Why Did The Venus Project Part Ways with The Zeitgeist Movement?

Disclaimer The chain of events as they are described in this video is in no way an official message of TVP nor TZM and it only represents the views of the maker of this video. Some of the data on which I am basing this, is available online and some is based on my personal experience in TZM while being a Movement Coordinator between 2009-2011. Why did The Venus Project part ways with The Zeitgeist Movement? The web is cluttered with references that can't be ignored regarding a relationship between TVP (The Venus Project) and TZM (The Zeitgeist Movement). First it must be noted that TVP has decided to part ways with TZM. Whether you are trying to understand the nature of the relationship that existed between the two organizations, or whether you are trying to understand why did TVP decide to part ways with TZM, this video is likely to make things a lot clearer. The Venus Project In case some of you don't know, TVP is a global organization based on more than 75 years of study done by Jacque Fresco, a 95 year-old industrial designer, multi-disciplinary researcher and inventor. Jacque's involvement in science goes back to childhood. Tremendously educated and self-taught he is considered by many to be ahead of his time, and some people often point out his unique perspective on society - just another testimony of the wide range of knowledge he has acquired. Jacque and Roxanne founded TVP in the early 1980's although the organization had existed prior to that for several years under a different name. TVP promotes a new social system which also includes the transition into a "Resource-Based Economy", which is a term that was coined by Jacque, and is one of the main themes of his work. Zeitgeist 27 years later, in 2007, after the success of the film "Zeitgeist" that introduced a world full of problems and that is being controlled by money, religion and economic elites, Peter Joseph, the film's creator, who was looking for solutions, came across TVP and flew over several times to TVP's research center in Florida to learn about Jacque's ideas from Jacque. The filming Peter did during those meetings eventually became a part of the sequel of 2008 "Zeitgeist: Addendum", that in fact introduces TVP as what could solve these problems. Since late 2008, using the release of his new film, Peter has founded TZM. TZM that worked under the guidance of Peter, was in fact Peter's idea of helping TVP. It was working in affiliation with TVP from the very beginning according to the shared agreement of Peter, Jacque and Roxanne, under the definition: "The activist arm of TVP". And so, TVP received the support of tens of thousands of activists who have joined TZM. In this way, Peter has become (whether intentionally or not) not only the head of TZM, but also the main character among whoever that were interested in helping TVP. In fact, TVP used to direct people that wanted to help them to TZM, and you might hear them do that in some of the videos that are not up to date. First signs of concern The hopes of working together in cooperation began to weaken, when Peter's working style started to become more apparent. Rather than working cooperatively with Jacque and Roxanne, Peter has come up with and worked out projects by himself and only brought the final product for approval, a habit that Roxanne stated she felt uncomfortable about, since it seemed like she was bothering him with her corrections. She felt this wasn't really working together and it seemed like from his part, he was only fulfilling an obligation. Eventually, Peter virtually stopped his visits at the research center. As time went on, Jacque and Roxanne had issues that they wanted to discuss in person with Peter. They felt is was best to do this in person, not over the phone or by email. They asked him to visit many times, but it never came about. Jacque and Roxanne were worried about this. After all, they have allowed him to coordinate "the activism arm" and basically run the activism meant to fulfill TVP's aims and proposals. Confusion As time passed, it became more clear that Peter's films create quite a confusion. Again and again, people that came across the movement, were confused by the use of the word Zeitgeist. The word "Zeitgeist" was associated more with the first film than the second one, since it was a lot more popular. This made many people think the movement was about conspiracies and religion. Peter didn't just ignore that risk by choosing the movement's name, but also refused to make a clear cut distinction between his films (and thus his opinions), and the movement. The fact he kept addressing 9\11 issues through his radio show, and was, in practice, the head of the movement, didn't just confuse people interested in the movement, but also its own activists for a very long time. But it wasn't just the first film that was the problem. The second film had its own issues. Not only did it bring up conspiracies again, but it also presented TVP very briefly and presented the next steps needed to be taken, in a very problematic way. As a result, A lot of the activists didn't seem to understand the direction of TVP or what it was really about, which is not the technological aspects alone, and how they will affect people's behavior and value systems, but how people's value systems need to change in order to allow this transition to happen in the first place. Some of the activists started working toward sustainable low-tech communes and the like. Others dwelled upon alternative barter systems, monetary reforms, conspiracies, new age concepts, direct democracy concepts and other solutions within the monetary system. None of these have anything to do with TVP. This was especially common among the local chapters due to the lack of communication between them and the international forum (made of local coordinators and Peter Joseph). The word "Zeitgeist" appears to have become an icon, a wide concept that was taken further away even from the zeitgeist organization, into a cultural phenomnon, subject to enormous amount of different interpretations. Interpretations that got attached to TVP as well. Peter had noticed some of these misunderstandings very early on, and had continuously pressed on getting away from the communes ideas and getting into education. However, this message was brought up mainly on his internet radio shows and was rarely getting to local activists around the world which were getting their information from the films that were handed out and shown by TZM activists. Those films have been received pretty much as TZM's agenda. Misinformation and little Relevant Action TZM has become an entity of its own, directed by Peter, and TVP which was the origin of practically all of the ideas behind it, was being marginalized more and more. On TZM website, on interviews, in his lectures and what not, Peter presented TVP's goals as TZM's goals. He used Jacque's analysis of the root causes of problems in society as TZM's analysis, and used many of the concepts Jacque talks about as TZM's key concepts. He even picked up ideas from Jacque's books and put it on his films. The credits that Peter gave Jacque were a far way from avoiding the inevitable confusion. Many people in the movement got the impression that TZM has to do with the ideas regarding social change, while TVP was merely about buildings, city designs, and technology. In fact, a lot of them thought Peter was the one behind the ideas. This was an even more serious problem since Peter did not seem to fully grasp a lot of The Venus Project's aspects himself, Therefore, the movement's activity, which was directed by Peter, was rarely relevant to what TVP was trying to promote. There were very few efforts done in trying to get to influential figures, to get air time, virtually no efforts to find investors to help support the next steps of project, and no attention to educating the community itself via study groups and reading groups. More and more it seemed that The movement has taken its own direction. TVP's World Lecture Tour In 2010, Jacque and Roxanne started their worldwide lecture tour, meeting many of the movement's activists and trying to give them more information about TVP in person. They were surprised with how little most of the activists knew about TVP. While touring they saw many ads written by TZM promoting only its main website with no reference to TVP yet using all of TVP's materials. When they noted this to Peter, asking him to inform the activists about adding TVP to their advertising, his reply was: "It will take on a life of its own." TVP felt this was troublesome since The Venus Project has a specific direction, based on research and felt It's important to direct people to the source since he is still alive and able to answer questions to maintain the integrity of the findings as much as possible, and not to let it "take on a life of its own". TVP's Major Motion Picture In the middle of March 2011, a video was uploaded to TVP's YouTube channel in which Jacque and Roxanne for the first time asked for donations for the major motion picture they have been working on for years. What was first seen as a cheerful event by TZM activists, was really a tense and sensitive subject between Peter and TVP. One should be aware that this movie project isn't just years of work, but also a main part of the transition, that was meant to achieve public support and a change in values in a huge amount of people. It was also a part of this plan 40 years before Peter entered the scene. The Split In April 2011, A YouTube video was uploaded, recorded at one of Jacque's lecture tours at the research center, showing Jacque talking about how Peter and TZM didn't really understand TVP's direction. This resulted in public disputes about the reasons of him saying that in TZM's forums and voice chat server. As part of this dispute, Peter has publicly stated that he doesn't believe the film would work, that he doesn't believe they could get the money from the community, and that he feels this is an erroneous use of the community's funds that should be spent on other projects. Shortly after that, Peter showed up at the voice chat server to answer questions, followed by Roxanne who was contacted. When she arrived she said TVP has decided to end the official affiliation with TZM and no longer have it as an "Activist arm". She invited whoever wished to help TVP to come and work with TVP directly. In the following days, Roxanne described the absurdity of being in a situation of hearing public explanations of why their project would not work from a person who works with them in a time they are looking for investors, and how counter-intuitive it is for the "Activist Arm of TVP" not to support its main project. This was too much. Aftermath and Final Words The result of the split was that some individuals within TZM, have joined what now are "The Venus Project Activism Teams", and work directly for The Venus Project. Others stayed in TZM and today they continue to promote some aspects of TVP's ideas along with other ideas. Most of them are no longer in contact with TVP. This split has also made many ZM chapters become even more independent about their interpretation of the Zeitgeist concept, and some of them work in completely different ways than what even Peter Joseph is trying to promote. To put it simply, TVP decided they cannot continue affiliating with an organization run by an individual that is working on his own, in his own direction, who doesn't fully understand all of TVP's concepts, carries out projects without consulting Jacque and Roxanne and rejects the projects they really want to do. This was not an activist arm of TVP, but something else entirely. In TVP's view, TZM tries to promote what they think TVP's ideas are, without knowing enough about it. This however, is a subject that is really too big to go into in this brief video. To this day, many people erroneously affiliate TVP with conspiracies, communes and the like. If you encounter those affiliations, please inform others through this video. We invite you to learn more about TVP at: www.TheVenusProject.com Thank you for watching.