It's my pleasure to introduce the first speaker.
She is somebody who I personally have a lot of respect and admiration for.
She is the global events coordinator.
Many of you know her;
she leads and motivates the team in organizing events such as this one.
Please, put your hands together for Sharleen Bazeghi.
[applause, cheers]
Hello, good afternoon. Thank you for being with us here
for the 5th Annual Zeitgeist Day. How're you all feeling? [claps hands]
[applause] Good! We want to give a special acknowledgement
to our global audience watching around the world. Thank you for tuning in.
My name is Sharleen Bazeghi, and I've been with The Zeitgeist Movement since 2010,
assisting mostly with event planning for global and Los Angeles events.
Today, however, I'm going to present a brief introduction to The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM),
and hopefully set the tone for the rest of the program.
With almost a dozen speakers, we have tried our best to unify this message as a whole.
It is our intention [that] by the end of the program,
you will have a clear and concise understanding about what TZM is and how it operates.
Founded in 2008, The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM for short),
is a sustainability advocacy group
which operates through a network of regional chapters,
projects, public events, and media expressions.
We also promote charity operations and other acts of kindness,
to help existing suffering.
However, it's important to note, that is not the core focus of TZM.
The entire point of the Movement is to resolve such issues
so these acts of charity are no longer needed.
Our activism is based on non-violent methods of communication,
with the core focus on educating the public about the true root sources
of many common personal, social and ecological problems today,
coupled with the vast problem-solving and humanity-improving
potential science and technology available that goes unapplied,
due to barriers inherent in the current established system.
While the term activism is correct by its exact meaning here,
TZM's awareness work should not be misconstrued
as the culturally-common activist/protest actions we have historically seen.
Rather, TZM expresses itself mostly through targeted education projects
that work to set in motion a train of thought that is logically self-realizing.
TZM's pursuits are actually very similar to civil rights movements of the past,
in that they reveal the oppression inherent in our current social order.
Due to archaic established methods,
which structurally and sociologically restrict human well-being,
the vast majority of the world's population unnecessarily suffers.
Today, it could be said there exists in the modern world a form of bigotry,
which is no less insidious than racial or gender discrimination.
This comes in the form of economics, at its core.
This bigotry is apparent in the class war alive today,
as different groups of people jockey for advantage,
perfectly willing to forgo the well-being of others
in the incentive psychology inherent to the competitive market economy.
However, this inherent bigotry is really only part of a larger condition,
which could be termed 'structural violence',
illuminating a broad spectrum of built-in deprivation and inhumanity
that is simply accepted as normality today by an uninformed majority.
The bottom line here, is that when we step back and consider realities
that are clearly having detrimental effects on the human condition,
yet go unabated by the establishment,
we inevitably end up in the context of civil rights and hence, social sustainability.
This new civil rights movement is not only about the sharing of human knowledge
and our technical ability to resolve problems,
but more so, to facilitate a new, scientifically-derived social system
that actually optimizes our well-being, rather than restrict it.
The fact is, anything less will create imbalance
and is simply a hidden form of oppression.
So, TZM works not only to create awareness of such problems
and their true systemic roots, it also works to express the potential we have
to greatly improve the human condition in general.
This could be summarized as:
the application of the scientific method for social concern.
TZM is an emergent state of mind.
This is about a train of thought, a worldview.
We're not here to impose a set of ideas on you,
or get you to join the movement as a club, per se;
rather it is about you deciding the merit and logic for yourself,
so that you can adjust your own actions and intentions accordingly.
In fact, in many ways, we are all in TZM, whether we know it or not,
since each of us are receiving, morphing and transmitting data
on the social level, all the time,
creating a constant evolution of the zeitgeist itself.
The question is, are we as a species moving in the right direction,
and how do we measure such a thing?
Is there a benchmark which can guide us?
Yes, it exists, in our alignment with the natural laws of our world,
in the most fundamental sense,
building our values and social approaches from these core truths
about what it means to be human and live in the habitat we do.
Take a look at the current monetary-market economy and ask yourself
"Is this pro-Earth?".
Is built-in scarcity, imbalance, obsolescence, waste, pollution,
constant consumption the intelligent management of the Earth's resources?
At this rate, are we exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth?
A term you will hear frequently today is the gesture of a new social system
called a Natural-Law/Resource-Based Economy
(or NLRBE for short).
A NLRBE is defined as an adaptive, socioeconomic system,
actively derived from direct physical referents
to the governing scientific laws of nature.
And Jen Wilding put together this great graphic,
that I think points out the characteristics very well. Thanks, Jen!
Most people don't realize the current state of technology we have
that could be profoundly more effective
in meeting the needs of the human population.
However, this approach inherently challenges
all forms of traditionalism in the world today.
The ancient whims and dynamics
of the dominant political and financial establishments
not only become inapplicable,
they are seen as deeply flawed and detrimental.
We need to remember that modern scientific causality,
something we very much take for granted today,
has really only been with us for a couple of hundred years
and brought awareness and practice.
Yet, even today, this scientific train of thought
is just barely being given respect on the social level,
usually only in response to various ecological crises
resulting from industrial human actions.
For the first time in human history,
we have people actually talking about 'being green',
as though it's new, as though we were ever supposed to be anything but,
given the most basic principles of human and ecological sustainability.
So, in conclusion to this brief introduction,
let it be stated that the real revolution is the revolution of values.
Sustainable beliefs precedes sustainable practices.
And if our values are not in accord with the natural laws that govern our planet,
if our values are not in accord with what can create true well-being,
then clearly, we cannot expect to move forward
with transformative technical changes.
It is important to note that TZM's interest is purely global;
nation, race, religion or other such notions of division
are not recognized in this equation,
since, when you break them all down, they are artificial contrivances,
created mostly by fear.
Instead, we see the human species as one family,
all sharing the same basic needs,
and the Earth as one habitat with no borders.
May we walk into this bright future together. Thank you very much.
[applause]