MovieChat Forums > Zeitgeist (2007) Discussion > if wealth is distributed evenly...

if wealth is distributed evenly...


the world is already the garden of eden. But that wont be possible, human nature, greedy, selfish and pride, exist. these drive people to think that, I work harder but get the same stuff as others do.
If you'r in the top position of the hierarchy, you would possibly do the same thing ~ controlling.
Its not people dont know the truth, they are just reluctant to change, to resist as there are many troubles around them, job, taxes, family. They just dont have time to deal with it or think of that.

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Greed is a natural thing, but not a bad one necessarily.
There are multiple forces that make you want to work. They are helping people, just wanting to do something, social pressure and greed. (Maybe more, but these are which I thought up). People that don't really care about the first three, will still work because of the fourth force, so taking that away would mean taking away the driving force of a part of the population.
You also can't just ban something from your mind, if it's genetically put there. And I think that if you give everybody an equal amount of money, people will spend all of it on pointless things, whereas if you give it to the people that worked for it, they might do something useful with it, like spending it on progress.

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The precise point is that greed is not natural. People "work for a living" is the result of an artificially created notion of scarcity. This in turn lead people to hoard money and resources (the basic definition of greed). Then greed is the continuous fear of losing what has already been accumulated. A interesting example is on the solidarity experiments conducted in several psychology faculties. People's decision to hoard and to deprive other's access to something comes from how much of it is available. If you had to work for something that is scarce you will probably try to work more and accumulate it. If you are offered to work for something that is plenty and abundant you simply won't work and will simply take how little you need to go around instead of busting your back to hoard it unnecessarily. Additionally, the notion of genetical predetermination is a pseudo-scientific myth printed by media on the undereducated society. To say, "greed is genetically imprinted on someone's mind", would make any serious psychologist lol so hard they'll fall in tears before explaining you all of the empirical evidence of why such sentence is at best misinformed.

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[deleted]

Just face that the world is complex and all solutions are compromises of different struggles and that ideals are there to be strived for, but always to be discussed/debated and critiqued.
Plus, do not take everything (for instance this movie presents) as any ultimate truth. It has some interesting, possibly facts, but also all wars, religions, cultures are complex and must also be seen in regard of its time. You cannot base them on our current human western values with any moral justification.
When any medium tells you what to think, it is deliberately manipulating you. It should present facts in the least subjective way, and let you judge for yourself.
Also you have to realise the fact that these patterns and pieces of evidence are carefully selected material to build up a view to enforce their own point. Although, the point may be legitimate it is still no ultimate truth, and just one side of it.
However, the film does make you reflect on some issues, and create debate which, in my opinion, is its strong points.

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If everyone has the same amount of money then what's the point of money?

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Exactly. We need to get rid of the monetary system because it is fake and not based on anything tangible. Something tangible has to be in use such as a trade/barter system. X amount of hours of work equals y amount of days of rent for a home, etc. With our current system someone can just ask for a loan, and if they qualify they now have access to X amount of hours of work (money) without having done anything other than signing a piece of paper. How can the paper have any value with nothing to support it? Thus we have people buying houses that are too big for them and then in five years or less they lose them to bankruptcy because the original mortgage was based on "money" pulled out of the air and not on anything solid - like food, water, or physical labor.

But then we get into the issue of land ownership. The country (nation) owns the land and citizens rent it (real estate) from the government. The basis of land ownership is a joke - because how can anyone own land? You might own the right to use the land - but you cannot actually own it. Thus before the monetary system was even created the land based system was flawed.

What is worse is now we are running out of useful land because of over population. The vast majority of wildlife on the planet is gone and at this rate all we will have is humans and concrete and steel. How can we fix this? Personally - it all scares the hell out of me and whether Zeitgeist got it's facts right or not - this is a wake up call!

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Over population isn't an issue as far as space for people is concerned. If you took Japan's density and applied it to the world you could fit everyone in the United States. The issue is food. At a certain point we'll hit that exponential curve that requires artificial population control or starvation (as long as we haven't figured out intergalactic travel). Either way, it will be ugly.

m.v.

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