a vote where everyone will be asked to vote on this idea. This system would also prevent people from being flooded with things to vote on, because only the ones with sufficient 'Likes' will be voted on. This process may have many stages, until the idea is taken on by a group of people who have the necessary skills and knowledge to create it and implement it into society. This means, that whoever had that idea initially, ultimately benefits from it. This is what Peter Joseph means when he says: "Individual interest because social interest". And therefore, everyone will be engaged on this website, because it will be their way of both giving and receiving improvements to their own living standards and everyone else's.

Education too, would flourish. The reason we still see people failing in the current society, is because the linearity of industry is reflected in education; and not everyone fit into that model. People learn in many different ways. Social norms like needing to have a teacher that you have to pay would be surpassed, and people can structure a whole new way of learning. Just imagine having 20 different ways on how to learn biology. Examples of education going against the accepted norms already exist, like khanacademy.org.

This is hardly a narrow ideology, just saying that is slightly ironic, because you cannot see it for what it is.

But anyway, I'll post you some quick videos below to support what I have just said.


Automated food production, take a look at 3D printing if you want to understand how house-construction could be automated.



One aspect of schools' short-comings



People working without getting paid



Enjoy

"The reason the people are protesting on Wall Street and around the world is because they have in one way or another been rendered redundant by either automation or sophisticated software, directly or indirectly."

Not quite. If that were the case, why would they occupy Wall Street?
They are protesting because Wall Street has used the massive wealth at its disposal to effect legislation in its favor at the expense of everyone else. Money has been extracted from the economy through the complex financial instruments that were created along with deregulation which has allowed the stock market to swell out of control. HFTs, Repo-Agreements, and derivatives do not benefit the economy, unlike long-term investments which finance new businesses.
All of the above was made possible by the unequal influence of money on our democracy. This is primarily what we are protesting.

"...this system could function without any human involvement."
This is disingenuous. As slave stated above: "Interdisciplinary Teams of technicians oversee the system and orient research projects to continue growth, efficiency and social evolution. In an optimized version of this system, no more than 5% of the population would likely be needed to run the show."
This would effectively create minority active and majority passive members- another class system based on division of labor. These technocrats would become the privileged class (if not by possession then by position and power). Consider what would happen if they went on strike; the dependent majority would have to acquiesce to their demands or be forced to abandon the automated society completely. This is the inherent problem with relying on a system few maintain, those who don't operate the technology are dependent upon the generosity of those who do.

Another problem I have yet to receive an answer on is how finite goods and services would be distributed. A factory built house is fine and all, but the land it sits upon is finite. Who gets the best real-estate? In an apartment, who gets the top floor?
If a famous painter or sculptor creates a highly desirable work of art, who gets to take it home?
These are things that money handles well. Whomever is willing to pay the most for it, wins. In a resource based economy there is no such mechanism that I am aware of.

I think that Venus and Zeitgeist have some fascinating ideas that are absolutely worth pursuing. It is becoming more and more clear to me that a capital based economy is fatally flawed by the inherent power money wields. As I see it, a resource based economy suffers from the same flaw: power is wielded by the few who create and maintain the system over the many who do not, and relying on the good nature of people in positions of power tends not to work out very well.

Abstain

Although I share the sentiment that we can do much, much better than capitalism and that technology is the source of our wealth and we have the resources and technology to make everyone wealthy, their solution is completely unworkable.

There is nothing scientific about what they propose. There are no technical answers to what to produce, it is entirely subjective. You need money to ration goods and to motivate enough people to work.

Plus his movies promote crackpot conspiracy theories and make economic claims that are simply not true. TZM will never become mainstream. It is a bunch of crazy people.

@Memeotis "People working without getting paid"

You linked to Dan Pink's video to substantiate your claim that people don't need to get paid to work hard.

That is not what his video says!! He says you must pay people and you must pay them well so that the issue of money is off the table. He actually made a statement about TZM people falsely claiming his talk somehow says you do not have to pay people.

@Marchelo Wall Street has always been overpaid, but when people are still working, they don't mind much - as long as they are making a living. The only thing that has really changed in the recent 5 years is the advent of automated technology on this scale. And with that, the lower class and also the middle class is steadily being made jobless. They now turn their gaze at who are still earning money (and a lot of it) and they see Wall Street still earning millions and they perceive them as being the problem, because their money must have gone somewhere.

I think the largely underestimate what the average human would do in such an environment. Try to empathize with a person who is put under the conditions of not having all these things to worry about. What are you going to do? Lie around all day? No. This is what thinking along the lines of the current society concludes. But the truth is, people just don't get the necessary freedom to do what they want in this system, even if it is something that could great benefit society. Take for example a person who really wants to become an engineer, but there is only one single linear path that is highly competitive and doesn't provide much choice as to how you want to be educated. I personally believe that every single person on this planet has the capacity to become the new Da Vinci, they just have to be in the right environment. So no, just because the system would be able to work without human involvement, doesn't mean that humans would not be involved. Things like vertical farms and 3D printing would not just be left to rot after the first generation had been built, it would be under constant improvement and would be swarming with engineers, architects, chemists and biologist researching and optimizing it. All work being done in an RBE (if implemented correctly) would be fun and satisfying work.

@FullDemocracy "He says you must pay people and you must pay them well so that the issue of money is off the table". In modern society, money buys you your right to live, therefore the pursuit of it will always be a struggle in some sense, because everyone needs it. The point at which the concern of money is off the table, is when you are certain that you can pay for shelter, food, energy and all these necessities. And now it seems (for the first time in history) that all these basic things could be provided by machines, it's just that the initiative to do so, is not present in our current economic model.

Now, who is to say money is the only thing that can do this? Money is, as I'm sure you know, nothing; it's imaginary - its value is based on our trust. Money is an outdated tool, it was great for when life was genuinely a struggle, but we have now reached a point where it doesn't have to be. However, if we choose to cling to this fictional resource, we will remain in an artificial struggle for life. And this in turn will keep the people enslaved to put it bluntly, to the people up top who control the money-supply.



And if we tear down the current system - unless it's replaced by something that does not resemble money - it will all just repeat, and even faster this time. Industries are gonna appear over night, and with these new technologies they will require just 5% of the workers old workplaces did. And even worse for this movement, their profits will only get soaked up by a small amount of people.

It's the nature of money. It inherently breeds greed, which was fine for a time, it was the best we could do with the knowledge we had, but it is now outdated. It's the current structure of our society, because it's based on money it cannot deal with the important problems of the day. Take climate change for instance. EVERYONE wants to do something about, in more democratic societies more action is being taken, but nowhere is it enough. Why? Money. Money never represents the true cost of anything, there are too many variables (advertisement, addiction, manufactured scarcity, etc) and thus dealing with climate change seems like a daunting tasks. When spoken about by economists in the future tense, it loaded with negative terminology about compromises and cutbacks. Speak to a biomimicrist on the other hand, and he will get all excited.

Finally, I'm not anti-money. Money was great for a time, it very much helped us create the inventions we benefit from today, but money is no longer needed. And if we blindly cling onto money due to its positive historical traits, we will run ourselves into extinction, I fear.

@Marchelo As for your point of who gets what, it does require some imagination. The Venus Project does not pinpoint specifics, they propose a basis for society, where from people's own minds can expand by imagining what they would do under such conditions. As for the artist, it's an easy answer. He gives it away to whoever he pleases, either to a person he likes or just a stranger. The issue about who gets what say in terms of a desirable flat, I'm sure it would be in the architects' best interest to design living spaces that make every flat very desirable, but then it's a matter of subjectivity as to which is best.

To that I don't have the answer, and since no one has created a prototype city, it is up to the individual to think of a way this could be resolved. I personally imagine that moving in an RBE would be unbelievably easy. I don't believe people would have many belongings. For instance in my mental depiction of an RBE, people would only have the clothes they are wearing, perhaps a rucksack to carry a laptop, but most importantly a single-device, perhaps in form of a wristband, on which they could interact with pretty much everything they need to. It would include the person's body-measurements, and so whenever he moved away he could just recycle the left-over clothes and when he got to a new city, he could just have a machine create new clothes (this already exists, and has for over 5 years I think). My point is, don't let the norms of today's society conflict with what is possible. The RBE idea only provides you with the foundation of the idea and its logic. Let your mind wander, this proposes a fresh start, where the dynamics of society is still undecided. It brings with it only one rule, however; don't make rules. If you have a problem, overcome it with imagination and technical skill.

@Memeotis "The point at which the concern of money is off the table, is when you are certain that you can pay for shelter, food, energy and all these necessities."

That is not correct. Money is needed: 1) to make sure demand equals supply and 2) to motivate people to work.

So money no longer becomes necessary only when: 1) you are able to produce everything that people would demand when the price of everything is free and 2) you automate enough jobs so that you can produce that amount with just volunteer workers.

We are nowhere near that point. So we still need money.



"if we tear down the current system - unless it's replaced by something that does not resemble money - it will all just repeat...their profits will only get soaked up by a small amount of people"

I advocate that we replace capitalism with democracy. That system would still use money. But the companies are not privately owned. So nobody collects profits. The income everyone earns is equal with a bonus on top of that to get people to do difficult work and to give their maximum effort.

http://occupytogether.com/forum/discussion/901/solution-replace-capitalism-with-democracy/p1



"It's the nature of money. It inherently breeds greed"

People are not greedy for money. They are greedy for the things that money buys. Eliminating money is not going to eliminate greed. Eliminating money does not somehow give everyone the ability to get everything they want. So there will still be greed.



"Take climate change for instance. EVERYONE wants to do something about, in more democratic societies more action is being taken, but nowhere is it enough. Why? Money."

You are confusing money with profits. The reason why oil companies are against it is because they get their income from oil company profits. If you take away oil companies, you take away their income. It has nothing to do with money.

If oil company owners got paid the same money producing clean energy they wouldn't care if we made the change.



"Money never represents the true cost of anything, there are too many variables"

That is not correct.

Every single one of those variables, even if they were millions, have to be paid for. So their cost will be a part of the final price. Otherwise, the company selling the final good or service would be unprofitable.

In a non-capitalist economy like the democratic economy that I advocate, the cost of everything will be its labor time. All of our production comes from labor. SO the cost of anything is how much of our labor was used in producing it. So price would be a very accurate measure of cost.

Fair enough. As used in Dan Pink's video clip, the great battle of the encyclopedias, where Wikipedia (non-funded) completely blew Britannica out of the water.

Second, a LV purse can be made at a cost of under $10 and at the high street it is sold for thousands. This means that a large amount of people want this type of bag, meaning that they can jack up the price. This is an example of advertising (or professional brainwashing), which has manage to manufacture greed for their product. And also an example of how we see things like The Venus Project to unattainable because we draw parallels between price of something and it's supply. This, as demonstrated is clearly not true, but yet we still believe in the "law" of supply and demand, which tells us that if something is expensive it must be very scarce.

Thirdly, the reason nothing is being done about climate change, is because the move towards green energy is the move towards distributed energy plants. With oil, it's something finite, something you can sell to customers on a continuous basis. Sustainable energy effectively means infinite energy, but the only way to achieve that is instead of having solar panels covering a large empty area (like conventional factories), every person would be sold a solar panel and small windmill to have by their house, and then they would all link up to a collective grid. And in contrast to the continuous sale of oil, this would only be a one-time sale per customer. And that's bad business.

Fourthly, what? How would you measure labor? In hours worked, in amount produced? If you choose to go for amount, if they are working with big machines and can produce 10 times more than before, would their pay raise proportionally? Also, you may want to read up on economics. How would possibly factor in negative externalities if you are only looking at labor?

1. The wikipedia example was used to show how people are motivated by things other than money. So compensation should be designed to provide both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. He does not in any way imply that the wikipedia example can apply to the entire economy and have everything produced that way.

2. A LV bag is not expensive because it is scarce. It is expensive because people value it highly. You can get exact replicas of a LV bag for a 1/10th of the price. But people still buy authentic LV bags because people value it more

3. Sustainable energy does not mean free energy. Solar panels are more expensive than coal. It currently requires more resources and thus more cost to make a solar panel that lasts 15 years than it does to provide 15 years worth of coal.

Green energy will come down in price. But we will never reach a point where you spend a minimal, one-time cost on a cheap solar panel and wind mill and then get all the energy you want without ever having to pay again. That is a fantasy.

4. Cost is measured in labor hours times whatever their hourly salary is. That is the foundation of Adam Smith's and Ricardo's classical economics.

The price is total labor. So it includes the labor to mine the material, make the tools, make the machinery, assemble the final product, etc.

Negative externalities are dealt with through regulation.

this will never fly,, a computer will never be able to hold the human equation and decisions will still be made by a handfull of humans and as the old saying goes absolute power corrupts absolutly..

@granpachuck6

Their whole concept rests on the idea that every decision that is made in society is technical. They claim that there is an objective answer that can be arrived at using the scientific method. So you no longer need money, government or businesses. All you need is the unbiased solutions arrived at by scientists.

But that is completely false and demonstrates their lack of understanding of how the world works or their inability to be honest with themselves that what they propose is complete nonsense.

For proof of their claim, they say you don't take a vote to decide how to build a plane or who should fly it.

And that is true. "How" to produce is entirely technical with objective solutions.

But "what" to produce is almost entirely SUBJECTIVE. There is no objective, scientific answer to what to produce.

For example, there is no correct answer to the question of do we build Fresco's cheap igloos as our housing or do we build more expensive stone colonials. Some people want more expensive colonials. Some people want cheap igloos.

Individuals should make those subjective decisions. That is why you need to give them money and votes. So they have control over the subjective process.