People struggle to finance themselves, specially if they understand TZMs Train of Thought. This impacts the quality of activism work done towards a more sustainable future. A catalogue/collection of current economic activities done by current established members might give struggeling members/ interested people some perspective and motivation.
Help others that are trapped doing meaningless jobs for too long hours per day by sharing your strategy on how to survive socio-economically and having a balanced activism life.
I´m from Germany, there is some form of social security net here so I am currently forced to use it. It is not much but it helps me survive. Financing other things is not possible though. Until last year I was working at the university for several years this sucked me right back into the system, so activism was not possible due to time constraints - I was working 10 hours per day, 6 days a week and earning just part time salary.
The trend I’ve witnessed during the 2 economic turmoils of this decade is that IT on all levels and areas are a solid source of income and stability.
The great thing about it is that a lot of learning materials are available for free. So my advice would be to check this out. Of course, it’s not the only solution.
Hi, this might be possible route, for example a youtuber called MrBeast, he started from $1 a day, then it grew eventually. due to his reinvesting all the profit back to community and donate huge money in philanthropy (in millions). if tzm members are able to gain significant money in this way, then able to materialize more project too
Anyone can contribute to this discussion of course, this is just my opinoin. MrBeast is shallow clickbait entertainment and is not a usable model for a social/educational movement. Peter Joseph isn’t a rich man, yet he brought about all this. And no, I’m not saying we should all become skilled film creators. You should check what you personally already can do based on your skills, time and budget. And even with limited time and money you can be effective.
With that said, activism is really not that expensive. For example I host 2 TZM websites, one of them is this forum the other one is the TZM NL page. It costs less than 10 euro per month and has thousands of visitors each month.
But also without IT skills, walking down the street with a TZM shirt also helps. Placing some stickers at popular places gets the job done as well. Attend local activism events that align with TZM and talk about our movement is basically free as well. The focus of a TZM chapter is local, and that is clever, because it’s easy and cheap. If we aim to become MrBeast-like, then we’ll fail, get demotivated and give up. I’m sure many want to become like MrBeast, but there is only one. I guess that says it all. It’s not easy, especially for what we try to achieve.
In any case, please check out the chapters guide for more advice and suggestions. Activism can really be cheap and effective. We don’t need a MrBeast. Sure, it will help, but at this stage we should celebrate that even the basics of TZM activism is done. Which seems to be just a handful of people, worldwide.
One thing doesn’t rule out the other; I’ve been involved in activism since 2009, and I fully understand that there are many ways to carry out outreach. I simply believe that there are new tools available that enable the development of activism strategies with a more tangible social impact on society.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y34a7bzUmlo
I absolutely agree! But one thing I’ve seen throughout the history of the movement is that people tend to talk and aim for high risk, high reward goals. Sure, it would be cool to reach MrBeast-level popularity and cash flow. It would be great. But it’s not a realistic goal. If it was easy other people would’ve done it in great numbers. And with TZM you add the extra challenge of making viral content based on economics. That’s not really the easy to digest clickbait that gets trending.
TZM activities stalled or did not complete because many aimed for unrealistic goals. At least, that’s my opinion. And of course, I cannot speak for the entire movement. But this is my point of view based on chapter activity of the past decade. Consistently be present in your local area is key, which doesn’t require a big budget or complex plan. If basic local activism works out, then you can explore bigger goals. But even if we seed chapters worldwide on a local level and they all do the bare minimum, we would already have a huge influence.
But even maintaining a chapter seems too much in many parts of the world. I think the foundation is the most important thing. The foundation of a chapter is basically laid out in the chapters guide and if people want to expand to more ambitious activities, then there is zday , town hall meetings and zmf (as explained in more detail in that guide). But even that kind of activism stagnated as well.
Don’t get me wrong, proof me wrong if you can! I would really celebrate it. I just really want to stress out that aiming for these kind of goals will likely result in disappointment and that time and energy could’ve been spent on something with a higher success rate. Such as creating a website for your chapter. I see that the URL in that banner isn’t active anymore
The early 2010s were indeed an awesome period for TZM, and we indeed were doing great back then. But nowadays things are kind of dead, don’t you agree? Even the basic stuff like having a website, be out there and organize regular local events (not just online) is rare. We should remain consistent, that activist guide I’ve posted could really help. TZM NL is I think one of the last active chapters in the world. I worry that if we don’t spark new chapter activity and interest, TZM will be completely gone forever within 2 years.
The COVID-19 pandemic diminished cyberactivism; if the movement ceased to be relevant, it might be due to the struggle against algorithms and the inability to undertake transitional actions similar to projects like Precious Plastic and Open Source Ecology, among others. This could potentially confine TZM to being merely a theoretical virtual movement.
The decline of TZM started around 2015. ZDays were happening less (not that that’s the only event TZM can organize once a year) and chapter activity slowed down since then and now things are almost at a full stop. If anything the pandemic should’ve boosted online activities. Other movements like XR did well during that period and also today. TZM is in decline because we neglected the chapter structure and indeed became mostly a passive online movement, on social media.
Social media is indeed unsuitable as your homepage and to be productive, Facebook is also in decline, and thus all that work and information will go down with it. That’s why it’s important to host your own website with good search engine optimization and RSS to automated post creation to social media. If you tie your audience to algorithms then you’re fighting for attention with bikini girls and lolcats as your competition. To stay relevant in the long run you need to be in control of your own audience, meaning your own data, thus your own domain and website.
I can be wrong of course. But I think TZM can still revive, the chapters guide is key in that as well as what everyone decides to do. In the words of Jacque Fresco, “if you do nothing, nothing will happen”. TZM NL will continue in the meantime with chapter activism. And if you wonder what that exactly means, it’s described in the chapters guide. Can’t stress it enough that local chapter activity is what made TZM big. And it’s so easy and cheap to do, plus, TZM is unique, and shouldn’t be allowed to die out. The only somewhat equal is The Venus Project.
I hope you don’t read my comment as being too negative, I mean well and hope to convince you and those who read this thread to become active again
Also unfortunately, on social media, we seem to attract hordes of science denialists and conspiracy theorists that multiplied during the pandemic. TZM must not be associated with these type of people who can’t (and don’t want to) understand the Train Of Thought.
