There are two movies here, one called Zeitgeist and the other Zeitgeist Addendum. They are available for free on the Internet or you can buy them on DVDs for $5. The advantage of the DVD is that it has subtitles in a bunch of languages. Apparently, the DVD also has the movie dubbed in Spanish.

If you feel something is wrong with the world/the way the world is going, I highly recommend watching at least Zeitgeist Addendum. Is it political? No, it is actually anti-political. That is, it talks about how no politician, whether or corrupt or not, cannot effect needed changes.

The hardest but the most important thing you need to do to understand the message of the movies is step outside the current system you live in. That is, you need to at least temporarily forget that the way it works is that you grow up, get an education and then work to earn money to pay for your life. This in no way means that everyone is on perpetual welfare, it just means there is a very different way to address living on the planet.

Addendum starts off with an explanation of how money is created. It's factual, it's something that most people don't understand, and it's important both for you to understand to live on the planet and for what follows.

What follows is an explanation of how a money-based system is never going to do what is best for the planet and the people. It then goes on to present an alternative, a resource-based system. The example offered to get you started thinking about this is that at the start of World War II the U.S. didn't have the money to ramp up airplane production but it had the resources.

As I was watching it, I thought of StarTrek, The Next Generation. Everyone had food, education, and such and were doing what interested them. While there were still governments and conflicts, the rest of the picture fit.

A basic premise, is that scarcity creates the problems we see today incuding war and crime. That may seem obvious but we see it as a necessity. Addendum goes on to show how a resource-based system can eliminate shortages. Initially, this seems counter-intuitive but it fits together.

The obvious example is energy. The potential of solar, wind, geothermal, tide and wave energy are shown. This is a perfect example of the resources the movie talks about. It then goes on to show that seriously developing such resources is not in the best interest of the current money-based economy.

I used to think technology was the answer to everything but moved on to see how that isn't the case. This movie restored my faith in technological solutions to problems, if we can move from a money-based to a resource-based system. I certainly found it thought-provoking.

Resources

The movies are available on youtube and bit torrent. You can also buy the DVDs at ZeitgeistMovie.com.

The Venus Project is the related technology side. Their web site is http://www.TheVenusProject.com.

The activism side, that is, the effort to make people aware of how a resource-based system can address the problems of the world, is TheZeitgeistMovement.com.