World Peace: The resource based economy, sounds good at the outset. However, after further inspection, flaws become noticeable. For instance, just for sake of argument, let's say we all went along with it. This means, the entire world would be relying on computers for survival. More than a few questions should begin to swirl through the human imagination, such as, if the computers are running people, who is running the computers? How are the computers programmed and who is doing the programming? What is the ultimate goal of the programmer? Are we willing to place our lives in the hands of computer technicians, engineers, and programmers? What is the contingency plan should the computers just stop working? This list of questions can go on into infinity.
This Examiner has seriously pondered the question, which brought me to a disturbing conclusion. The memory of a 70's science fiction movie called "Logan's Run" comes to mind. In this movie, computers were controlling human existence in a very unorthodox fashion. Apparently, the computers evolved over time to decide how long humans should live to the point that it was decided that humans should be put to death the moment they came of age, which was the ripe old age of thirty. The human race was so young that they literally lacked the ability to question whether or not the computers were correct. The people would go along with the decisions of the computers without question whatsoever. Until one person, a male who just so happened to be one of the top enforcers of the human population, begin coming closer to being destroyed himself as he was 29 years old. He decided he needed to investigate the reasoning behind the need to kill everyone who became 30 on their 30th birthday. It was an amazingly provocative movie to the extreme, of the 'Zeitgeist movie' idea.
However, it gives another perspective about the Zeitgeist ideal. The main assertion is lost when one begins to ponder what would actually happen if human beings relied so heavily on machines to survive rather than learning how we could work together for the common good without reliance on machines. If we could all just look at others as if they were ourselves, we could save the entire world. The power of life and death has always been in the power of humans and humans have exercised that power since the beginning of time. Perhaps not always in favor of the whole, but they have always exercised that power. The human condition throughout history has always been in a somewhat precarious and fragile state.
The makers of the Zeitgeist movement would disagree in terms of the machines determining human fate, instead they have asserted, "The computer does not decide the fate of humanity. It "decides" the most efficient way of building goods, and delivering said goods to the people. It doesn't decide who lives, who dies, who gets to eat pizza, who has to eat liver." No matter what the idealist say, the question remains, "how do we know their motives?" This question is not meant to impugn the motives of the makers of Zeitgeist. It is being considered in order to find out if there is or is not a contingency plan in place in case this or something similar to this could actually take place. One must consider all of the possible variables (good, bad or indifferent) and make them known to all before embarking on such an enormous project, which would involve all of mankind.
Make no mistake, the idea is a wonderful one, but the how to, part, is the defining criteria. Throughout human history, man has pondered the subject of world peace, and has always had great ideas. The reality has been daunting at best. The greatest issue is the one that no one can control, and that is, the human factor. How would you get the entire world on board? What would that look like in real time. People are suspicious by nature and by history. What an enormous undertaking for the human race. What about corruption? Remembering that anything that could be used for good, could also be used for evil. All one has to do is look at the Holy Bible. In the book of genesis, there is a story about the "tower of Babel" where supposedly the entire earth came together to help a king named Nimrod build a great tower which reached into the heavens.
Once the tower was complete, King Nimrod decided to shoot an arrow into the heavens in order to somehow challenge the very existence of God. Nimrod wanted to be God. As the story goes, God became grieved in his spirit at the over blown ego of mankind and decided to confuse their language (by having everyone speak another language that could not be understood to each other) and to scatter the people to the four corners of the earth. Supposedly God said. "they finally came together and this is what they came up with, let us go down and confuse the language." From this Biblical story, it is easy to see how giving all power to one person could become our doom. So yes, ideally, and considering all possible negative outcomes, the Zeitgeist movement on its face is a wonderful idea. However the reality needs to be well planned out to include every possible situation and factoring in what could go wrong.
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