Tag Archives: zeitgeistday

02May/17

Z-Day Global 2017 – Brisbane, Australia

DAY ONE

Zeitgeist Movement supporters started pouring in from chapters all around the world as the doors opened to the very appropriately named New Globe Theatre in Brisbane, Australia, Saturday morning on the last weekend of March.

Organisers scurried excitedly, setting up the various areas, including: the merchandise space; the questions for PJ booth; the vegan food buffet; the bar; the workshop space, scattered with comfy chairs and recommended readings; and of course, the main stage, where presentations would be continuously running over the first two-day Z-Day main event.

Check out this great overview of Z-Day – Day One – by one of the very talented New Zealand coordinators, Wiri Te Moni.

The volunteer technicians, and chapter coordinators – Jason Lord from LA and Michael Kubler from Adelaide, worked tirelessly, making sure we had quality recordings of each presentation for later viewing on the TZMGlobal YouTube Channel. Audience members got comfortably acquainted and seated. (Links to presentation recordings will be added to this post as they are uploaded.)

Photos by Michael Kubler @kublermdk, Renee McKeown, and Jason Lord

As soon as everything was ready to go, Z-Day Global kicked off, starting with my opening presentation, where I spoke about the theme of this year’s Z-Day: Towards Global Unity and Abundance, as well as advice on creating a sustainable and successful chapter, the amount of work involved in making Z-Day happen, ways to avoid economic bigotry, and concluding with a certain framing of encouraging a unified quest to understand the nature of reality rather than personal ambition to win over your perceived opponents.

Casey Davidson, Australian National Coordinator

This was followed by the very knowledgeable and insightful Franky Müller, National Coordinator of the German chapter. Franky shared TZM Understandings – important information about The Zeitgeist Movement, refreshing our minds and filling in important gaps in knowledge for those still learning about the tenets and train-of-thought.

Franky Müller, German National Coordinator

See Franky’s presentation here.

 

After Franky, the second of our presenters, Cameron Reilly entertained the crowd with a tongue-in-cheek questionnaire asking the audience about their own psychopathic tendencies and giving them the opportunity to measure it according to their results. He talked about the specific traits of psychopaths, touching on the idea that people who fit into this personality type are not changeable and will always be born. Additionally, the system we have created actually encourages people with these tendencies to acquire positions of power, hence the title of his presentation, the Psychopath Economy.

Simultaneously, we had set up a workshop space in the adjacent room for Z-Day participants who were more interested in being involved in activities and discussions. The first of these workshops came from Caroline Rentel, author and activist, who shared ideas about a relatively new writing genre, Solarpunk, basically based in a future society beyond scarcity and hierarchy, where humanity, nature and technology are integrated.

Caroline Rentel, Solarpunk author

Caroline and Cameron’s presentations lead into lunch time, where a selection of delicious vegan foods were provided as part of the Z-Day ticket. Curries, cakes, sushi, burgers and snacks were available for all participants served on eco-friendly plates with serviettes and cutlery. Thanks to the lead food volunteer coordinator, Vicky Syme and everyone else who worked so hard to make food available for everyone. For future Z-Day organisers, I would suggest that having food available at the venue is very important in keeping the audience members together to collaborate and be on time for the presentation straight after lunch.

Vegan chefs Vicki and Margarita

Lunch time!

Our first presentation after lunch came from Rich Penney, who we flew in from Toronto, Canada. Rich has attended several Z-Days as one of the most intruiging and informed presenters within the Movement. This year he shared the very clear Contradictions of Capitalism, in a way that allowed us some insight into Rich’s life living with disability, as well as intellectual gifts that can’t be easily monetised in this society. This is a fantastic introductory presentation to help people understand the core problems of the way we have structured society.

We were next graced with the presence of two of the very talented guys from acclaimed Aussie band, Dead Letter Circus, Kim Benzie and Luke Williams. As I have personally been a long-time fan of DLC with their unique sound, emotionally evoking and incredibly conscious lyrics which fall in line beautifully with the tenets of the Zeitgeist Movement, it was amazingly awe-inspiring to hear Luke and Kim talk about their personal experience and journey as artists against oppression. The uplifting conclusion of their presentation of their song ‘While You Wait’, together with lyrics and the comically-titled ‘anti-establishment drum solo’ moved the audience to a standing ovation.

Luke Williams, Dead Letter Circus Drummer

Kim Benzie, Dead Letter Circus Vocalist, Z-Day 2017

While these presentations were going on, Oliver Koslik from Canada presented interactively in the workshop space on Emotional Suppression: A short course on how to recognise and deal with gas-lighting/ambient abuse.

Oliver Koslik

The fun continued on the main stage as we introduced the next of our international guests, Euvie Ivanova from the Future Thinkers Podcast. As a co-host of the Future Thinkers Podcast, Euvie promotes technology, science and consciousness for social concern.

Here is a quick overview of the premise of the Future Thinkers Podcast.

Euvie’s presentation was particularly focused on consciousness development, as she spoke pragmatically about ways in which we can explore our consciousness using methods from a variety of doctrines. This was particularly interesting to the audience as something that hasn’t been discussed in detail in regards to TZM.

Euvie Ivanova Future Thinkers Z-Day

The other half of the Future Thinkers Podcast, Mike Gilliland, followed Euvie’s presentation. Mike shared his thoughts on the potential of blockchain technology, beyond the limitations of bitcoin. Topics such as decentralisation, security and developing intelligent management systems were explored.

Mike Gilliland from Future Thinkers at Z-Day 2017

During Euvie and Mike’s presentations, the Melbourne chapter coordinators Brad Cini and Sonny Vice sat with an intrigued group in the workshop space as they spoke about their upcoming Zero Waste/Minimalisation project they are in the process of creating, and hopefully recreating in cities outside of Melbourne.

Sonny Vice and Brad Cini from the Melbourne Chapter

Everyone was ready for another break to debrief and snack, before moving into the final presentation of the day from ex-Italian coordinator and futurist author Federico Pistono. Federico presented Ethics of Technology, sharing an alternative look at the world’s state of affairs, suggesting ways in which technology is already shifting humanity forward, and new ethical considerations that need to be taken into account regarding this. He shared some controversial topics for discussion that lead into his concluding statement about exponential empathy.

Federico Pistono at Z-Day 2017 Brisbane Australia

Just before the panel, Gilbert Ismail shared a brief update on the global chapters administration and new website. Mark Enoch shared his method for marketing the RBE message in the workshop space, followed by Matt Peddie and Vera L Te Velte from the CryptoParty who showed audience members ways to make their devices more secure.

After all the presentations, I was fortunate enough to lead the Day One Panel, where audience members had the opportunity to ask the speakers questions from the first day’s presentations on the main stage. This included a lively discussion where panellists authentically shared their thoughts on activism within TZM, as well as a range of social, economic and environmental concerns and ideas for consideration.

Panel from left:
Casey Davidson, Franky Muller, Rich Penney, Luke Williams, Kim Benzie, Euvie Ivanova, Mike Gilliland, Federico Pistono, Gilbert Ismail

Day One Z-Day 2017 Panel

Day One Z-Day 2017 Panel At front: Casey Davidson Back from left: Franky Muller, Rich Penny, Luke Williams, Kim Benzie

Z-Day 2017 in Brisbane was the first Global event to have presentations as well as workshops. It was also the first with evening performances. A big thanks to the beautiful Anita Diamond for MCing and organising the evening’s performances. Roger Smith shared his spontaneous outbreaks of reason, with his passionate funk/blues/rock sound, bringing urgency to the message of the Zeitgeist Movement. This was followed by other local artists including Aceso and The Duke. The evening was complete with DJ SAMARI, coming in from Auckland, New Zealand who shared his Zeitgeist Anaglyph.

Aceso

DAY TWO

Enthusiastic minds entered the New Globe Theatre for the second and final day of the Z-Day weekend with presentation and Q & A from Zeitgeist Movement founder and Zeitgeist film creator Peter Joseph. For a quick overview of the second day, check out Wiri’s vlog below.

 

Californian coordinator Jason Lord, kicked off Day 2 with his presentation, Defining Root Causes – a short tour through common surface associations where people fall victim to seeing “persistent problems” as individual outcomes that need fighting or resisting. Jason’s presentation explored how to see these problems as symptoms – pointing to a systemic problem and helping people see how the system view can help shape your actions when it comes to activism and discussion with peers.

Jason Lord, California TZM Coordinator

Jason then introduced Peter Joseph, TZM Founder, who started with his concise presentation titled “Train of Thought” before delving into questions I took from the PJ booth and the audience. Just some of the topics discussed include adapting to natural laws, the victims of our structure – particularly our social system, human nature, white imperial self indulgence, biodiversity, how every life support system is in decline, abundance producing mechanism, corporations, techno-capitalist apologists, structural violence, discussion about the Interreflections trailer, managing the Movement and its role in activism, philanthropy and consciousness.

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Watch Peter’s Q & A in the video below.

 

After Peter, the audience once again enjoyed a delicious vegan lunch, before coming back for the final presentations, which were focused around the fight and the build towards the Zeitgeist Movement’s ultimate vision of a Resource-Based Economy (RBE). Richard Ostmason of the Money Free Party New Zealand, shared the work he has been doing within the political establishment to engage people into thinking about the potential of actually seeing an RBE in the short-term, particularly in New Zealand.

Richard Ostmason, Money Free Party NZ, presenting at Z-Day 2017

Next, Adelaide coordinator, Michael Kubler’s presented about the Price of Zero Transition, making a very important point that we can’t wait for collapse and then expect to grow the world we want to see out of the ashes (coined the Phoenix Model). Rather, we need to start making systemic changes now in a variety of ways if we truly want to see an RBE.

Michael Kubler presenting at Z-Day 2017

This was followed by Ziggy Tolnay of the Sydney chapter, who shared a concept called the RBE10K project, about creating a physical community in which people could participate in as a transitionary method towards a global RBE.

Ziggy Tolnay presenting at Z-Day 2017

By this stage, the crowd was growing exceedingly weary after two full days of learning and sharing, but were very fortunate to be jolted back to the present – with the very talented and insightful Eleanor Goldfield, with her emotionally evoking and painfully accurate spoken word performance about capitalism and activism. This was followed by her presentation, which rounded up the whole two days worth of events as she shared her very honest and authentic thoughts on the importance of the fight and the build that needs to happen as we work towards a post-capitalist society, making clear that capitalism will die, but whether we die with it is up to us.

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During the main stage presentations, a generous portion of the audience had made their way into the workshop space to engage with a very interesting and important presentation with one of the most experienced, thoughtful and knowledgeable ethics and systems designers, Richard Mochelle. Richard shared his thoughts on a tangible way to acquire land for a Resource-Based Economy, outside of the current methods of land acquirement, which requires submission to the current economic paradigm. Richard suggested that this land could be acquired through creating an RBE trust, in which baby boomers ultimately give their land to a cause in which promises are made to care for their land and not sell it back to the banks.

Richard Mochelle and Casey Davidson

The audience had another quick break before joining us again for the final panel with Day 2 presenters, including Peter Joseph. A range of topics were once again discussed including UBI, as well as other concerns and questions regarding transition.

Day 2 Panel Z-Day 2017

I’d like to put out a big thanks to Vince and JV, who have attended every Z-Day Global since its incarnation, and have worked on the door every year, providing a significant help to coordinators, including myself.

JV and Vince Z-Day 2017 Brisbane Australia

A big thanks also to my wonderful local chapter team who managed the merchandise stand, who helped set up and pack up the venue, who managed the workshop space, and generally made everything run smoothly. Particularly to James Pauly, Karl Hansen and Lara Jordan. Thanks also to the New Globe Theatre for providing the wonderful space.

James Pauly

TZM Merchandise

Thanks also to the lovely vegan activists who spent two full-days at the event sharing their knowledge about the environmental and personal benefits of a direct active change Zeitgeist Movement advocates can make towards ethical consumer choices, including a vegan lifestyle.

Vegan Stall at Z-Day 2017

Thank you also to all of the other people behind the scene who found the power within yourself to volunteer your time and energy and provide assistance without any expectation of personal gain, but purely for the message of TZM. This includes those who lent and donated needed funding, anyone who bought a ticket, anyone who was offered a free ticket due to your circumstances, anyone who asked a question, participated in any way, who offered an idea, a question, who bought merchandise or a drink, who offered their assistance in any way shape or form, or even sat passively as an audience member. Bums on seats count, and matter particularly to organisers, presenters and performers. Thanks also to our global online audience who made a weekend of it by participating in the online streaming from afar.

Paul Doyle from Frequencies TV Life Streaming for ZDay Global Brisbane

Another big thanks to Jason Lord, Michael Kubler and Paul Doyle who made sure the video content including streaming and videos for later viewing would be available to our global audience who couldn’t make the big trip to Brisbane. This is a significantly huge job and anyone with technical skills is always encouraged to help in this regard to make sure our content reaches a larger audience and forever into the future.

Jason making sure everything is running smoothly

Michael Kubler, usually behind the camera

I’d also like to extend my gratitude to all of the other people behind the scene who found the power within yourself to volunteer your time and energy and provide assistance without any expectation of personal gain, but purely for the message of TZM.

Z-Day 2017 Group Photo

Z-Day 2017 Setting up for Group Photo

A special mention to Zac Syme for your support – as well as opening your home for the presenter social night and providing a home for so many people leading up to, and over the event. Thanks to others who opened their home to travelling guests, including Simon Cole, Caroline and Karl, Ricky, Grant, Anita and Tim, James, Lara and Jack.

Zac Syme, Queensland TZM Coordinator and Federico Pistono, Author, ex-Italian Coordinator Photos by Michael Kubler

Thanks again to Paul Doyle for offering your studio ‘Frequencies TV’ where we recorded podcasts with coordinators and the Future Thinkers Podcast hosts Mike and Euvie, as well as for the public social night on Friday night before the event. More photos of the Pre-Z-Day Party here.

2017-03-24th Pre ZDay global public event at Frequencies TV, Brisbane Photos by Michael Kubler @kublermdk

Regardless of how far the Movement may or may not have come, we still have significant momentum, and your support however much or little you can give makes a differences to our ability to spread the message. I’m eternally grateful for all of the support and truly believe with the mindset of the participant’s in this year’s Z-Day we can make the drastic change we need to see to truly create a unified, abundant world.

More photos by Michael Kubler and others here.

Peter Joseph (TZM Founder) and Casey Davidson (TZM Australia Coordinator)
Article by Casey Davidson

21Mar/16

Z-Day Success!

IMG_1695_2
MORE than 100 people made their way to Brisbane’s New Globe Theatre recently for Z-Day, the Zeitgeist Movement’s annual sustainability symposium.
It was one of many Z-Day events scheduled across the globe to celebrate and raise awareness for The Zeitgeist Movement.
The advocacy group encouraged guests to explore ideologies to create a more environmentally, socially and economically fulfilling lifestyle and future.
Zeitgeist Movement Australia national coordinator Casey said things were really starting to take off for their chapter and this was their biggest Z-Day on record.
“I feel grateful people are starting to think about these concepts and changing the way they think about the world,” she said.
“I knew that it would eventuate because it’s something that’s so important.”
Speaking on the day were non-violent communicators, energy experts, members of sustainable communities and other interesting speakers on climate change, robotics and peer to peer sharing.
The Brisbane chapter hosted the event and have been busy connecting and building the movement and coordinators from across the country flew in to attended.
Z-Day is held in or around March each year and the main event will be held in Athens, Greece on Saturday 26th March.
More information about the day will be available soon.
11Mar/16

Z-Day 2016 Australia

Ahoys me harties! Time to share what we’ve been working on for several weeks. ONE WEEK TO GO… eek!

12829253_10153298941637063_1003943142188672465_oI must give a huge thanks to Paul from the New Globe Theatre who basically gave us the venue to use. We’ll be returning the favour by focusing time helping him where needed and to assist in the defence of habitats, and of course to help 4ZZZ Eco-radio, Sea Shepherd and the other organisations I contribute to. A perfectly named venue don’t you think, ‘The New Globe Theatre’.

Also biggest thanks to Casey, our wonderful coordinator at TZM Australia, truly an honour working with you! And of course, to the rest of the TZM family and guest speakers/presenters.

Another massive thanks to me good ol’ pal of many many years Stephan who with his lovely lover are performing a set for us for free as their amazing band The Flumes. So some beautiful music to sooth the ears while getting a free professional massage, sipping a martini and chomping on a some vegan delights!

And of course a huge thank you to 4ZZZ the station that loves us all, I could never be doing what I’m doing without their endless support and love they share with me.

There will be free yummy vegan food and some of the most amazing presentations, all together under the one roof.

This is a free global event, everything is free, (oh except the drinks sorry) – as TZM we are working towards freeing humanity from the shackles of this detrimental and destructive economic system, one of the core tenants if you will. We all do this in volunteer roles, and use our own treasures to fund the parts in need of funding.

We truly hope you can make this event and support us in this. Sharing this event to get this out there for us would be wonderful! As we head towards a better existence for all life upon the Earth, and this beautiful planet restored to it true beauty.

If you’d like to be involved in some way, or wish to know more, send us an email or reserve your free ticket on Eventbrite. TZM are one of my favourite bunch of kind souls and more than a pleasure to contribute to.

RESERVE A FREE TICKET AS THERE ARE LIMITED SEATS IN THE THEATRE

Thank you!!!

L*
‘For the Oceans’
‘For the Forests’
‘For the Earth’

confirmed timetable

25Mar/15

Z-Day 2015

Each year, Zeitgeist Movement advocates from all over the world come together to learn more, connect with like-minded people and share new ideas to promote global unity, social betterment and a more humane society.

cropped-zday-2015.pngZeitgeist Day (Z-Day), the annual global symposium for The Zeitgeist Movement, was held for the 7th time this year in several different countries around the world on Saturday 14th March. The main event for Australia was held in Brisbane City at the Brisbane Square Library.

470_square,0This year was outstandingly successful for the Australian chapter, with a range of inspiring and interesting speakers. Coordinators are working hard to make all of these presentations available online as soon as possible.

I’d like to thank everyone who volunteered their time, money and effort towards making it a fantastic day. The free fruit for our guests was a very special touch!

I had the very fortunate opportunity to welcome our guests and give a brief run-down of the Zeitgeist Movement for guests who may not have heard of us before. This was followed by James Hill, who discussed how an NLRBE would be governed.

IMAG0649After James, Tom Miller from Unlimited You Education set the scene for the day by conducting a very collaborative discussion stemming from the question “Why are we here today?”. This brought about a range of reasons from our very diverse audience, that really set the group up to think about ways in which they could really connect with the group.

IMAG0651Caroline Rentel followed Tom, giving us a very special triple plug on three topics close to our heart: James Pauly’s updates on his electric vehicle conversion, updates on Beyond Zero Emissions and her novel about an RBE set in 2050.

Screenshot from 2015-03-25 16:56:24 Our audience was then wowed by Roman Spur’s amazing rental property that he transformed into a sustainable living story. In a tiny space in the city suburb of New Farm, Roman provided food including vegetables, honey and eggs for his whole family and neighbours, as well as use recycled materials to create solar power cookers and solar hot water.

IMAG0660After Roman, Simon Cole gave us a run-down of the TZM Australia Community Tours project, where a group of Brisbane Geisters aim to visit a range of communities around the country and beyond, to share our knowledge and discover the best ways we can manage groups in the early stages of developing an RBE. For more details, click here.

Screenshot from 2015-03-25 16:58:09After a quick break, John Roles decided to share his vision for Australia as a former candidate for Sustainable Population Party. John was an interesting guest, as someone who was not very familiar with TZM, but he was not only able to share his thoughts on population, growth and sustainability in Australia but connect with many people who think beyond politics.

IMAG0666Before our final speaker, Aaron Hilton the driving force behind this project, and Andreas Huemer, an expert in artificial intelligence and systems management shared their idea for system that can minimise harm and maximise abundance.

IMAG0671Our final speaker was Natalie Lawler, one of the last 100 remaining candidates for the Mars One mission. She shared updates on Mars One and explained her passion and reasons that she wanted to travel to the red planet forever. We were very fortunate to have a lot of question time for Natalie, as many people in the audience were curious about her mission.

Screenshot from 2015-03-25 17:29:41Thanks again to everyone who came along to support the Zeitgeist Movement. As stated previously, our local coordinators are working hard to make these presentations available online as soon as possible. An email will be sent to our subscribers as soon as the videos have been uploaded.

A recap of the global chapter event can be seen here. To read more about it, check out the global chapter blog here.