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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKkEjl-RSfc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKkEjl-RSfc
Best episode yet, I was shocked at how well our culture is reflected here and its connection to our economy.Quote:
Culture In Decline Episode #3 covers a new disease epidemic rapidly
spreading across the world: "Consumption-Vanity Disorder". A disease
spread not through a mutating virus or genetic predisposition - but
through cultural "Memes"
Entertaining, and got off to fairly decent start (sans the Marx LABOR-DEMAND mention as "the driver of the economy"), but the wheels completely fell off Joseph's wagon about 2/3 of the way through, as nebulous "consumerism", "capitalism", "greed" yada yada began to dominate.
Every argument, every point made, was on the basis of some emotional or psychological appeal, whether it was the "greed" of the early industrialists, or the "vanity" of the easily brainwashed and "narcissistic, selfish consumers", who allow themselves to become the willing mesmerized slaves of something that is equally emotional and thought driven on the "capitalistic greed" side of the equation. Aside from the 1%'ers holding the bulk of "the planet's" wealth captive, and a blip on planned obsolescence, no real economic arguments are advanced, and no economic fundamentals are cited.
"You see, the individualistic material selfishness glorified today...reinforces modern neo-liberalism, where the view of detached independence, narrow self-interest and narcissism is held as deeply sacred, while any attempts at working towards a broad social consideration working towards a community environment is heretical."
And on and on it goes...
CONCLUSION=The problem is 100% cultural, and psychological (on both sides!)
The whole video bats at psychological leaves, as if those were actual roots--attacking symptoms of a disease as if they were the disease itself--which comes off like an updated version of anti-establishment beatnik-to-hippy rants of yore, with calls for "Wake up! Hey, man, don't be fooled by the man, if you don't wake up he just gonna keep you down!"
Ultimately, consumers are blamed, as though it really was a matter of belief, and not fundamentals; as if consumers really were in control, but had just fallen prey to the wiles and temptations of the Consumerist Capitalistic Devil, TO WIT:
"Modern consumer culture, the consumer vanity disease, insures that the public remains distracted and at war with itself..."
STOP, children, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down...
Even if every single average person not in power believed as the makers of this video obviously do, and woke up one day, changed their Evil Consumeristic Ways, and decided to "will" everything to be "another way", whatever that means, there are political and economic fundamentals to all that psychological sentimentalizing--and not once is the monetary system itself named as even a suspect. No, but the fact that a jerk-me-off-slap-my-face-with-whip drink is available at Starbucks is somehow relevant, and at the core of "economic inequality".
If the economic fundamentals that really did give rise to the symptoms-he-calls-causes aren't identified and recognized (like, oh, say, A DELIBERATELY DEBASED MONETARY SYSTEM), it doesn't matter they or anyone else in concert with them believes--or even what political power they wield. People will still be enslaved, and nothing will change.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
Still pumping the gospel of Peter Joseph I see... why don't you just build a robot to post your spam for you? Oh, I guess you would have to build a robot to build that robot first, never mind...
A strategy of debasing a currency works well in the process of better spreading the disease of Consumption Vanity Disorder, wouldn't you agree?Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
I don't argue from that premise, because I know that the earth revolves around the sun because the sun has orders of magnitude more mass than the earth, and not the other way around. Applying critical thought, debasing the currency is a phenomenon that is centrally decided by a few, with myriad effects on the whole and all its billions of individual parts, while consumerism in any form is ultimately decided at the individual level, and is only exacerbated in myriad ways by that debasement, and the policies surrounding it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Casey
For example,
Foreign countries since 1973 are forced to acquire debased US currency for their oil needs, which can be expensive if they have to buy that currency directly on the open market exchange. So they export a bunch of cheap shit to us instead, siphoning those needed dollars directly from consumers here and out of this economy, as we export part of our inflation to theirs.
Joseph has the naive thought that if everyone simply stops buying all the cheap shit that shows up on shelves here, that the problems of the world will be solved, and the world will be right as rain. But that tail doesn't wag that dog, which has millions of tails. Even if Joseph could exert a more powerful influence than all the advertising and concomitant consumer desires in the world, and he could curtail the desire for any wasteful consumption on anyone's part, he would only succeed in getting people to stick it to themselves, not "the man", and not "the disease". That is because most of those "consumption vanity" goods are manufactured overseas, and involve both foreign and domestic employment (you know, where those consumer dollars being spent are actually earned). The net effect would only be crippled micro-economies, both here and around the world, with more unemployment, and defaults on all the debt-money that is being created regardless. Who's not as effected by that reduction in revenue? A deficit spending government, for one. Meanwhile, the entire currency debasement machine behaves in a way that protects and insulates non-consumer based government spending and banking interests. So government is unaffected, and failing banks are propped up (as they are now), because both are Too Big And Too Important To Fail.
There would be no reason to debase a currency and bribe government officials to increase deficit spending if such a strategy wasn't effective to some of the most influential business leaders. If we stopped buying more stuff, we would have less money going around, PJ knows that alone won't make things better. The problem is of course a value disorder, where inequality to the point of making others suffer is just part of the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
Consumption Vanity Disorder will likely continue to spread further and get to worse stages before more people start recognizing it as a disease at all. CVD drives those who are motivated to create more debt and more government. Those who are most suffering from CVD attempt to prevent access to any kind of cure for this affliction because having CVD is so much a part of their own identity and belief systems that they think curing CVD is destroying their freedom.
God save us from "diseases" concocted for the purpose of propping up some crackpot economic theory.
The DSM is dangerous enough of an ad hoc contrivance as it is ...
Value disorder? Inequality? To the point of making others suffer? Every bit of that is unqualified gibberish.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Casey
Give something a name, along with a badge and a whistle, and some people will follow you anywhere. They'll even take pills for it if you market it just right.Quote:
Consumption Vanity Disorder will likely continue to spread further and get to worse stages before more people start recognizing it as a disease at all.
Bullshit. That unqualified pretend disease called Consumption Value Disorder (now reduced to the officialish "CVD" acronym) only describes behavior or individuals who are motivated to buy things--for whatever their own reasons--which you want vilified and labeled part of "a disease". Their motive isn't to create more debt, or more government. More debt (on the consumer's part) is an incidental effect, as simply a means to an end ("I want that now, and OMG they'll let me pay for it later!"). If they had the ability to get that shit for free, without creating more debt for themselves, rest assured everyone would be more motivated to do just that. Likewise, someone buying the latest iPad, Starbucks, fake boobs or new-fangled makeup kit isn't the slightest bit motivated by the thought of creating more government. It doesn't even enter into their motivation equation.Quote:
CVD drives those who are motivated to create more debt and more government.
Kind of jumping the gun there, don't you think, arguing from the premise, as if you had actually established something meaningful? I think that's a result of the Presumptuous Labeling For Political Purposes Disorder (PLFPPD). I'm not sure what the cure for that affliction is, but it's seriously destroying the country, and these people really do need help.Quote:
Those who are most suffering from CVD attempt to prevent access to any kind of cure for this affliction...
Yeah, that's the problem with having PLFPPD. It is so much a part of the identity and belief systems of those afflicted that they think that curing PLFPPD is destroying their freedom to presumptuously label.Quote:
...because having CVD is so much a part of their own identity and belief systems that they think curing CVD is destroying their freedom.
As for a "cure", if someone bought into Joseph's crap, and chose with their own free will not to consume, that would mean that freedom was exercised individually, not destroyed. It's only if the presumptuous creators of the CVD DISEASE tried to exercise power to decide for everyone else (for their own good, natch, because they are afflicted with a Terrible CVD disease), that freedom really would be destroyed.
Mmm...Peter Joseph...thought his Zeitgeist films were pretty cool, until I realized his "solution" was nothing more than repackaged communism.
But ... but ... it's communism with *robots*, dammit! It'll work this time!Quote:
Originally Posted by DFF
Yeah, but let me at least finish making the robots, first; then we'll try it out and see if this stuff will work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Occam's Banana
It is "communism" with robots, but it's also "communism" without the state capitalism, crony socialist & fascist oligarchs, walls with guns to keep everyone inside like slaves in a prison, etc. - at least it better not be, or I might have to use my robots to put a stop to it. :p
The problem is that if people choose not to buy, those who sell won't acquire the purchasing power necessary to pay the price tag on their survival needs. This is why denial of Consumption Value Disorder is encouraged to maintain the status quo. We'll likely see the disease progress worse among an ever increasing number of people as technological unemployment will motivate more people to apply the pressure of falling victim to CVD. There simply isn't enough jobs anymore as robots replace labor in the market system, so CVD is a great way to get people to keep using money selling each other products and services marketed on the idea that they need to keep paying to consume to look and feel good about themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
The people selling CVD marketed products will likely be quite interested in investing some of their profits in bribing politicians to use government to help keep them successful in business.Quote:
Likewise, someone buying the latest iPad, Starbucks, fake boobs or new-fangled makeup kit isn't the slightest bit motivated by the thought of creating more government.
And there's a fundamental. Starve the beast. But then you followed it with more question begging:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Casey
See that? You haven't established a "disorder", but you keep saying it, as if constant repetition will make it one.Quote:
This is why denial of Consumption Value Disorder is encouraged to maintain the status quo.
And again, we'll likely see "the disease", as more people "fall victim".Quote:
We'll likely see the disease progress worse among an ever increasing number of people as technological unemployment will motivate more people to apply the pressure of falling victim to CVD.
I know you mean it from the heart, but that's some arrogant patronizing shit right there. How do you know you're not the victim of a disease--the kind that makes you diagnose imaginary diseases in others? I have compassion for you, because you are obviously a victim of it, but what is the cure for that particular kind of insanity?
Get it?
Ew. You lost me there...stepping out now...I have no time for robot invasions, I have a Bigfoot to catch and a zombie apocalypse to ready for.Quote:
There simply isn't enough jobs anymore as robots replace labor in the market system...
Robot invasion is real, and people are really suffering from it. It's not just some Hollywood fantasy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oby0ZdDYwiI
Lots of consumers who suffer from CVD deny that it's a disease, just like many consumers suffering from alcoholism deny that it's a disease.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lN1k081i6c...a257_robot.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Jim Casey
I like the Hollywood fantasy better.
Have you ever thought about hooking up with the Amish, or starting your own cult (aside from branching off from the one you're in)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
Fantasy?
Ok fine, we still have some ways to go before we get there. :D
The Amish live a rather violence-free lifestyle and also I wouldn't mind growing a beard to dedicate the length of commitment to a wife. The option is certainly on the table, but for now I'm still quite accustomed to using electricity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Douglas
Who knows, perhaps cult leadership status is in the cards for my future, but I'm not setting hopes too high.