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The Venus
Project is part of a movement calling for the total and complete redesign of
society and was founded by self-described futurist,
Jacque Fresco. He has been
designing and redesigning technology since he was only 14. Born in 1916, he has
wanted to build a new civilization from the ground up since he was a child.
When discussing his ideas with R. Buckminster Fuller, a "comprehensive
anticipatory design scientist" and American architect, he framed his ideas as
"changing all of society so that all people [may] benefit from
industry."
He believes
in a resource-based economy, as opposed to a monetary-based system. Currently,
when a company creates a technology for distribution, the main goal is profit with
little concern for the impact the production and the use its particular technology will have on the world as a whole.
Fresco argues that the world is rich in natural resources and energy:
"At the
beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting
aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000
planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough
funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not
have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than
enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve
the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this
is only considered in times of war."
To use the
words of the late great Albert Einstein, "The problems we have cannot be
solved with the same level of thinking that created them," —we need to reform
our current mode of thinking, which is tainted by the carrot-and-stick of monetary
rewards, and instead we need to create a world where the rights to food, water,
medical care, housing and the ability and opportunity to pursue one's personal
aspirations are human rights, not privileges.
The Venus
Project was started shortly after WWII. Frescoe had designed a pre-fabricated
structure called The Trend Home, that
could be assembled in less than eight hours from mass-produced, extruded
aluminum parts. He then worked on over a thousand different inventions,
spending all of his personal income to complete each one, yet he saw little
monetary return. This financial strain means that many of his prototypes have never
gone into production and that most have ended up sitting in storage as
potential investors have seen little incentive to take risks in their name. He
realized he could not change the patchwork of society on his own—it needs to be
rethought from the ground up.
He proposed
a change in the language we use, in order to eliminate discrepancies of
opinion: "When engineers talk to each other, they use the language of math
and science," and blueprints are not open to discussion. A builder does not
look a set of plans and say, "I think it should be this way," instead, the
specifications explain every detail, down to each of the materials to be used. According
to Frescoe, if we could employ this kind of language to policies, we would not
have the misunderstandings. "As long as we have war, police, prisons, and
crime, we're still in the early stages of civilization."
It is time
that we become a truly civilized society and start looking toward the future.
We need to stop squabbling over wealth and start caring about the planet and
all its creatures, human and otherwise. Ecology, not economy. Research needs to
be carried out so that technologies work for us to improve people's lives and
to maintain and care for our environment. As Frescoe decrees: "The earth
needs the intelligent management of earth's resources."
References
The Future By Design by Willam Gazecki DVD 2008
http://en.wi kipedia.org/wiki/Jacque_Fresco 2008
http://thevenusproject.com
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