TZM Member steals Peter Joseph's handle

Zeitgeist: The Movie, by Peter Joseph #zeitgeistmovie #peterjoseph https://t.co/tOsdLtbmY4

— zeitgeistfilm (@zeitgeistfilm) May 9, 2023

"Zeitgeist: Addendum" by Peter Joseph, 2009
Via Tubi.https://t.co/XWh1uZwOS1

— zeitgeistfilm (@zeitgeistfilm) May 10, 2023

Peter Joseph wants to share graphic content

Peter Merola says, "Google Censoring ZeitgeistMovie.com?"

Peter Joseph argues with Conspiracy theorist

TZM members admit that the first movie is the movement

TZM predicted to be doomed

Thanks for the link @MarmaMusic. Zeitgeist Films is not affiliated with the Zeitgeist Movement or any of the Zeitgeist documentaries. Also, rather than a political project, Zeitgeist is a sustainability advocacy organization. https://t.co/fPM3TpQlzb

— Zeitgeist Movement (@tzmglobal) November 10, 2017

Gravitas Ventures promotes Zeitgeist trilogy

Peter Joseph Sells Out Zeitgeist Movement: Gravitas Ventures

 

Published on Apr 3, 2017

Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) is a treatment on Mythology and Belief in society today presenting uncommon perspectives of common cultural issues. Chapter 1 presents historical data relating to the astronomical/astrological origins of the Judeo-Christian theology. Chapter 2 presents a alternative view of the events of Sept. 11th 2001. Chapter 3 presents a shotgun tour through the subjects of Central Banking, War Pretexts, Banking Panics, the Military Industrial Complex, Media Culture and ultimately the mental neurosis and deadly addiction known as Power.

• Provider Channel

  • Gravitas Ventures

• Release date

  • 2007

• Running time

  • 1:56:39

• Language

  • English

 

Published on Apr 3, 2017

Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008) features former "Economic Hit-Man" and New York Times bestselling author, John Perkins, along with The Venus Project, an organization for social redesign created by Industrial Designer Jacque Fresco. Broken into four chapters, the 1st explains "Fractional Reserve Banking" and how Debt and Bankruptcy are inevitable realities. The 2nd exposes various levels of international corruption via the financial/corporate system. The 3rd then considers solutions to current social woes and the 4th gives a philosophical view with the hope to inspire change in the viewer.

• Provider Channel

  • Gravitas Ventures

• Release date

  • 2008

• Running time

  • 2:03:09

• Language

  • English

 

Published on Apr 3, 2017

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011) focuses on "Monetary-Market Economics" and its repercussions. Chapter 1 is treatment on "Human Nature", noting that our social traditions are out of line with what constitutes positive human development. Chapter 2 details the core flaws of our economic system and how it is destroying us and the planet. Chapter 3 begins a thought exercise where our modern scientific understanding is considered as the starting point for human decision-making and Chapter 4 sets predictions of what is to come as society becomes more destabilized due to our outdated practices.

• Provider Channel

  • Gravitas Ventures

• Release date

  • 2011

• Running time

  • 2:41:15

• Language

  • English

To all the #TZM idiots who say PJ does #Zeitgeist out of the goodness of his heart http://t.co/jrYhHFpB Not even close. #bigmoney #WalMart

— The Goodest Jim Jesus 🤘🏴💰🍕 (@JimJesus) November 30, 2012

TZM praises DJ Bassnectar

Famous DJ Bassnector sources Zeitgeist: The Movie ending.

Nice... http://t.co/9wL7eqJp60

— Zeitgeist Movement (@tzmglobal) June 1, 2015

EDM DJ Bassnectar Sued for Sex Trafficking and Child Porn https://t.co/ERseFVVFKx

— TMZ (@TMZ) April 5, 2021

Niels Böge Nothdurft's resignation letter

Credit: Alt-Universe

Why I left The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) By Niels Böge Nothdurft:

https://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/forum/5636/why-i-left-the-zeitgeist-movement-tzm-by-niels-bge-nothdu/

Why I left The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM). 

"Thanks for listening to The League of Nerds podcast, I hope you enjoyed it! Looking back, I don't think that I made my reason for leaving TZM clear enough in the podcast, so I'm writing this letter to clarify it a little bit. 

First of all, I do not have any personal problems with people in the movement (except for a dislike of Peter Joseph, which I will clarify in this letter). Many of them are good people who want to make a positive change in the world and I have had some good times with other members of the movement. My problems with the movement began when I started to train my skepticism about a year ago. I began to feel a bit alienated from the movement, because many of its members promote a lot of pseudoscience. I also began to see problems with the official material, namely the first and the second movies. Before you say "the movies, especially the first one, aren't the movement", think about A) why all three movies officially are a trilogy? (1) and B) why the second and in some cases the first one is used to promote the movement (many chapters still give out all three movies)? 

For me the case is clear. 

In the beginning I tried to shake it off by saying to myself that "the end justifies the means" and focus more on using science. I made TZM posts, to bring some balance to all the pseudoscience promoted by other members. 

Eventually I had enough around the time where a former prominent TZM member, Matt Berkowitz, got his video about scientific literacy (2) removed, because some TZM members didn't like it and Peter Joseph, who controls the movement, cares more about keeping the peace amongst a largely pseudoscience-supporting membership than about scientific accuracy. So I signed his letter of concern (3) about pseudoscience and conspiracy thinking within TZM and decided to leave TZM for good a few days later. 

Instead I began to focus my energy on being an active skeptic, especially on social media and mostly in Danish, due to a lack of Danish skeptics. 

As I mentioned before I dislike Peter Joseph (PJ), which is because of his very unscientific views and censorship of Matt Berkowitz. Despite what is claimed, PJ has a lot to say within TZM and he is definitely the most prominent spokesperson for the movement, giving most of movement's interviews and authoring most of its official content. The movement claims to promote "scientific method for social concern", so I find it troubling to see the most prominent spokesperson actively promoting pseudoscience, like the Burzynski alternative (unproven) cancer treatment (4). 

That's another reason why I can't promote TZM, as the institutional label of TZM is inextricably linked to pseudoscience in public perception due to all these issues.. 

Thanks for listening and thanks to Myles and James for having me on."

Niels Böge Nothdurft

Sources:

1. https://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tc0_NulJx0
3. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rnQszjUBv81AaXYXe-b_7SAwAFtpx6tIvObje_c8I-A/edit?pli=1
4. https://www.facebook.com/peterjosephofficial/posts/813574948679662

Peter Joseph fails to convert Nikola

Mark Dice being critical of Peter Joseph again

Christophobics, Jesus Haters, and Zeitgeist's Claim that "Jesus Never Even Existed"

The Atheist Experience on the Zeitgeist Sequels

 A few words about the Zeitgeist sequels

Posted by: Unknown 

Our opinion of the movie Zeitgeist should be pretty well known by now. It is an extremely bad and tedious bit of filmmaking, and the scholarship in it is awful, and we disagree with all of parts 2 and 3, as well as nearly all of part 1. And if you need a reminder about why, here are three sites dealing, respectively, with the claims that:

1. Jesus never existed.
2. 9/11 was an inside job.
3. U.S. citizens don't really have to pay taxes.

Now that that's out of the way, let me share a few recent emails.

2/11/11

I was wondering if you guys were aware of the (second) sequel to that terrible film, Zeitgeist, and if you plan on talking about it any time soon. If you've done it recently, I apologize for spamming you... I haven't had the opportunity to watch the last few episodes just yet. I've just started watching the sequel on YouTube (so you don't have to do any googling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w&feature=feedlik), and in the first 10 minutes they started harping on how Biology is wrong because there's such a thing as epigenetics. Sounds like more relatively well-informed stupidity to me. I only watch it for the same reason I saw Expelled and What The Bleep Do We Know !!!111!? My hopes for humanity diminish proportionally.

1/28/11

by the way you sould look the new film " zeitgeist Moving Forward " where we see how
[long list of names with irrelevant credentials]
...etc and of course Peter Joseph

describe that our current system breeds insanity

and i hope you dont act emotional about the word zeitgeist because

" Zeitgeist moving forward " is not like the first film

1/25/11

I am a member of The Zeitgeist Movement and would love to get your feedback on what the movement is advocating. I have searched high and low for evidence that the concepts of this movement are falsifiable, but have yet to find any information doing so. I’m not sure as to whether or not you are aware of the difference between The Zeitgeist films and the Movement, but there is certainly an expressed difference.

11/29/10

Also, your host insistently bash the Zeitgeist movement and 911 truth. This really baffles me because the Zeitgeist Movement is a just secular movement that advocates the scientific method for social concern (doing away with corrupt monetary capitalism that allows children to go hunger)

Yes, okay, we get it. We heard you. Thanks. The guy who made Zeitgeist has made another movie-- actually TWO other movies now -- and they cover different topics than the original movie. Lastly, this message is from a comment on a Facebook link I shared that relates to Medicare. Though the commenter doesn't mention Zeitgeist directly, he did bring up the theme of the last two movies.

The better solution than social services is a Resource Based Economy and the elimination of the monetary system altogether. We cannot possible print enough money to solve all of our problems and we certainly cannot save our way to the needed solutions through austerity measures. The 'bottom line' is that money is THE constraint on human progress (well, that and cultural conditioning).

So, okay, I've finally decided I need to respond to this steady stream of emails, if only so I can have something to link in the future.

I have not watched the new movies, as I greatly prefer to do actual reading over sitting through talking heads. I have set it aside as something I might watch. After all, I suffered through What the Bleep Do We Know? and I guess I can get around to this one too, eventually. From what I understand, Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (which I shall henceforth refer to as ZA/ZMF because I hate typing) are mostly focused on popularizing something called "The Venus Project" (see link). It's a Utopian movement by a guy named Jacque Fresco -- Engineer, Design Consultant, and "Futurist" -- and he's been going around pitching this idea of a resource-based economy.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting: Atlantis. I mean, The Venus Project.

Here's what that means as I read it. The financial system is broken beyond all hope of repair, so we abolish all forms of currency. In its place, everyone gets boundless freedom to use "resources." Money is a fiction anyway, and the federal reserve is evil (as explained in the first Zeitgeist, part 3), and people are going hungry because we artificially limit resources (i.e. food) when they could be made useful for everyone (i.e., feeding third world countries).

I'm a fairly liberal guy. I believe that there are problems with our current economic system, and some such problems stem from unregulated capitalism. A couple of recent sources for information I recommend are The Big Short by Michael Lewis, which traced the origins of the recent banking crisis in a highly entertaining and readable way; and this episode of the show This American Life, in which they discuss the ways in which money is really a convenient fiction.

On the other hand, I'm a numbers geek, and from my perspective, money -- though "fictional" in some sense -- was a fantastic technological advancement in the history of civilization. In any system of trade, some kind of valuation is going to arise naturally. Economists may call it "utils," or it may just be that we compare the value of one thing to the value of something else on an individual basis ("I'll give you two chickens for that hatchet"). Money is simply a means of formalizing a system that people are going to agree on one way or another. In prison it becomes cigarettes. In the future it's probably moving towards all digital currency. Heck, you can even calculate a meaningful exchange rate between United States Dollars and World of Warcraft gold pieces (after adjusting for a lot of inflation due to the recent Cataclysm expansion). It's an abstraction that achieves a goal. Barter systems are fine in small villages, but they are hopeless at large scales.

In any case, "scarcity" does not exist because of money. Quite the opposite, in fact -- money exists in large part because scarcity exists. While many resources such as air and sunlight are effectively in infinite supply, other things are very definitely limited. An excellent (though fairly disturbing) book on the subject is Collapse by Jared Diamond. Diamond studied a number of cultures which, for one reason or another, didn't survive -- they experienced massive population crashes in which a large proportion of their citizens died over a short period of time. In most cases it was because they ran out of something.

In fact, I can kind of sum up Diamond's formula for disaster that is common among most civilizations that died by their own hands:

1. You have a limited resource. In one case it was timber (cutting down trees on an island faster than they grew back) and in another, it was grazeable farmland.
2. Something about your civilization requires you to use a lot of that resource.
3. It starts to run out, but the culture is rigid and resists change.
4. People talk about breaking their dependency on this resource, but don't actually do anything about it.
5. Much to everyone's surprise, it runs out.
6. Turns out the requirement for that resource is pretty widespread. Many people die.

I'm not going to go off on a tangent about which finite resources we rely on in modern society (*cough*oil*cough*) but even so, I'm pretty well convinced that if we solved one problem of scarcity, the problem would just move off to something else.

And that's where money comes in. It is an abstraction that puts a value on resources with different levels of scarcity. They're not all concrete resources, either: people enjoy their free time, and working to accomplish a difficult task (like volunteering to fly to a third world country and deliver mass quantities of food) is frequently regarded as a "what's in it for me?" situation. That's not money's fault. Money is simply a method of making an abstract concept ("What's it worth to ya?") be attached to concrete numbers.

Oh, but I forgot to mention how this problem of scarcity is solved under Jacque Fresco's system. Here, let me quote:

"A resource-based economy would make it possible to use technology to overcome scarce resources by applying renewable sources of energy, computerizing and automating manufacturing and inventory, designing safe energy-efficient cities and advanced transportation systems, providing universal health care and more relevant education, and most of all by generating a new incentive system based on human and environmental concern."

And also:

"With automated inventory on a global scale, we can maintain a balance between production and distribution. Only nutritious and healthy food would be available and planned obsolescence would be unnecessary and non-existent in a resource-based economy."

So you see, this is easily achievable, as long as we first keep in mind the intermediate goals of developing unlimited, clean, renewable energy sources. Also, since human government officials are inherently corrupt, we just need to develop artificially intelligent administrators to manage our cities and distribute everything efficiently.

Riiiiight.

Artificial intelligence and alternative energy research are only a couple of the most complicated problems facing inventors, businesses, and academics. Have been for decades. And to think that you can hand-wave that away as a minor inconvenience blocking the realization of your Utopia, that's a pretty damn extraordinary claim. In fact, I would venture to say that if you could create a world with no scarce resources, that all by itself would do a hell of a lot more to fix everything than whatever fantasy anti-currency government system the Venus Project promoters can dream up.

And then there's this issue of benevolent computer systems that will impartially make sure everyone gets everything they want. Okay, I've been involved with software development for most of my adult life, and I feel pretty comfortable saying we're not replacing all our politicians with robot administrators any time real soon. But even after assuming that little hurdle is crossed, artificial intelligence isn't a magic solution to anything. There's no reason to think it would be more advanced than human intelligence to start with, and if it eventually got there, no reason to think it would be any less self-serving.

Show of hands, please. How many people want to turn over our economy to these guys? ...Thank you.

Okay, I'm not saying that all artificial intelligence is inevitably going to conquer humanity and harvest their essences to power an elaborate virtual reality that enslaves us or anything. I'm just saying, I don't see why the AI is going to make any decisions better than a human with some really good ideas who knows how to use data mining tools. A better question is, why don't we elect one of those?

Getting rid of money wouldn't save the world from scarce resources. If anything, the immediate effect would be that without a perceptible cost to themselves, people would use up those resources faster than ever. I don't see how these super-cities that Jacque Fresco invented will stop people from wanting to travel, which is one of the big ones when it comes to draining energy. In fact, if I had all this free time and were unlimited by capital, that's the first thing I'd do a lot more of. And I can't envision a realistic political path to implement what sounds mainly like "Socialism... With Robots!" when you have the Tea Party just slavering to declare that Civilization As We Know It is coming to an end if we allow some tax cuts to expire.

So in the end, I'm left with an impression of The Venus Project that is not much different from the original Zeitgeist. It's a large group of fans with who have coalesced around a group of persuasive amateurs, drawn to the notion that they have uncovered some deep and massive truth that is hidden from the rest of us willfully deceived, blind fools. It is largely ignored by people who have expertise in anything relevant like, say, economics -- not because they're trying to suppress it, but because there's basically nothing of substance there.

There. You asked my opinion. Now you've got it. I hope you're satisfied.

Peter Joseph's Netflix History

Why do TV shows and movies leave Netflix?

Netflix licenses TV shows and movies from studios and content providers around the world, and those licenses can expire if we don't renew them. Though we strive to keep the content you want to see, we acquire licensing rights for TV shows and movies for a certain period of time - not indefinitely - so some titles do leave Netflix. If a TV show or movie you love is leaving, it indicates that our licensing agreement with the content provider is about to end.

• Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007)
• Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008)
• Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011)

Jared Lee Loughner's shooting spree

Clearly the shooter did this because of the monetary system #ShitZeitardsSay #TZM #TVP #RBE #Zeitgeist

— The Most Goodest JimJesus🤘🏴💰🍕 (@JimJesus) December 14, 2012

Peter Joseph on Zeitgeist word association

Peter Responds to Those Who Wish to Remove the “Zeitgeist” Word Association
Due to the Associations with Zeitgeist I Film:

=========================================================

"The only reason anyone has a problem with Z1 is because they invent it.
Anyone semi-intelligent person who has eyes and cerebral cortex can see
through the propaganda coming from the anti-z1 community as they try to
apply it to the movement. anyone who cant think through it isn’t fit to
understand the materials at that stage anyway. it is a progression.

i’m sorry to say, but as long as i am here – you have to deal with the
bad press. live with it.

there is no venus project movement. the venus project is and always has
been a dataset- Jacque never pushed a community agenda. in time,
Zeitgeist I propaganda will fade- our message is just that strong."

peter

I Can't Help Think That Peter Joseph Insisting on the "Zeitgeist" Name Hurt This Movement. from r/TZM

BrentonEccles says goodbye

Disassociation with The Zeitgeist Movement

UPDATE 11/02/2011: This article is in much need of a revision, or perhaps I’ll just completely re-write the article. It’s 5 months old and in that time my perspective has, let’s say, evolved.

Some of you might be aware that in past years I held a close association with an organisation known as The Zeitgeist Movement, which describes itself as an ‘economic and sustainability movement’. This official description is largely derived from the movement’s advocacy of an idea known as a ‘resource-based economy’. It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the official description of the movement – for that, please reference their website.

In unofficial circles the movement has been called many things, among them (and most commonly) that it is a conspiracy theory movement. Those who suggest this substantiate their point of view through accusation that the movement propagates false re-telling of major events of political significance (most significantly the terrorist event of 9/11), makes blatantly inaccurate arguments regarding economics (particularly regarding fractional-reserve banking) and probably most telling that the materials which originated the movement (the Zeitgeist I & II films) cite people widely regarded either as respectable authorities or conspiracy theorists (depending on your point of view).

For those of you who aren’t aware, the movement was founded in late 2008 after the release of Peter Joseph’s second film ‘Zeitgeist: Addendum’. This film, while divided into four sections could probably be more correctly be said to be divided into two sections – the first half that of social commentary in the form of leveraging various accusations against the system of fractional-reserve banking and the American empire, while the second half attempts to present itself as a solution to the world’s dominant social ills. In watching ‘Zeitgeist: Addendum’ the accusation that it’s a conspiracy film is hardly visible when viewing, when compared with it’s parent film ‘Zeitgeist: the Movie’.

‘Zeitgeist: the Movie’ alleges that Christianity (and religious theologies in general) is a culmination of borrowed myths of the past, that 9/11 was a covert operation undertaken by certain elements ‘inside’ the United States government to advance it’s agenda in the Middle East (and at home, in the form of taking away personal liberties) and that the banking interests of this world have engaged in high corruption since their ‘enthroning’ through the passing of the Federal Reserve Act (which created a central bank, apparently also centralising their power and control) through economically robbing the people of the world and propagating various wars.

My summary of both ‘Zeitgeist: the Movie’ and ‘Zeitgeist: Addendum’ are, of course, major over-simplifications. The intention of this short article is not to engage in a critical review or commentary of the films, but rather to provide a general background as to the emergence of The Zeitgeist Movement and to explain why I broke my association with them. You can watch both ‘Zeitgeist: the Movie‘ and ‘Zeitgeist: Addendum‘ for yourself if you’re looking for a point of reference on the films that isn’t as simplistic as my descriptions (click the links to view them). Having now provided this general background, I wish to proceed to pondering on my earlier mentioned association with the movement.

I was a hard-core advocate. In fact I didn’t necessarily leave the movement out of disagreement with it’s concepts (and this article is not for that discussion, that will proceed in future), but rather due to incontrovertible problems of another kind.

As I said above, the movement is regarded widely by some to be an oranisation of conspiracy theorists. In my time working for the movement, I talked with literally thousands of people about the aims & goals that they hold. The hardest thing to overcome was mainly the accusation that I (and the movement itself) was based in conspiracy theory.

When people make that conclusion, they instantly shut you off. Images of the tin-foil hat wearer come to mind for many, I’m sure. It didn’t take me long to realise that the movement had the ability to disassociate itself from conspiracy theories, because they don’t form part of any of the stated goals – the association is just made because of some of the content of the Zeitgeist movies. It’s just that to fully disassociate because alternative theories as to many political events are ingrained in many of the members minds.

In this realisation, towards the end of my time with the Movement I suggested that official disclaimers be placed on the Movement websites stating an official disassociation between the movement and the films. I found that nearly every single member of the movement with an organisational role agreed with me on the necessity for the movement to distance itself from conspiracy theories – obviously seeing it as a good public relations move consistent with attempting to draw a more broad demographic of people in. My request for such disclaimers was, however, rejected by the founder and global coordinator Peter Joseph.

Taking into account that the majority of those holding an organisational role had democratically declared support for such a public relations move, I quickly fell out of favor with the movement and many of the coordinators. I believe that respect for the democratic process in making political (read ‘public relations’) decisions is absolutely necessary for harmonious functioning of the decision making of any ideology or politically based group, and for that to be ignored on a management level was rather shocking.

In recent times however, to my surprise, Peter Joseph seems to have changed his tune (at least a little). With a redesign of the gateway website of the Zeitgeist films website, I noticed the following:

…The Zeitgeist Film Series, while an inspiration for The Movement which shares the term “Zeitgeist”, is not to be confused with the content/views of the films in detail. The Zeitgeist Movement is an economic/sustainability movement at its core and its relationship to the Film Series content is not consistent. The Films, while now moving to promote The Movement more so in part, are still intellectual/artistic treatments and are not to be considered a basis for The Movement itself. Please see http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com for more information on this important social revolution.

Source: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/project.html

Notice that on this project page, which is linked to directly from the main page, an attempt is made to emphasise distance between The Zeitgeist Movement and the Zeitgeist films as two completely separate things. So, why now instead of an agreement to do so when myself and the majority of organisational members petitioned in favour of this?

When I posted my initial reaction to the new disclaimer on Conspiracy Science (a community of those critical of many ‘conspiracy groups’), one member commented interestingly:

[Peter Joseph is] acting like Napoleon in Animal Farm, they discuss whether the windmill should be built or not, Snowball leaves [and] is pushed out for arguing that it should, then they do it anyway, until it breaks due to errors in design.

It is my feeling that Peter didn’t want to feel that I’d pressured him to do something, though it’s kind of clear I did as the above quote from the Zeitgeist movie website is almost an exact quote of the kind of disclaimer I suggested. He wanted to feel like he’d made that decision himself (which is fine), to publicly update the official film website with the above quotation. He’d already said countless times that ‘the movies are not the movement’, yet when overwhelmingly asked to put it in writing on the film website had said outright no.

My hostility toward the movement and eventual expulsion has been virtually worthless, considering the issue that I had has now been resolved. However, it’s not that I want back in or something like that – I just think that it’s time I start having things to say about the movement in a very public way.

I intend to engage a large scale analysis of the movement over the coming months, in response to this recent change. I’d like to engage questions such as ‘does the movement have integrity?’, ‘is it based on faulty conspiracies?’ and ‘can the platform (in it’s present form) work?’. While I have not described the movement in detail in this article, either in terms of it’s official description or alternative points of view on it, in future articles I intend to engage a comparative analysis of every aspect of the organisation.

I intend to be relatively respectful, and I don’t intend to jump to conclusions. I’m just going to write my impressions, without emotions, and publish them for the purpose of dialogue. This dialogue will likely also extend to interviewing current members of the Melbourne Chapter, with which I still intend to maintain a friendly association.

I look forward to you following along.