“We must believe in free-will. We have no choice.” ZDay, Berlin Germany, March 14th 2015

[Applause]

Alright ... So,

I did a series called 'Origins and Adaptations' in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

It was supposed to end there but I decided to continue.

This dealt historically with the capitalist economy,

and I wanted to show how the system worked, where it came from,

how it’s evolved and a lot of things I think everybody here

must be very very aware of by now.

We should all be well aware

that most everything we are experiencing in the world today -

from ecological decline, to endless government and business corruption,

to human exploitation, to perpetual poverty, to constant war,

to growing unemployment, to debt collapse,

and to the overall value system disorder - has been predictable.

Predictable when viewing the state of the world through the prism

of current economic functionality.

And from this “system-based” worldview,

we can not only better understand the past and the present;

we can also anticipate of course, what is in store for the future

as this social cancer continues to morph and grow and mutate and absorb

and in effect, decouple humanity from everything most fundamental

to our long term social and ecological sustainability.

So before I close this subject, which been drilled in at length,

I want to re-summarize the issue with a quote by a man named Gary Holthaus:

“Our economics, social life, politics, and schools have insisted

that having more toys is better than having fewer toys;

that buying stuff is good for us;

that we have to keep up with or exceed others in our consumption;

that a high paying job can take the place of meaningful work;

that low-paying meaningless jobs that demean our humanity

are better than none, and we should be grateful for them

because they will turn us into decent citizens;

and that a free market has the same powers as a just God...”

“But Capitalism rests ultimately not on innovation or entrepreneurship

or brains or even a free market – those are just stories:

stories we like to tell ourselves because they make

those who are successful look good. At its base,

industrial capitalism’s success rests on exploitation of resources,

racism, child abuse, sexism, and war.”

“But even more than all these,

contemporary capitalism rests on consumption:

government and corporate consumption of resources,

technology, and scientific research,

and citizen consumption of market goods.”

“We are asked to consume not only material goods

but ideas, policies, whole worldviews that are presented with

all the persuasive skills and battering psychological hype

that can be bought…”

“We are under assault, we are laid siege by hype:

corporate hype, political hype, military hype, educational hype,

commercial hype… and as our civil rights have declined in recent years,

freedom has come to mean the freedom to choose among

16 brand names of one product.

“This is the harvest of a culture so bent on growth with all possible speed

that it will pour 100,000 chemicals in the earth and atmosphere,

into our lakes and groundwater and oceans, before it has a clue

about the long-term effects of a single one of them.” (- Gary Holthaus)

Now - that out the way - what I'd like to do here: take the terms

“Origins,” “Adaptations” [and] change the context a bit.

Instead of how the current economic system has evolved,

let’s look at the other side.

What is the technical history, for example, of this logic

we might term a Natural Law Resource-Based Economy?

And more importantly, what is its relationship to the evolution

of material culture? - this term “abundance”

we often flagrantly toss out.

What does this evolution suggest about ourselves? our psychology?

our sociology? even our nature? - as the deeply social organisms we are?

Now I have to warn you,

this presentation is a bit stream-of-consciousness.

I’m less interested in defining a whole set of ideas than I want you

to more or less entertain the concepts I put forward,

even though naturally I’ll be drawing some conclusions.

Here is a table of contents ([in the back] if you can’t read it I’m sorry)

by a man named John Etzler.

Some of the themes might sound eerily familiar if you read these contents.

We have chapters on “The power of wind, tide, waves;"

we have chapters on “Systems of machineries

and the establishment of applications of these powers;”

a “Plan for the building of a community;” oh! and

“The earth can nourish 1000 times more men than now exist,” etc.

Sounds familiar. This is one of the first post-scarcity books ever written.

The subjects include the importance of renewable energy in a systems approach,

applying machines to labor of course, adapting human values through education

and creating an abundance.

Here are some quotes.

“The first elements of mechanics teach that there is no motion imaginable,

that could not be produced by some adapted mechanism,

provided we have the requisite power…"

“We have superabundance of power…

a million times greater than all men on earth could affect hitherto…

The powers are chiefly to be derived from the wind, from the tide,

from sunshine and the heat of the sun...

Each of these powers requires no consumption of materials,

only materials for the construction of the machineries.”

“Once established, there will be no occasion for any work

except the superintendence of machinery,

which requires 1 to 3 persons in all (he was being relative)

of the whole community. If done in turns, every adult

would hardly have one turn for one day’s superintendence in the whole year.

But it would probably be done voluntarily being about an amusement

[and] no tedious occupation of labor.”

“Today we drudge and toil in agriculture and in manufactories,

making many useful and many useless things for human life,

for supplying many various demands of necessities, comforts, and luxuries.

We care little about the real benefit our industry may afford to the buyer,

provided we make money by their sale.

There is an endless variety of artificial productions of every kind,

resulting from competition of the producers…”

“What virtue can be in passing one's life like a prisoner in the treadmill?

The occupations of manner or present state of advancement

are yet not much better -

they are either a monotonous drudgery or some insipid occupation,

which nothing but custom and necessity may render tolerable in some degree,

but which are the very means to keep the mind in inactivity

in low, trivial pursuits…”

“What is the mighty object of leading such a life?

of course to get money - in order to buy what one wants.

Is this the most exalted virtue, the highest destination of man's life

that can be thought of in this world?

It may be a virtue or a necessary evil

in a state of general ignorance and prejudice -

but it is no virtue found in nature.”

Does any of this sound familiar?

This book is called 'The Paradise within the Reach of all Men, without Labor,

by the Powers of Nature and Machinery'

and it was written almost 200 years ago in 1833.

That’s about 50 years before the first light bulb was invented.

Etzler envisioned a society that harnessed renewable energies in various ways,

plugging them into power steam engines,

and using those engines in turn to facilitate automation,

stopping human servitude and drudgery -

and the hence the creation of his view of a global abundance.

He even talks about creating composite materials out of wood dust and particles

and approaching architecture through molding and extrusion,

along with mixed-use concepts such as ocean-powered steam vessels

that is desalinating water at the same time as producing energy.

And of course, he implies little need for the market or monetary system

and saw it as a waste of life and inefficient.

It’s safe to say that historically speaking, Etzler appears to be

one of the first to promote the most core framework of what TZM

generally embraces. His primitive but lucid analysis

regarding the potential of science and technology to help humanity

through earth-based, natural law design is really missing nothing,

when you read his work; his overall technical perspective is sound.

And of course, it didn’t take long for Etzler to be derisively labeled

as the first technological utopianist:

a term that has persisted ever since, as I’m sure many here have heard.

And to this, he jauntingly added

“But there will be men who are so ill favored by nature

they slovenly adhere to their accustomed narrow notions

without inquiring into the truth of new ideas

and will rather, in apology for their mental sloth,

pride themselves in despising, disputing,

and ridiculing whatever appeals novel to them.”

Again, sound familiar?

Now I will admit, to his discredit, if you read him,

he's a bit ... gratuitous.

He does go overboard with his vision of this so-called “paradise”

and it’s often difficult to read through his work without getting

an over-exaggerated sense, an unrealistic sense, due to his rhetoric,

which I think is common with a lot of people,

a lot of futurists throughout history.

He also - sadly enough -

did fail in his lifetime to produce the engineering that he sought,

and mainstream history pretty much sees him as a delusional mad scientist.

Now - all that noted, that historical little tidbit,

let’s do a thought experiment.

Let’s assume we went back to 1833, the time of this book.

But instead of using Etzler’s primitive version of

what could be a resource-based economy -

with renewable energy-powered steam engines moving

steel and wood automation machines to free labor -

we instead transplanted the current, common

21st century technology into 19th century.

Remember, Etzler's idea of “paradise” was to remove the need for labor drudgery

and create abundance - in the material climate he knew at the time.

Keep that in mind. Back then there were no powered cars.

No home-wired electricity, no planes.

We hadn’t even hit the Victorian era yet.

Life was very simple in comparison to today.

And just as we today have little clue

what material life will be like 200 years for now,

how could we expect Etzler to perceive any differently?

Again, his vision of “paradise”

was based upon the expectations, values and ambitions of the time.

It's a very important point.

Back to the issue.

It is needless to say that there is certainly no question

that 21st century technology as we know it could create

the material expectations of an "upper class"-lifestyle standard of living,

respective to the early to mid-19th century, without labor for income,

assuming a shift in the social system of course.

Absolutely no question.

And again before I go further, please understand

that this is an argumentative abstraction; this is speculation.

As if we’re aliens that came down in 1833 to install automated tech,

filling in whatever industry was doing at the time,

the means of production and interests, to satisfy the interests of the time.

So, I don’t want anyone to read into this to think

that this is some static state of concept of technology,

because really in truth when technology develops, it changes our values.

So, keep that in mind. This is about material expectation

of a given culture at a given time.

And the abstract question I pose to you all is: "Would it be enough?”

Would you be satisfied with your ability to be free of servitude,

living a high standard of living for 1833,

free to pursue interests as you saw fit,

... even though it’s still 1833?

Obviously, from the standpoint of today’s material culture

it’s rather hard to accept that, right?

Because we are acclimated to life today,

and its relatively advanced technological state.

Well, with that in mind, how about this:

What if I told you that tomorrow, all of you

will have access to an upper class home, access to 3D printing means

that can produce everything material you may need,

given our traditions at the time.

Global transportation was free and fast.

Your food is organic, pure, freely available

through automated vertical farms, and so on. Hence your life

would now be open to pursue, again, your own interests and projects,