1 00:00:00,326 --> 00:00:03,509 What if politics weren't to blame for the institutional corruption, 2 00:00:03,649 --> 00:00:06,237 the endless wars and the burgeoning homelessness? 3 00:00:06,377 --> 00:00:10,881 What if rather these are just symptoms born out of an outdated social structure? 4 00:00:11,021 --> 00:00:15,365 That's the revolutionary idea behind the explosive Zeitgeist documentary trilogy. 5 00:00:15,505 --> 00:00:17,840 Since the first movie's release in 2007, 6 00:00:17,980 --> 00:00:20,888 these documentaries have been translated into 40 different languages, 7 00:00:21,028 --> 00:00:24,657 and have been seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world. 8 00:00:24,797 --> 00:00:28,348 But the ideas brought forward by the documentaries quickly transcended film 9 00:00:28,488 --> 00:00:33,383 and spawned The Zeitgeist Movement: a global-sustainability advocacy organization 10 00:00:33,523 --> 00:00:37,050 that's revolutionizing the way people think and act. 11 00:00:37,190 --> 00:00:39,925 Now, the filmmaker will be re-energizing the Movement 12 00:00:40,065 --> 00:00:43,632 with yet another series, titled 'Interreflections'. 13 00:00:43,772 --> 00:00:45,762 Here to talk about the 'Culture In Decline', 14 00:00:45,902 --> 00:00:48,968 The Zeitgeist Movement, and where there may be a glimmer of hope, 15 00:00:49,108 --> 00:00:51,996 I'm joined by the filmmaker himself, Peter Joseph. 16 00:00:52,136 --> 00:00:55,823 Peter, thanks so much for coming on. - It's my pleasure, Abby, thank you for having me. 17 00:00:55,963 --> 00:00:59,509 - First of all, I think that these movies should be essential viewing 18 00:00:59,649 --> 00:01:02,860 for everyone on the planet because you really present these concepts 19 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:07,251 that are not so much new or revolutionary as they are just glaringly obvious truths 20 00:01:07,391 --> 00:01:11,437 in the way you articulate them, Peter, but I wanted to get into how you got started. 21 00:01:11,577 --> 00:01:14,954 As someone who worked in Wall Street and advertising, when did you step back 22 00:01:15,094 --> 00:01:19,067 and analyze your own role in society and decide to radically change course? 23 00:01:19,683 --> 00:01:23,181 - Great question; it was a slow evolution really. 24 00:01:23,321 --> 00:01:25,736 Like many people brought up in this culture, you end up with 25 00:01:25,876 --> 00:01:27,860 a self-interest driven mechanism. 26 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:30,757 I came from a middle class family; we had no real wealth. 27 00:01:30,897 --> 00:01:33,367 I came into the world, I went to school, I dropped out 28 00:01:33,507 --> 00:01:36,360 due to debt problems like many do today 29 00:01:36,500 --> 00:01:39,839 in the educational college/career problem that we have 30 00:01:39,979 --> 00:01:43,071 (most college debt is the peak of bankruptcy 31 00:01:43,211 --> 00:01:46,067 coupled with medical debts, in aggregate), 32 00:01:46,207 --> 00:01:48,926 and I began to realize that there's something going on with this system. 33 00:01:49,066 --> 00:01:53,260 I did stuff with Wall Street and advertising trying to keep my self-preservation going, 34 00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:57,509 and finally it dawned on me when I made this catharsis film in 2007 35 00:01:57,649 --> 00:02:02,051 just called 'Zeitgeist' which became 'Zeitgeist: The Movie'. 36 00:02:02,191 --> 00:02:06,285 It was a frustration piece that I made, it just sort of exploded in my mind 37 00:02:06,425 --> 00:02:09,651 to the extent that I don't even know where it came from to be frank. 38 00:02:09,791 --> 00:02:12,702 It was a big catharsis that I did which I threw up online, 39 00:02:12,842 --> 00:02:17,063 it became viral because I think people identified with the same issues and themes, 40 00:02:17,203 --> 00:02:20,860 and then that triggered where I am today. I continue to move forward with 41 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,473 representative media that is both entertaining and 42 00:02:24,613 --> 00:02:27,946 value-shifting in the quality that it pursues, 43 00:02:28,086 --> 00:02:31,408 but also extremely educational and ultimately activist-oriented, 44 00:02:31,548 --> 00:02:34,170 and that's the whole purpose of my existence at this point. 45 00:02:34,310 --> 00:02:36,963 - Thanks for explaining that; let's get right into this. With the elections 46 00:02:37,103 --> 00:02:40,463 coming up in less than two weeks, let's talk about the two-party system which you 47 00:02:40,603 --> 00:02:44,020 explore a little bit in a recent video that you made, called 'What Democracy?'. 48 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:47,763 What purpose does this system serve to control the population? 49 00:02:47,903 --> 00:02:50,259 Do you advocate people to completely remove themselves 50 00:02:50,399 --> 00:02:53,093 from the electoral process, or do you see some merit in supporting 51 00:02:53,233 --> 00:02:56,229 third party candidates and local politics? 52 00:02:56,822 --> 00:02:59,307 - I think we have to deal with what we have at the moment. 53 00:02:59,447 --> 00:03:01,451 People should be supporting referendums 54 00:03:01,591 --> 00:03:04,116 because that's a form of direct democracy. 55 00:03:04,256 --> 00:03:06,504 But the aristocracy game that has emerged, 56 00:03:06,644 --> 00:03:09,845 which is an outgrowth of basically the economic system 57 00:03:09,985 --> 00:03:13,774 which inherently generates hierarchy, is completely misunderstood. 58 00:03:13,914 --> 00:03:16,351 We think we're in a different paradigm today than we were 59 00:03:16,491 --> 00:03:19,185 during the age of kings and queens, but we're really not. 60 00:03:19,325 --> 00:03:23,406 Except the kings and queens are behind the scenes and operate within the business/ 61 00:03:23,546 --> 00:03:27,087 industrial enterprise, which is of course the driving mechanism 62 00:03:27,227 --> 00:03:29,340 of all the values and institutions we have. 63 00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,596 The figureheads- the elections, the presidents, the Congress- 64 00:03:32,736 --> 00:03:36,075 they serve as 'tools' to perpetuate 65 00:03:36,215 --> 00:03:38,630 the real driver of our economic system 66 00:03:38,864 --> 00:03:41,095 which is the monetary market economy itself. 67 00:03:41,235 --> 00:03:43,964 Those values that are there confuse people, 68 00:03:44,104 --> 00:03:47,316 and they think that when they go into a voting booth and elect somebody 69 00:03:47,456 --> 00:03:50,092 that they're going to change something. But if you look at the historical record 70 00:03:50,232 --> 00:03:53,461 (which unfortunatley many have not, especially since the beginning of America), 71 00:03:53,601 --> 00:03:55,769 very little change has occurred, 72 00:03:55,909 --> 00:03:59,251 really, when it comes to the election of any single individual, 73 00:03:59,391 --> 00:04:03,409 or the conglomerate actions of the Congress or whatever: parliament, institution, etc. 74 00:04:03,549 --> 00:04:06,763 This statistical element is lost unfortunately. 75 00:04:06,903 --> 00:04:10,300 This isn't projection to say that "Oh it's just to be cynical 76 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,215 and say it doesn't matter if you vote," this is proven. 77 00:04:13,355 --> 00:04:17,678 The effect of these elections is not given the correct gravity 78 00:04:17,818 --> 00:04:20,365 because it's very small. I'd say maybe 10% 79 00:04:20,505 --> 00:04:24,479 is how effective the election of a new president really may be. 80 00:04:25,038 --> 00:04:28,645 - Exactly, and it also serves to disempower 81 00:04:28,785 --> 00:04:31,144 and disillusion people into thinking that they do have a choice, 82 00:04:31,284 --> 00:04:34,004 and of course every 4 years nothing changes and it really is 83 00:04:34,144 --> 00:04:36,182 stifling humanity in that sense. 84 00:04:36,322 --> 00:04:38,374 When people look at the current trajectory of the world 85 00:04:38,514 --> 00:04:41,611 it's obvious that we're pretty much on a crash course 86 00:04:41,751 --> 00:04:44,136 based on a model of unsustainable growth, Peter. 87 00:04:44,276 --> 00:04:46,289 When people look at global capitalism 88 00:04:46,429 --> 00:04:48,908 some argue that "It's not a free and fair market; 89 00:04:49,280 --> 00:04:52,531 if cronyism were removed from the equation, capitalism would work." 90 00:04:52,671 --> 00:04:56,358 But is the two-tiered [justice system] that we're seeing today, the plutocratic governance 91 00:04:56,498 --> 00:05:01,169 and endless war for resources, an inevitability of the capitalist model? 92 00:05:01,624 --> 00:05:03,743 - Unfortunately, I would have to declare that it is. 93 00:05:03,883 --> 00:05:06,408 I know it's a heated subject and people love to argue with me. 94 00:05:06,548 --> 00:05:10,129 I've had endless debates with people that say that the state is the problem, 95 00:05:10,269 --> 00:05:14,268 or regulation, and that the market should just be 'free' to do whatever it wants. 96 00:05:14,408 --> 00:05:16,657 I argue back that the market is as free as it ever was, 97 00:05:16,797 --> 00:05:18,797 in fact it's more free I would say. 98 00:05:18,937 --> 00:05:21,419 At least, in the past, there were restrictions on the market economy 99 00:05:21,559 --> 00:05:25,015 and how it could influence the aristocracy's decision 100 00:05:25,155 --> 00:05:28,194 to basically rule everything through war, and again 101 00:05:28,334 --> 00:05:31,172 nothing has changed in this regard. 102 00:05:31,312 --> 00:05:33,771 You go back to feudalism and you have the same tendency. 103 00:05:33,911 --> 00:05:36,215 But the idea that that there's something that can be regulated 104 00:05:36,355 --> 00:05:38,785 in a system that is inherently corrupt, in my view, 105 00:05:38,925 --> 00:05:42,410 a system that clearly says that you can get money 106 00:05:42,550 --> 00:05:44,950 and have the freedom to do whatever you want with it, 107 00:05:45,090 --> 00:05:47,556 hence the Supreme Court decision that says that 108 00:05:47,696 --> 00:05:51,819 spending money for political campaigns is actually equated to free speech. 109 00:05:51,959 --> 00:05:54,479 This delusion that we've come up with, 110 00:05:54,619 --> 00:05:57,114 to say that we can spend money for whatever purpose possible 111 00:05:57,254 --> 00:06:01,778 and influence anything, is at the core of the vast corruption we see. 112 00:06:01,918 --> 00:06:05,405 You can go back to Marx, to Thorstein Veblen, you can go back to 113 00:06:05,545 --> 00:06:07,900 all sorts of thinkers in the early 20th century that, 114 00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:12,183 despite their criticisms, were on to something with this. 115 00:06:12,323 --> 00:06:16,240 And it's unfortunate how fast people are to shut down this idea. 116 00:06:16,380 --> 00:06:18,608 My friend Lee Camp has a famous joke: 117 00:06:18,748 --> 00:06:20,864 "We applaud politicians now, 118 00:06:21,004 --> 00:06:24,563 that come and tell us that they're NOT going to give us health insurance in America," 119 00:06:24,703 --> 00:06:26,957 or universal healthcare in America. 120 00:06:27,097 --> 00:06:29,652 Why? Because this delusion of socialism has come forward, 121 00:06:29,792 --> 00:06:32,500 so any type of communal attribute which isn't related to money 122 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,523 and the 'freedom' of money, now is being misconstrued 123 00:06:35,663 --> 00:06:39,035 as something that will lead to tyranny or oppression. 124 00:06:39,175 --> 00:06:42,534 We have F. A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, 125 00:06:42,674 --> 00:06:45,290 and all these economic philosophers that have compounded this notion, 126 00:06:45,430 --> 00:06:50,265 and that's one of the core 'religious rituals' 127 00:06:50,405 --> 00:06:54,246 of the political establishment, to reinforce this idea that freedom 128 00:06:54,386 --> 00:06:56,526 and democracy is equated to money. 129 00:06:56,666 --> 00:06:59,706 This has justified the vast majority of wars; 130 00:06:59,846 --> 00:07:02,751 it's justified the disregard for the growing homeless 131 00:07:02,891 --> 00:07:05,755 and poverty population in America, and across the world. 132 00:07:05,895 --> 00:07:10,065 It has also brainwashed people to disregard humanity on the global scale. 133 00:07:10,205 --> 00:07:14,914 We have 1 to 3 billion people either starving to death or in absolute abject poverty, 134 00:07:15,054 --> 00:07:18,286 and we don't care about them because our psychology now is so perverted 135 00:07:18,426 --> 00:07:20,798 that we can just dismiss them as some anomaly 136 00:07:20,938 --> 00:07:24,083 in this social Darwinistic view that we've concocted for ourselves, 137 00:07:24,223 --> 00:07:26,289 which unfortunately goes back to Adam Smith. 138 00:07:26,429 --> 00:07:29,014 - Absolutely, it does seem we are indoctrinated 139 00:07:29,154 --> 00:07:33,006 with this line of thinking; anything alternative to that is bad, 140 00:07:33,156 --> 00:07:35,860 as we've learned through pretty much every institution 141 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:38,817 that I've experienced growing up in this country, and I'm sure around the world. 142 00:07:38,957 --> 00:07:42,092 Why is it that people adhere so strongly 143 00:07:42,232 --> 00:07:44,692 to these archaic, political and religious institutions 144 00:07:44,832 --> 00:07:47,663 in the light of the 21st century advancement of technology, 145 00:07:47,803 --> 00:07:51,283 the vast knowledge available to expand humanity's collective consciousness? 146 00:07:51,423 --> 00:07:54,954 It seems that we constantly regress back to what we're comfortable with 147 00:07:55,094 --> 00:07:59,596 even though they've been proven, historically, to have monumental failures. 148 00:08:00,188 --> 00:08:04,387 - Yes. I call it a move from superstition to science. 149 00:08:04,527 --> 00:08:07,111 If you look at the social structure, really, 150 00:08:07,251 --> 00:08:09,448 it goes back so far, 151 00:08:09,588 --> 00:08:12,129 and it [ex]cludes so many modern advancements 152 00:08:12,269 --> 00:08:15,482 that people's traditional values are so caught up 153 00:08:15,622 --> 00:08:19,623 in the voting process, in the delegation of authority, 154 00:08:19,763 --> 00:08:22,706 in the general subservience patterns of the peasants, 155 00:08:22,846 --> 00:08:25,337 which is what the majority of humanity unfortunately is. 156 00:08:25,477 --> 00:08:29,898 They accept it because it's what they've always known and seen. 157 00:08:30,038 --> 00:08:35,070 Naturally, people fear change (it's no psychological anomaly for that), 158 00:08:35,210 --> 00:08:37,112 but I think the big issue here is education. 159 00:08:37,252 --> 00:08:40,980 People need to understand what's possible and the root causes 160 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:43,143 of all the problems out there. They don't understand 161 00:08:43,283 --> 00:08:46,150 the prosperity-driven effects that can come from science and technology, 162 00:08:46,290 --> 00:08:49,807 not just from the gadgets, etc., but if we actually applied 163 00:08:49,947 --> 00:08:54,934 these basic, near empirical principles to social governance, 164 00:08:55,074 --> 00:08:57,352 we would end up with a completely new social order. 165 00:08:57,492 --> 00:09:00,322 You can call it Natural Law Resource-Based Economy, 166 00:09:00,462 --> 00:09:03,332 basically taking this construct of what works; 167 00:09:03,472 --> 00:09:07,236 like an airplane that flies, we build society like an airplane, 168 00:09:07,376 --> 00:09:10,654 as an engineered type of concept. There's really no other way. 169 00:09:10,794 --> 00:09:14,057 We live in anarchy system; that's the best way to describe it. 170 00:09:14,197 --> 00:09:18,070 We live in a system where each individual is given this bizarre power 171 00:09:18,210 --> 00:09:21,300 to make their own decisions under the assumption that in concert 172 00:09:21,440 --> 00:09:24,294 the whole of society is going to work out for itself. 173 00:09:24,434 --> 00:09:26,452 It's provably false, that's why you have 174 00:09:26,592 --> 00:09:29,432 1% of the population owning 40% of the planet's wealth, 175 00:09:29,572 --> 00:09:33,439 because the value system disorder, the psychology generated by this system 176 00:09:33,579 --> 00:09:38,092 completely disallows any type of balance to occur 177 00:09:38,232 --> 00:09:42,003 in a structural sense. So sustainability and public health: 178 00:09:42,143 --> 00:09:44,296 these issues are thrown out the window in this model. 179 00:09:44,436 --> 00:09:47,002 Not only because of the values you denote and people's fear, 180 00:09:47,142 --> 00:09:50,118 but because that the very system itself keeps compounding 181 00:09:50,258 --> 00:09:54,505 the same old, archaic values and fears over and over again. 182 00:09:54,645 --> 00:09:57,501 That is the central problem and why The Zeitgeist Movement does everything it can 183 00:09:57,641 --> 00:10:00,760 in an educational sense, why I make the films and media that I do, 184 00:10:00,900 --> 00:10:04,583 to really try to drill this home, and also the hope to inspire others out there 185 00:10:04,723 --> 00:10:08,122 to begin the same drive. I could talk about a larger project 186 00:10:08,262 --> 00:10:10,789 that the Movement's working on if you'd like to hear about it. - Absolutely. 187 00:10:10,929 --> 00:10:15,023 Let's get into that in one second, I just wanted to say, it does seem like it's the fear 188 00:10:15,163 --> 00:10:18,017 that really drives us; the fear to not 189 00:10:18,157 --> 00:10:21,127 (I guess these archaic institutions keep us stifled) 190 00:10:21,267 --> 00:10:24,371 the fear of control of our own lives, I guess, 191 00:10:24,511 --> 00:10:27,127 when we really do have so much power, Peter. 192 00:10:27,267 --> 00:10:30,963 But let's talk about The Zeitgeist Movement. You really advocate action; 193 00:10:31,103 --> 00:10:33,860 really, it's a revolution of the mind, of ideas. 194 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:37,763 How do we stop this global empire from crushing us and the planet, 195 00:10:37,903 --> 00:10:39,914 which is pretty much the course that we are currently on; 196 00:10:40,054 --> 00:10:43,644 what is The Zeitgeist Movement advocating and how can people get involved? 197 00:10:43,784 --> 00:10:47,870 - Yes, I agree with you: it's a revolution of values, that's the real revolution. 198 00:10:48,010 --> 00:10:50,000 As far as what people can do, 199 00:10:50,140 --> 00:10:54,417 The Zeitgeist Movement attempts to take the lowest grassroots level possible. 200 00:10:54,557 --> 00:10:58,032 We want to get important information, very technically viable- 201 00:10:58,172 --> 00:11:01,042 not speculative- out for people to digest. 202 00:11:01,182 --> 00:11:05,245 With other programs that we do, we have our numerous event days for awareness; 203 00:11:05,385 --> 00:11:08,442 in March, we'll have our Zeitgeist Day event. The global event will be 204 00:11:08,582 --> 00:11:11,893 in Los Angeles this year, but we have about 400 sympathetic events 205 00:11:12,033 --> 00:11:15,233 all over the world, across usually about 70 countries on average, 206 00:11:15,373 --> 00:11:17,483 every time we do this, this will be the 4th year of it. 207 00:11:17,623 --> 00:11:19,847 But all of those kind of intellectual exercises aside, 208 00:11:19,987 --> 00:11:23,273 there's another project that we are doing called the Global Redesign Institute. 209 00:11:23,413 --> 00:11:27,394 This is a very important idea. It's a macro-industrial approach 210 00:11:27,534 --> 00:11:30,355 to show the world what's possible technically, 211 00:11:30,495 --> 00:11:33,204 and in effect alleviate all the confusions they have 212 00:11:33,344 --> 00:11:36,611 about what a designed, planned system could be 213 00:11:36,751 --> 00:11:39,072 and the type of freedom that really could emerge, 214 00:11:39,212 --> 00:11:42,132 as opposed to the propaganda of establishment that says 215 00:11:42,272 --> 00:11:44,085 that that will lead to tyranny and such. 216 00:11:44,225 --> 00:11:46,684 The benefit of such [a system] is so vast, for example, 217 00:11:46,824 --> 00:11:49,083 in this project, we'll take different regions and we'll show 218 00:11:49,223 --> 00:11:52,391 the technical layout of how we could, say in Los Angeles, 219 00:11:52,531 --> 00:11:55,403 have vertical farms of hydroponics and aeroponics 220 00:11:55,543 --> 00:11:57,915 run through desalinization processes 221 00:11:58,055 --> 00:12:00,486 and nutrient extraction processes from the ocean, 222 00:12:00,626 --> 00:12:04,325 so we would be able to feed organic food to everyone, 223 00:12:04,465 --> 00:12:08,024 satisfy the entire population of the city of Los Angeles, 224 00:12:08,164 --> 00:12:10,734 through these methods, through automated systems. 225 00:12:10,874 --> 00:12:15,157 This technology exists, it's been largely dismissed as utopian 226 00:12:15,297 --> 00:12:17,872 (as that word loves to fly around when you start to talk about 227 00:12:18,012 --> 00:12:20,850 taking care of everybody), but this stuff is there. 228 00:12:20,990 --> 00:12:23,557 We're going to map out the entire world 229 00:12:23,697 --> 00:12:25,776 through time, through the chapters of The Zeitgeist Movement, 230 00:12:25,916 --> 00:12:29,723 to show how every region can be updated in this macro-industrial way 231 00:12:29,863 --> 00:12:33,455 to actually resolve the core major problems of poverty, 232 00:12:33,595 --> 00:12:36,308 of general disbalance, resource scarcity, 233 00:12:36,448 --> 00:12:39,389 and bring these technological fruits to light. 234 00:12:39,529 --> 00:12:42,060 I'll stop there because it can go in much larger, 235 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:44,232 complex associations as we build this model. 236 00:12:44,372 --> 00:12:47,267 It will be a virtual online model that will be viewable. 237 00:12:47,407 --> 00:12:51,099 Then we'll have conferences in partnership with the other events that we do annually 238 00:12:51,239 --> 00:12:54,187 to show each region what's possible. I really believe, 239 00:12:54,327 --> 00:12:58,100 once this possibility comes forward, rather than everybody being disillusioned 240 00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:01,841 by the political and economic establishment, they'll say "This works! 241 00:13:01,981 --> 00:13:06,334 Forget complaining!" - Exactly, be part of the solution, be part of the community 242 00:13:06,474 --> 00:13:09,748 of ideas, Peter, instead of the naysayers and saying what isn't possible, 243 00:13:09,888 --> 00:13:11,942 we really need to step it up, 244 00:13:12,082 --> 00:13:15,977 and I really appreciate you exploring humanity's capabilities 245 00:13:16,117 --> 00:13:19,301 and capacity for change in a good, alternative and sustainable way. 246 00:13:19,441 --> 00:13:23,107 Peter Joseph, The Zeitgeist Movement- everyone check it out, I implore you, 247 00:13:23,247 --> 00:13:26,329 you need to see these films!- thank you so much for coming on. 248 00:13:26,469 --> 00:13:27,969 - Thank you Abby, I appreciate it. 249 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:31,480 Many people are conditioned to not bring up politics and religions. 250 00:13:31,620 --> 00:13:35,329 They're confined to their own rigid perspectives set by biased media outlets. 251 00:13:35,469 --> 00:13:39,424 We must begin to challenge this dogma if we ever want to progress our society 252 00:13:39,564 --> 00:13:41,754 and evolve the collective human consciousness.