In times of great uncertainty everybody rationalizes away the failures of today as the inevitable outcome of everybody else’s ideas in hopes of achieving their version of change and validating long held personal convictions. This cognitive dissonance not only applies to those marching in the street, it also applies to those in power.

Just as the talking heads on your most hated news network will never convince you of anything, no matter how open you pretend your mind to be, songs and signs will never convince other people of anything either, especially not those in power benefiting from the system being condemned. Public expressions of outrage are necessary, cathartic and catalysing for change, but are they effective in the eyes of those who participate? Who really benefits?

The economic and political commanding heights are not only used to advance personal and special agendas; they are also used to exploit the confusion and paralysis facilitated by the inflated expectations of quasi-hysterical idealists for agendas of far reaching consequence. The views of those in power will not be affected by your protests but they will never let a good crisis go to waste; the world is a game and some people choose to be pawns.

“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”
Henry David Thoreau

To be successful, every movement must carefully pick its friends, but it must even more carefully pick its enemies. “The rich” constitute a diverse group of people; among them those with power and those without. It should be evident that whenever a large group is targeted collectively enemies are made among the innocent and nobody resists more forcefully then the wrongfully condemned.

For the powerful, playing chess, the enemy king is now exposed. In all the excitement, idealists have made it too easy for those with power to hide and misdirect while everybody exhausts their resources, energy and will to struggle. As the lines are drawn, powerful people conspire to preserve their status in all the areas that matter. Who do you think will write any legislation required to effect the change you desire, anyway, when it magically appears on your doorstep? Think about it. No matter which side loses, in this scenario, they win.

Did you ever wonder who decided to personalize the target of these protests against the top 1%? Are they really the problem, or is it something more fundamental about the system that created the disparity?

Don’t play on their board; a successful movement must create its own field and pick the opportune moments to advance. The art of war is in having no form and avoiding conflict on the opponent’s terms.

Be cunning and pragmatic, pick a narrow opponent and focus on the core objections to lure their traditional allies to your side with empathy and understanding. Don’t be so naïve as to think those with entrenched power will simply abdicate the thrown. Even if the movement is pure, be assured powerful people will attempt divide and deliver their change on your platter.

When people of modest stature delude themselves into believing they can effect major change by associating other unrelated narrowly held political objections to the popular and common outrage, the movement is balkanized and easily co-opted.

It is not necessary to mobilize in numbers when secrecy and money suffice, it is only necessary when there is a desire to shift the meaning of normal. As people marching on the street create the conditions for change without a strategy or assurance of influence in shaping that new normal, they will in fact achieve the exact opposite of their intentions, as they often have in the past.

They are giving a gift to those they wish to unseat.

Let me start by congratulating the makers of this movie for producing an exceptional piece of propaganda in the classical sense of the term — it very articulately conveys a message that even us unenlightened gentiles can understand. But fortunately for the world, it’s not quite persuasive enough to effect any meaningful change. In this stormy cloud of ideas lies a dangerous system of beliefs that despite the best intentions of Jacques Fresco and his followers will further entrench the power elite onto their thrones.

Despite a fascinating discussion about the nature of human nature the film fails to address some of the main causes of irrational decision making; one of the most important of which is a desire to be consistent. I believe the creators of this film are suffering from this inadequacy; they have begun their journey with the conclusion that money and trade are evil then ironically evolved a belief system that advocates a scientific dictatorship by un-scientifically “fixing the facts” around their case. Rather than designing the perfect system and concluding trade and money are no longer required they have done the reverse by starting with the premise that money and trade are unnecessary then filling the gaps with idealism and delusion. Nobody even questions whether perfection is possible or desirable.

As any prophet in the past advocating radical change has experienced, Jacques Fresco describes the hostility he has faced from those who disagree with his belief system. I personally found this quite amusing after the torrent of insults and personal attacks hurled in my direction after the previous film. If any followers have managed to contain their anger and disgust sufficiently to read this far into my review, I would simply direct you to the comment section of the following post – not to form the basis of any rebuttal of Jacques’ gospel, but to make a simple point – people everywhere hate being exposed to information that contradicts ideas they have already accepted as truth. You may score some sympathy points for your meaningless banter but it doesn’t add value to your argument, we have all had similar experiences. The flaw runs deeply on all sides of any argument, psychologists call it cognitive dissonance.

Bites of Point

The people advocating a resource based economy still fail to recognize the difference between money and currency. You will not eliminate items of persistent value that can be predictably exchanged by shutting down the printing presses. The film does nothing to address this reality.

The film also fails to explain how abundance can be achieved, other than by including a veiled concession that desires will be addressed by dismissing them as wasteful ‘wants’ or contradicting the whole premise of the new order by suggesting we should share and trade any scarce items of value – because to maximize the efficient use of resources ownership is evil and I really want a stranger sleeping in my bed when I take a vacation or go to the park. I lived in a hotel for a few months once… I didn’t even realize how uncomfortable I was until I got my own place. Similarly, this system is dependant for its survival on building a wall of ignorance to separate people from understanding the true pleasures of satisfying their ‘wants’.

It astonishes me that nobody in their “movement” recognizes the risk of entrusting 100% of the responsibility to manage the new order into the hands of just 3% of the population. After complaining about a small percentage of the population manipulating the economy today, how is that an improvement? How is that something consistent with abolishing powerful elite or de-centralizing power to prevent catastrophic abuse?

If only 3% of the population is needed to maintain the system, why do we need the other 97%? Isn’t it obvious the most efficient use of resources, ultimately, is to farm non-contributing people for desirable genes and eliminate the rest? The movie begins with an argument against eugenics only to make the case for it.

I asked some important questions about the lives of the other 97% and all we hear is fantasy about people looking at the stars and returning to their childhood. Give me a break! Creativity is good and we should encourage people to think differently but maturity is not a problem that needs to be fixed.

I still see no adequate answer to how the system will prevent non-resource based conflicts that often cause hostility and could ultimately develop into criminal levels of behavior (cheating, lying, deception, relationships, sports, arts, culture, fashion, music, decency, etiquette, manners, etc.)

Given that most research projects fail, there is still no adequate answer for who will ultimately be responsible for determining which projects are allocated which finite resources. Does each city maintain their own master computer’s source code? Who are the programmers?

There is still no adequate answer for distribution of newly invented goods in an equitable manner.

There is still no adequate answer for who controls the master global resource allocator.

There is still no adequate answer for dealing with people who refuse to submit to this system.

Please, feel free to extend this list in the comment section below.

part 2 of 7

part 3 of 7

part 4 of 7

part 5 of 7

part 6 of 7

part 7 of 7

Here are a few interviews with the man himself:

Swedish reporter interview

Alex Jones interview

part 1

part 2

part 3

Listen an decide