Thanks, Kees.
I can not match your speed of responses, so will reply within the day (24hrs 
hopefully).
No worries, there is no need for a synchronous chat here 
Please note that we do have an app, so you can also reply on the go, if you want of course.
UBS is an alternative many people favour. Behind this is the thinking, it seems to me, of not trusting ordinary people to spend money wisely.
Who would decide the range of services to grant to people? Give people solar panels, for example, rather than money with the freedom to decide not to spend it that wayâŚ
Well, If I were a worker on minimum wage I would have to make sure that the rent is paid while waiting for the savings on my electricity bill show up.
I mean, cash payments are the emergency response to people on the poverty line.
You are right " Just handing out money to people wonât make them activists" but it would make them more free to be activists if they do decide. And with UBI there will be groups of activists to encourage other economically free people to become activists on behalf of RBE restructuring.
In fact, this paper argues that there is a resource based economy but its benefits are captured by the top richest members of society .
(By the way, I hope that we can think of our exchange here as exploration rather than argument to prove one side more right than the other. )
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Note Iâm talking about a localized energy grid. Itâs not that only a few people get these panels. Itâs about providing energy independence for a whole neighborhood. Not everyone can have panels. The thing is, we can plan independence by applying technology the right way. Or indeed we just hand out money and see what we already see.
To be honest, both wonât happen. Consumers in nl also have to figure it out themselves. Everyone needs to buy their own panels and batteries. Not efficient.
Of course! 
In that spirit, I would like to hear your responses to the paper by Gar Alperovitz. The I link is in the previous post.
We donât have a RBE now. We use resources, of course. But we donât base our economy around them. If that was the case then we wouldnât measure our economic success in how fast we can produce products and consume them. Instead it would be more efficient, long lasting products with repairability built in. Earth overshoot day wouldnât be earlier every year either. We use up many times over of what the Earth can provide. We treat the planet as a single use product. We have a market economy, based on consumption. Not preservation.
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A resource-based economy plans its decisions taking into account the available resources, their care and how to guarantee their sustainable consumption over time.
At present, our economy is based on profit, without adequate planning to ensure the points that I named. Instead, almost all resource consumption is permitted indiscriminately and incentivized by profit. Although there are some regulations in different countries, sometimes they are not followed due to corruption, which is inherent in the current socio-economic system.
It would be useful to know what you call a resource based economy, so that I can understand what you mean and what it has to do with the article you recommended.
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I think itâs best to have some sort of incentive system, like the amount of hours per day you put in the system compared to the average per age group / gender for example or even compared to the average as a whole. Everyone has the same amount of time available per day, but not everyone is able to spend as much time on the system (kids, care, etc.). The more you put into the system, the more you can get out of it, but not by a lot. But, basic needs (food, clothing, housing, heating, electricity, water) should either be really really cheap or free due to massive efficiency innovations (which we are already seeing rough traces of in the form of AI).
How could we setup a proven system, being so distributed, sparse and (definitely in my case) busy? What would that system look like? What does the system do, and what does it not do? How does it interface with capitalism? What other groups could we become friends with?
What you seem to prefer is a capitalist system under a social democratic principle.
This explains a resource based economy:
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The word capital-ism is too vague a term to be useful without further definition.
What is capital? Is it some productive machinery, or accumulated sums of money? From simply this distinction a useful critique of capitalism can be derived.
I am a democrat. To me that means that the best society is where the people are as free as possible from the need to make a living by working directly at jobs.
That freedom lets a population free to be well educated and fully informed about all things that matter to a good society. Then the kind of future emerges.
The origin of Zeitgeist vision is differentâa kind of top-down blueprint that is an expert-constructed design to be followed by the rest of society. This, roughly speaking, is the pattern of development in the present republican type of social arrangement.
Thanks for the comments and posting these videos.
What I was referring to were e.g. the Nordic countries, which have a capitalist social democratic system. It rewards people who contribute more, while providing basic needs. Which was what @Succession was referring to.
It are indeed experts that make the decisions. My opinion about many subjects are not relevant, because I donât know what Iâm talking about. Very recently we had an election in The Netherlands where nitrogen emissions played a key role. Most people I talked about didnât know anything about the background but voted for the party that wanted no change in policies. That party has become the biggest party in the senate now. While the science is very clear on what we should do about the nitrogen issues in nl.
A democracy only works with well-informed people. What is proposed in a resource based economy is a method of opening up decisions, but not based on voting for people, but improving ideas collectively. Where itâs necessary to also state why itâs a good idea based on the scientific method. This participation is based on an open-source culture. So itâs not top-down. But indeed, if you want to improve ideas, you need to know what youâre talking about. This filters out populist ideas and alike.
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You are referring to populations damaged by indoctrination to believe that the purpose of life is to earn a living. This has gone on for countless generations (think Protestant Work Ethic).
No wonder we are so stupefied that we do not know what we are talking about.
Free the human spirit from economic bondageâforced, by threat of starvation and destitution, to live as factors of production.
I understand that âthe grand visionâ of TZMâs belief system addresses this issue, but do not trust this handed out solutionâessentially one personâs creation (but I may be mistaken here).
Where did I say this? I think youâre mixing up some things Iâm saying here. You asked for a definition about capitalism in the context I was bringing it up. I did. And then I continued the discussion about your reply that an RBE would be top-down, I explained it isnât. It seems you joined those two points into one now? I wasnât making that argument. I donât think the purpose of life is to earn a living.
It isnât. Who would be that one person? The ideas of an RBE is an evolution and combination of several ideas. Like Buckminster Fuller, Jacque Fresco, technocracy and for sure many other sources.
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I stand corrected on where the vision comes from; and my the quoted statement was what I expect would come in response to saying that human beings are âforced, by threat of starvation and destitution, to live as factors of production.â
This thread started with the question of relevance or lack of UBI (as cash payments) as the first step (socks before the shoes) towards the implementation of RBE.
In summary, the answer from TZM community seems to be a conclusive âno relevance at allâ.
It, however, remains to wonder how much familiarity with the philosophy supporting UBI is present in that conclusion.
So, Kees, do you think (since you are the moderator) we should give a rest to this thread?
This is by no means the whole TZM community. Iâm sure there are people who agree with you. And as mentioned, UBI could be great, but maybe 30 years ago or so. I donât think we should waste time on an UBI at this point. Change is slow. We have only until 2030 to make meaningful changes to combat climate change. In my opinion UBI will only throw gas on the fire, because it will promote mindless consumption. But, as mentioned a few times, we can apply the right technology, which in turn provides financial relieve as well. And more importantly, it assists the transition to a steady state economy with less waste, greenhouse gases and infinite growth regardless of the finite resources of our planet.
So applying a universal basic needs infrastructure is not far from what your goal is. My solar panels for example give me âŹ300 of more financial freedom per month. Which would be even more if we could store that energy in a local energy grid. Because the sun doesnât shine as much every month and not everyone can have these panel (apartments). I think that train of thought is the way forward.
So with that we can indeed summarize it, at least from my point of view. We can repeat our arguments a few more time, but life is too short for that I guess 
Feel free to continue the discussion. I see no need to shutdown a discussion thatâs in line with TZM and is done with mutual respect.
This thread has drifted into many, many topics unnecessarily, totally straying from the title of the original post (Richest 10% of people in UK use more energy flying than poorest do overall).
You seem to be referring specifically to the two-party system in countries like the USA, where the Democratic Party and the Republican Party rule alternately. All of that is run within a socio-economic system in which the means of production (i.e. natural resources, energy, factories, machines, tools, money, and sometimes also transport networks) are privately owned. This is one of the distinguishing features of capitalism.
In a Resource-Based Economy the means of production would be the patrimony of humanity, so in that context the economic policies advocated by the Republican Party would be incompatible. For that and for several other reasons, any attempt to compare TZM and the âRepublicansâ will come to nothing.
In most countries the instituted form of government is representative democracy. This is true regardless of whether elections are won by the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (or similar equivalent in each country). That is to say that these parties function within a representative democracy, and outside of it the parties would have no reason to exist. In representative democracy, people do not vote for proposals or ideas, but vote for those who will decide instead of the population. In other words, in the end, we vote for someone to be at the top, and that person or persons decide over those at the bottom. This happens regardless of which party seems to us to be closer to our wishes.
Decision-making using logic and accumulated knowledge based on evidence is the opposite of the arbitrariness that occurs when someone has power over others. The suitability of those who run for office is never tested in any way. It is rare for rulers to explain with valid arguments the reasons for their policy measures, analysing all the variables involved and using the available scientific evidence in the decision-making process.
The processes of science, logical argumentation and the way open-source works have nothing to do with verticality.
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I am afraid that this response misses the implications that follow from my post.
I thought it would be useful to declare where I am coming from.
So, by a democrat I mean someone supporting direct democracy not ruled by an elite even if it is elected to rule by popular vote.
More precisely, I am (by conviction) a social anarchist and believe that the best future for society will be an emergent condition as a result systemic evolution. To repeat:
RBE may me just that future, but let it be a really grassroots phenomenon.
This is another of my interest. A decentralised energy supply solution. But we need to separate industrial use of power from domestic needs.
Should this be a topic on its own, or is there an existing thread?
Not necessarily.
There are many.
Not sure if youâre looking for a topic like this though. There are several, best to use the search, if you canât find a topic then itâs best to create a new topic.