Zeitgeist

[Tensor]

Has anyone seen this chilling little movie?

Z E I T G E I S T

It is kinda long, but the ending will scare you like Cthulhu!

The cool thing is, since it is a documentary you can watch it online.

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/

[Luz]

I saw the first half of this last year. Really interesting stuff, I've beem meaning to sit and watch the last hour but haven't got to it yet.

[Tensor]

Luz wrote:

I saw the first half of this last year. Really interesting stuff, I've beem meaning to sit and watch the last hour but haven't got to it yet.

It gave me a nightmare after going to sleep the night I watched it.

[Cheddar Bearer]

A friend showed me this film a while back. Really interesting documentary. Scary as hell if the conclusions it draws are correct. Still even if you don't agree with it it's still an informative watch. Also have to recommend [url=http://freedocumentaries.org/[/url] as a great place for some free informative documentries.

[The Eldritch Mr. Shiny]

I've seen ZEITGEIST five times. It's my all-time favorite film.

[The Eldritch Mr. Shiny]

Cheddar Bearer wrote:

A friend showed me this film a while back. Really interesting documentary. Scary as hell if the conclusions it draws are correct. Still even if you don't agree with it it's still an informative watch. Also have to recommend http://freedocumentaries.org/ as a great place for some free informative documentries.

Link fixed.

[Biggus]

Just seen this, interested but not entirely convinced. Part 1 (about the origins of Christianity) I've read a fair bit about, and I think its conclusions are probably correct, although I think they make it appear more definite than it really is in places.

My feeling is that part 2 is probably at least partly correct (as the evidence that the Bush administration has lied repeatedly about the events of and following 9/11 is pretty overwhelming) but some of the specifics are a bit shaky.

Part 3 however I know a lot less about, and after an hour or two of internet research have predictably found lots of apparently intelligent and well-read people arguing both for and against it. I have to say, I'm a bit dubious. The "hostile interests control the money supply" and "one world government" things are classic conspiracy-theory motifs, with only the identity of the Secret Masters changing between versions. Which is not necessarily to say they aren't true, of course.

Anyone else seen it/ got any opinions?

[Michael Gear]

I've seen it several times, and I enjoy it. I guess, the point is that it makes one think. If this were true, what would it mean? How would it affect me and those that I care about, or how does this affect the world? I think that it's important to be an open minded skeptic, oxymoron, I know; in my opinion, it's important to allow for the possibility of truth without choosing one and calling it "correct". Currently, I'm feeling a lot of mistrust toward my government, more than usual, anyway. I think that helped me to immerse into the info-tainment, and relate to the theories being conveyed. I'm also a big fan of mysteries, so the fact that I could spend hours/days in a row looking up the historical references helped feed my speculation. I admit, like so many, I am a conspiracy fiend...so I'm kinda biased. Anyone that enjoys it should follow up with The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, as well as Rule By Secrecy by Jim Marrs.

Cheers

...is it a code?

[Shelbrune88]

Thought provoking and interesting, but at times too much like an agenda being shoved down my throat (I mean more so than usual compared to documentaries with a lighter touch).

I must admit, I was turned off at times by what I perceived as disingenous statements - for example, the connections drawn between the Lusitania and US involvement in WWI. Specifically, saying the US joined WWI "shortly after" the sinking of the Lusitania is a misleading statement at best.

[Biggus]

Michael Gear:

I'm a big RAW fan (as you might guess from the complete lack of certainty in my previous post...) and it was actually from him I first got the idea that hostile control of the money supply is a standard conspiracy motif. Have you read any of his other stuff?

What actually prompted me to write my original comments was several of my friends seeing Zeitgeist and seeming to accept it fairly uncritically. When I saw it, it seemed pretty convincing at first, but when they got to the "one world government" conclusion, it made me think of Illuminatus, and that made me wonder "how much of this stuff is true?". As I said in my first post, I did a little internet digging, and sure enough there were several websites (such as this one) which claimed, with apparent academic credibility and many references, that the history and current practices of the Federal Reserve are very different to those presented in Zeitgeist.

So since you Paizo guys seem like a pretty clued-up bunch, I thought I'd ask what you thought. And it appears I've struck gold! You actually checked out all the historical references? What did you find? I'm particularly intrigued about the North American Union already existing (and to what degree it actually merges the USA with Mexico and Canada), and whether the Federal Reserve makes interest off the dollar or whether it's virtually all rebated as professor Flaherty says.

Shelbrune88:

I too was somewhat put off by the tone, which seemed to me more like a propaganda film than a documentary.

[Biggus]

I recently saw the follow-up Zeitgeist: Addendum, and I thought it was a lot more impressive than the first one. Got a bit flaky for a bit towards the end when talking about symbiosis (I actually agreed with what they were saying, but thought they could have said it a lot better) but seemed generally well-researched and well thought-out. Love that dude Jacques Fresco!

So, anyone else seen it?