There are countless ideas, from TZM to who knows what, and a lot of them end up working out. But even if they do work out, most people don’t end up following it. My question, is the idea of TZM and similar ‘works’ working out, are their already communities completely independent of others communities, of money / capitalism, etc? Of course there are a lot of communities out there like that, but they are imperfect, some of them are too primitive, etc. I guess the question is, does it seem like capitalism will be abolished any time soon. Maybe too many people enjoy working a 9 to 5 until they are old and dead while making politicians and others rich and wealthy. What then is the purpose of TZM community. Is it more like an aggregator of similar communities and ideas. Which is fine. But it seems like too many people like the world as it is. When good things are manifested, the rest of the world assimilates it into capitalism and claim that its the work of capitalism and thats that. Otherwise they send in the swat team to put an end to it because they want to keep capitalism in place. As you can see i am ranting. Anyways how are you all doing? Kees, how are you?
I will make a clarification that seems necessary to me. I don’t know what communities you are referring to exactly, but TZM does not seek to create communities, but advocates for a more rational way of managing the planet’s resources, which also allows -at least- to satisfy everyone’s basic needs. This is already beyond the question of whether we like it or not: it is demonstrable that, if humanity continues on this path, it will deplete resources and reach ecological collapse, which in turn produces social collapse. Simply, infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.
All this requires a change in mindset and the dissemination of relevant information, which is what TZM intends to focus on. We do not deny that there are other important tasks, but those who cover a lot do not squeeze much.
As you said, TZM is more like an idea, ‘that something is bad and there are better ways.’ And I see that. After all, TZM was just a sort of theoretical paper by Peter Joseph. I get it. But people did look to it as if it was a new driving force for such an idea to bring change, which it partially was. But all it really did was speak to the choir. New people who saw it, and for an eternity more, cringed at it as another fringe idea. This is not a complaint from me but more like a revisit of what TZM is. But regardless TZM is still a good thing to have. Then of course you have actual communities who are working towards making a change in line with the idea of TZM. But even with those communities and efforts, nothing has really changed. Such ideas and communities have always existed throughout history as a fringe idea / community. And so Capitalism is still very strong then. But at least technology continues to advance so we have that.
You said “All this requires a change in mindset and the dissemination of relevant information, which is what TZM intends to focus on.” But the issue is that different people prefer different things so its hard to change their minds. Exposing them to such ideas will and has done much of nothing at all. As you can see with the results of TZM so far. No one i know in real life gives a darn about anything like TZM or such, no matter what they learn. You cant really change their hearts or mind except through brute force and tyranny and that is not an option. The only chance is that technology and life will continue to advance and that alone will drive humanity in some direction hopefully better than worst.
First of all, welcome back! It’s been a while.
I suppose you’re talking about some kind of parallel economy? If that’s your goal then by all means give it a try, if it works out it could be a catalyst. The Zeitgeist 4 movie is probably somewhat about this.
I think this is the wrong wording. Capitalism is here to stay as long as there is no better alternative. And when we single out just capitalism we don’t really explain the whole issue. Any infinite growth economy, regardless of the environmental and social cost, is an anti-economy. This also includes all the other isms (socialism, communism, etc.) A better wording is transitioning out of capitalism, or outgrowing the infinite growth model towards a more steady state economy in balans with the Earth’s carrying capacity.
And talking about transition and things like that, I think @DiegoJujuy has a good point there. What is required is a different mindset, which can be brought about with education. And that’s why TZM is an educational movement.
Have you seen this Zeit-Talks episode?
There are many mainstream alternatives you can use to outgrow the current socioeconomic system. I don’t think it’s a good strategy to create a small community and grow from there. I think it’s best to cherry pick the easy to do stuff that has an impact on the short and long term. In the meantime our website has an updated list.
Don’t try to waste too much time on those who already made up their mind and are not willing to discuss alternative economic models. Pick the road with the least resistance and build up from there. Sometimes the people defending the status quo just don’t like to stand out, so they might not want to hear it. But if the momentum kicks in, they might change their mind later and become your strongest supporters.
The way TZM conducts activism is through local chapters.
This also means that we shouldn’t prove a thousandth time that infinite growth is impossible to some American capitalists. It has been already recognized internationally as being impossible.
Here is a simple proof from an AI:
And here is a story about a universe that allows infinite growth:
Just for fun. We can make the planet have infinite resource, or create something that has infinite resource to address the issue of infinite growth on a finite planet. And this can be done with or without capitalism. If you include this unlikely option, the AI becomes more flexible in addressing the issue.
But even if this was made possible, it doesn’t remove the issue of people exploiting and using resource ‘irresponsibly’ beyond ‘their needs’ and could create other unknown issues from it. I think regardless the world has always been trying to and is moving in that direction - of infinite growth, consumption, exploration, years of living, etc.
And I agree with what Kees said about my wording of addressing capitalism and common issues that come with it, with the word ‘abolishing’. There is a better way of wording it and addressing it altogether.