Norway - Stina

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Who are you and who are you in the movement?

My name is Stina Jakobsen.

I am coordinator for the Zeitgeist Movement here in Norway.

Concerning what I like to do;

I am taken with sustainability.

In my spare time I like to go out in the nature, I am very fond of skis.

I also enjoy very much to seek new knowledge.

Like to work on my habits, developing.

Search all the time for something that's better,

both in regards to myself and others.

Like to help others to,

to get a better life as well.

Yes, I think we'll stop there.

How did you join the movement?

For several years, I have seen various documentaries together with my beloved.

We have tried finding out a little concerning the different problems around in the world.

Before I met him, I wasn't overly occupied with that for a long time,

but when I was little, I was quite taken with...

Well, I saw that the world around me was not sustainable.

And thought that we can't be living in this way,

because that will only lead us off the cliff, but I saw noone around me do something about it, so,

eventually, I guess I just became one of the gang.

Deep down, though, I felt all along that there was something out of place

- with a fair share of the system we are living in, the society we are living in, so...

I began after a while to seek more information on my own too,

because in the beginning, I hadn't the time to hear too much about the problems around in the world,

because I like to focus on positive things and not listen to so much negative,

but in time I began to search a little myself and was, among other things,

on a debate forum on Dagbladet.no and there

there was someone who had posted a link toZeitgeist the Movie.

I saw that and found out that, wow: "This was a very nice",

what should I say? "compilation", of many videos I've seen before,

in addition to some new information which was very nicely put together and I thought that

it gave a fine summation of other information that I've seen but; again:

focus on the problems and no solutions.

Was very positively surprised when Zeitgeist Addendum came and presented Resource Based Economy.

Then it was as if a light had been turned on for me and my beloved both

and we were very positively surprised, because what they presented there was...

You could say the light had been turned on for us too.

We saw that what was explained about RBE was very logical.

We just saw how everything clicked, you could say.

Everything... Everything turned out true.

We saw the logic in the system.

Why did you join the movement?

When I found out that there was established a movement,

it must have been after Addendum..

There, the movie ended with saying "Join the movement" and, of course,

then we looked up the movement both I and my beloved and we registered there

on the international site and in a bit we found out there was a Norwegian domain established too.

So then we registered... Or... I registered there and, yeah,

well, there was not so much that

happened there but I had registered and

we didn't really do much more with it,

but we continued to seek information

and learn about new things

and eventually, we found out there had happened

a bit more in the movement and then

I started engaging a bit more again.

Why do you support the movement and a RBE?

I support the Zeitgeist movement

because the movement presents things,

you could say, a solution, that is

logical, to the worlds problems.

It's solution that can seem utopic to many,

that sounds very difficult, but at the same time,

I can't see another

solution that is better than that and

therefore, I just have to support that.

Can't really see any other possibility

except for that. I have previously

looked at various milieu organizations

and the things that they have

suggested or...

What they work with, and

when I check what they're doing.. they

don't seize on the foundational issues

in society, but that I think RBE does.

They suggest a transformation of the

society that will address the root

causes and that's, naturally, incredibly

difficult to achieve, but, I mean,

there's no arguing we have to try.

If it won't work, it won't work,

but then atleast... It's better to

come with something that is very extreme

and come a good stretch along the way,

than trying just a little and ending

up with a much poorer result.

Another thing, in regards to..

Well, if you're going to engage in politics... I

have never seen quite where I belong in

the politics and never found out about

it, because... The left has many good

principles; want more equality and

care more for the people, which I like,

but at the same time I think they're

very backwards when it comes to

innovation, development and that train of

thought, as concerning research and such.

I think it seems like the right has

got more of a grasp on that, so then

it's like: I like one thing here and

one thing there, but there's nothing that

represents what I want to accomplish

and further in society, but that the

Zeitgeist movement and RBE do.

Tell me a little about the history of the

movement in Norway, about the biggest

successes and the biggest problems, and

say a little, about the plans for the

future of it, in Norway.

The Norwegian web site, www.Zeitgeist.no,

was put up in 2009

and after a while people, started registering there, but

grabbing attention was a waiting game,

but lately there's been some more registered there.

When it comes to what has

happened in Norway..

There's been a few film screenings,

among others, one in Bergen

that was very successful, with a

theatre filled to the brim, but in Oslo,

we haven't seen the same response.

I don't live in Oslo myself,

so I can't really say.

Then there's been Z-day, which

I went to once, in Oslo.

Was last year, unless I'm mistaken.

There were some who showed, but not that many.

I traveled by plane from a different place in

the country and not really that much

happened to write home about. There was

a movie presentation and a little

discussion afterwards and that was all she

wrote, so I didn't really feel it made

the trip, but, uhm, I got to meet

some of the others, at any rate. The

success story in Norway? In regards to...

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward - that was

translated in just three weeks, by

a team of four-five people. which was a

rather big success, when you consider

it was done in no time at all, a lot

of work, quite a long film, and we

achieved good translations,

well I wasn't a part of that,

but those that did that did a very fine job.

Apart from that, we.. Let me think.

Yes, in regards to.. Something we managed

for the first time: a national meeting!

That's actually going on as we speak.

A three day national meeting that

started on friday evening and lasts all

the way to sunday afternoon.

It consist of, well, Friday we had planning and

meetings regarding Saturday, when

we would work promoting the movement,

so today we have been walking

in the streets, we put a stand, we

talked to people, gave out fliers and

we have given a try on a.. Flash mob.

Still in the start phase on such things for the moment,

but we'll surely improve eventually.

Then there's a presentation

we had of the movement today,

where we invited some people from the streets and put up posters,

introduced it a little in advance.

A little, but not enough.

We recruited some new

there, and met, among others, several

people from an environmental party

who were interested in coming into

contact with us, perhaps begin a joint

conference, so we appreciate that.

And there were people from another group

that wanted us to do presentations for them.

And we love establishing new contacts.

Tomorrow, we will have a presentation in the University for Environment and Bio Science,

in Ås, outside of Oslo, where we've been invited by Studentsamskipnaden.

We'll see what comes of it,

but it's definitely exciting being invited by a university.

That's the kind of people we wish

to get into contact with and they invited

us, which we think is excellent.

Another thing that's been good in Norway,

or a success story, you could say,

is that we, lately, have written some

commentaries in a news weekly.

There was a person who wrote a critical article

about the Zeitgeist Movement.

That we have answered.

Then he replied, so we had three and we had three.

So there we got to represent the movement, in a national magazine.

We're well pleased with that and,

possibly, that's why people took contact with us.

I can't say for sure, but, at any rate, it allowed us to present ourselves outwardly,

in a bit more serious way, because it's

in a leaflet that's not just for the

hoi polloi in the streets, but is read

by people engaged in... The society.

What is challenging in Norway, is that

we live in a nation that is long and diverse.

We are only..

How many are we now? 4,7-8 million people?

Those people are spread all across the land.

Those who are members of the movement are

spread across; perhaps one valley has

only one person who is committed to the

movement, then there's a

few in each city, so...

Organizing becomes a challenge.

Because of that we are trying to pull together a national meeting now,

to get the movement to take off a bit more -

we need to increase the numbers of ...

members and the activity, on a local level.

Now it's mostly on the Internet

as well as a few other things.

Future plans?

Future plans.

The future plans for the movement

in Norway, well, I have some

ideas, but we will talk

about that tomorrow.

We have a naitonal meet right now

and we'll have internal meetings

where we discuss what to do internally

in the movement, tomorrow.

It's good that we are quite a few who are gathered now,

so we can lay some plans.

What is necessary, is to get more people

to get more active, find their roles.

People are good at different things.

We have to dig out the potential in each and

everyone, find out what they master,

so that we may contribute with each

our thing - together that'll be quite

a lot of things. We'll achieve breadth,

so that we can work more aimed.

And make it so that not a few individuals

do it all on their own.

That has been the tendency lately, there are a

few who are putting things up on the

forum and discussing on the Internet,

but when it comes to practical work,

we are pretty few who actually make the

effort and that we wish to change.

We wish that people take

a more active role.

They'll get to decide themselves

what they wish to contribute with, so

the impetus comes from them and not a

simple command from us, that, that are

the most active now.

Other things we must achieve, of practical things..

It's smart, I think, to get more contacts with other groups.

Maybe the Milieu party and other organisations.

Can join in on conferences where we present RBE and

we can also listen what others have to

say about the environment because the

Zeitgeist movement is

quite new and the org.

that have been.. That have been

present longer than us.. Perhaps

we can learn quite a bit from them too.

I think that, if we get more in touch

with that kind of people, these sorts

of org., then we can achieve more

breadth, more strength, we can

reach out to a wider audience, I believe.

We hope to get more on wavelength with

universities here and there, I believe it

very important to have on our side, people

who have a certain background enabling them to

contribute a little extra.

RBE is based on scientific methods and technology.

It's also very advantageous for communication, not least, to have

people with you who are experts on these areas, so that the movement will be strengthened on these areas,

because then we'll be able to strike the table a bit harder, as it were, when we say things.

It'll be easier to establish cooperation with universities and others.

Uhm, let's see now...

Was there something else?

We'll stop there.

I'm just thinking about how one should translate this "striking the table", ("knock on wood").

Tell a little something about

the most important concerns

regarding the economical and political situation

in Norway.

Economically, Norway is one of the countries that

stands quite firm, you could say, because

Norway is an oil nation that

get quite a bit income

from that, which allows us to have a..

Well, we can have.. We have a lot

of money that can give wealth to

people and Norway as a land, has

been nominated the best nation to live in by the

UN, for eight years in a row

and then there's, of course, been evaluated

a lot of factors concerning the welfare system,

e.g.: How well we take care

of our inhabitants,

how good people have it.

Norway scores high there.

Also score high on the list by «Equality Trust»,

if you look at their home page,

you'll see that Norway comes very well across,

because the differences in wages are smaller

than in very many other countries,

even though they have increased somewhat in the latter years.

In regards to Equality Trust..

They say that when wage differences are smaller,

the inhabitants will be more content,

in a great number of ways.

Less crime, less...

Teenage pregnancy..

What was that in Norwegian?

Can you help set me back on track? We were talking about crime... And..?

Well, criminality.. And.. And then you went

straight from crime to teenage pregnancy.

Well, you can take the...

What was it again?

You said something about

Norway scoring well on...

No, I don't quite remember. You could begin on the Equality Trust..

People in prison, crime.. What were the the other things then..?

Everything; life expectancy and so on..

Life expentancy, right. OK. So..

According to Equality Trust, Norway scores well,

as opposed to other countries, especially

when it comes to the difference

between poor and rich, then you're

talking about the differences in wages.

The differences in wages are not so great

as in other countries and we score...

Ai.. I'm simply too tired now.

How do you envision the transition

from the current system to

a resource based economy?

Ah, yes, I'll say a little about the transition from the current system to a Resource Based Economy.

I think it's really important

to get in touch with others...

No, I'm losing my focus now..

It revolves around different open source systems, you know, that..

I slept two hours last night.

Transition.

Transition.

OK, now it's on.

When it comes to the transtition from the current

system to an RBE;

Firstly, I believe that what we see of economic troubles today,

is most likely peanuts compared to

what we could see in the future

and of the reasons for that, is due to automation and technology is developing

at an exponential pace and continually

take over increasingly more jobs,

in Norway, we see, e.g., the postal system, Posten..

The offices have been closed

down a whole lot of places,

after we got EU-mail, got the possibility of

using the Internet, so.. Posten became,

well, not as useful and necessary

as before for sending letters, in any case.

Now we have mail-venues

in supermarkets.

What you see in large stores, places I've been in Italy,

they have self service cash registers

that are fully automated, no need

for a person to be occupied at all.

You pay with a debit card and there's no need for a person to be there.

There's a machine there that gives notice if you leave without paying.

We see all the time, in several

industries, that this takes place.

If you look at the techonologies that

have come lately, for instance Google Cars,

which is cars that drive without

a person steering, all is run

fully automatic..

Consider if all cars drive like that eventually.

That we don't need to drive ourselves ?

Do we then need cab drivers?

Do we need employees in the transport business?

Do we need to have our own car?

There's already some car sharing services, in London,

England, where instead of owning a car,

you can have access, which you

then loan upon need and if you combine

that with Google Cars, you can just

order a car that shows up at your door

when you need it. Do you then need cars

parked all over the place, that aren't

used for the greater parts of the day.

With this kind of system, you will

need a much smaller amount of cars.

As the technology gains traction, start combining modules,

suddenly we'll have solutions that... Oops!

There went a bunch of professions..

We have many other examples of this type of technology,

e.g.: Watson, from IBM, that is a, you could say,

an "Artificial Intelligence Machine",

that responds to questions

like in Jeopardy. Jeopardy, of course,

is a quiz contest where you get the

answer and you have to find out the

question and in the beginning, when this

machine was competing

with humans, it didn't

do so well, but when it

got experience, well..

Used this intelligent system to

improve itself, I'm not rightly

sure how this works, but now this

mahchine, Watson, has beaten the worlds

best in Jeopardy, absolutely crushed the

worlds best in Jeopardy. How can you

use this technology..?

Like with call centers; do you really need a person

sitting there or can you use similar

systems to answer questions? You can

find out of various questions..

If I call and have a problem with my cell phone and call

technical support, then..

If we use a system like this, we don't need a person.

The machine can cope just fine on its own.

We have already developed systems

that can be used for things like

this and that way all calls in the

call center industry can be automated.

Perhaps we can use it in medicine, to

give diagnosises. I think it had been..

If we could have a computer system

where all available knowledge was

inputted about sickesses, symptoms, these

sorts of things, and I plot in my

problems then this machin can find the

apt solution.. Say I plot in that my knees

hurt and suffer a cough, that could

be a hundred things and then it could

ask a number of questions to eliminate

possibilities. OK, so "In addition, do

you have a head ache?" Then perhaps

some diagnosises are excluded and,

succeedingly, the machine can evaluate,

so I may get a more precise diagnosis.

If I go to doctor, the possibility

exists that the doctor forgets to ask

certain questions. So, I would rather go

to the doctor after getting the diagnosis

and perhaps the machine could also

take a blood sample, analyze it and

give clues to anomalies there.

Already, we have apparatuses for measuring blood

sugar, so there should be possible

to take a blood sample at home and get

diagnosises for lot's of things, so

there you have a lot of things that can

be automated in the medicinal industry,

among others. If you continue to

consider what technology can do, of

changes, if you just amalgamate different

sorts of technology, we have an

incredible number of solutions that will

take from us an inordinate amount of

jobs, if we wish it and that is not

desirable for many, because then we'll

lose the jobs and if we lose the jobs,

we won't have money to buy things and

then companies, of course, will go

bankrupt, because noone buys the things.

So I imagine, this will

happen in the future.

We lose more and more jobs and

at the same time, many systems are

broached that make things easier for us,

so we don't need to work. What need

fills economy any more? I think it will

collapse and if we look at the fact

that we actually have the resources we

need; we need to work on informing people

that we have the resources we need

but we don't have money to buy them,

so I think we are well on our way to

an RB-system, but we have to help it

along to avoid that we end up with a

large amount of human suffering.

That I think

can happen if we don't stop to..

Think money.

Well.. Yeah.

What was it I was going to say?

There was something

about "What do you do today"?

Create the day of tomorrow. Something.

You didn't mention that to me.

No, I said someething to myself about that. How goes it again?

I want you to think about what you do today.

Because it has so much to say for the day of tomorrow. If you do nothing...

The day of tomorrow can be quite...

Similar, but with all the things

going on around the world, it

quite possibly may be worse.

Perhaps you can contribute with something here

and now, that allows the future to be

better, for you, for me and for all.