The Venus Project

[vxv]

http://www.thevenusproject.com/index.html

The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern society: unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology, over-population and a decline in the Earth's ecosystems. As you will see, The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of these problems by actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable solutions. Through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness, educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term, sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium.

The plans for the Venus Project offer society a broader spectrum of choices based on the scientific possibilities inherent in current technology and direct that knowledge toward a new era of peace and sustainability for all cultures. Through the implementation of a resource-based economy, and a multitude of innovative and environmentally friendly technologies directly applied to the social system, The Venus Project proposals will dramatically reduce crime, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and many other pressing problems that are common throughout the world today.

One of the cornerstones of the organization's findings is the fact that many of the dysfunctional behaviors of today's society stem directly from the dehumanizing environment inherent in the existing monetary system. Moreover, the currently utilized random implementation of automation and other technologies have resulted in a fragmented, self-defeating trend occurring throughout the manufacturing and high-tech sectors of today's global economy--namely the technological replacement of human labor by machines. The Venus Project proposes a social system in which automation and technology would be intelligently applied and integrated into an overall social design where the primary function would be to maximize the quality of life rather than profits. This project also introduces a set of workable and acceptable human values that are more appropriate and in balance with our present state of technology.

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Can this work?

 

[Arthur]

http://www.thevenusproject.com/index.html

entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture.

Can this work?

No.
Not ever.
These people don't even begin to grasp culture.

 

[vxv]

No.
Not ever.
These people don't even begin to grasp culture.

Any reason for your argument?

 

[PeterCH]

Marxist bull_hit. Arthur is right.

 

[BCO]

The Venus Project proposes a social system in which automation and technology would be intelligently applied and integrated into an overall social design where the primary function would be to maximize the quality of life rather than profits. This project also introduces a set of workable and acceptable human values that are more appropriate and in balance with our present state of technology.

I think they're onto something here. The continued emphasis yearly growth in profit can't be sustained for much longer. Growth cannot go on indefinitely.

 

[PeterCH]

I think they're onto something here. The continued emphasis yearly growth in profit can't be sustained for much longer. Growth cannot go on indefinitely.

It has a heartwarming message, but at its root its a system of individual control and one of a command economy. Communism.

 

[Arthur]

Two questions:

1) Who decides?
2) What happens to those who disagree, dissent, and opt out?

Once those questions are answered we see the Venus Project PR as simply the smiling mask of unspeakable global tyranny.

 

[PeterCH]

"The chief mission of all other races and peoples, large and small, is to perish in the revolutionary holocaust." - Karl Marx, Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 1849.

""We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." --Adolf Hitler

(Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)


I think we know where such extreme Socialist ideals lead....

 

[km2]

PeterCH has already pointed out how this normally ends in tears, and Arthur asked some questions which most communists will struggle with.

From my side it comes down to a few big problems:

1) Humans exploit systems. We do. You can sit there with your cultural indoctrination farms, but at the end of the day we're pretty hardwired to try and get away with what we can. Just think of how naughty babies can be and how they try and get away with stuff even though they know you don't want them doing it.

These kinds of systems stink at handling that. Their entire premise is based on everyone pulling together, and it becomes mighty hard to force people to play ball. Forcing people takes effort to do, and generally builds up resentment amongst the peasants. Then you need the Stasi, KGB, etc just to keep people in line.

2) There are always going to be tradeoffs in life, the question is do you want to choose those tradeoffs or do you want the state to. In theory the state has "experts" who may have better statistical models to make decisions than you could. On the otherhand it's your life, and sometimes you do know what would make you happy.

It could be from little things like whether you'd rather have a worse car and a better house (can't have that, all standardised under state control), to big choices like how many children you would like to have (nope, one child per family)

3) When you start looking at things from the "big picture", crazy ideas start to make "sense". For example, if the state knows that they need 1 million accountants in 30 years, wouldn't it be preferable to try and breed people with a natural aptitude towards that? It optimises efficiency for the state, and it's not like you'd have to kill anyone to make room for them. You'd just stop breeding the less desirables.

4) We care more about our family than we do about random other people. Life is just like that. We've known them for longer, we have shared experiences, and heck maybe we just like to be around them. We would be prepared to sacrifice a lot more for our family, than for random people in the street.

These systems don't recognize that. If your kid is dying and needs an expensive procedure, the state will weigh the pros and cons and decide whether its worth it to perform. You'd have zero leverage, there'd be no money you could scrape up to try and pay for it. You wouldn't be able to mortage your house or anything to pay for it. The states decision is final. At that moment you wouldn't care that by not performing that procedure on your kid, the state was able to instead spend that time more optimally to benefit other people. That resentment would stick with you for a long long time.

Anyway, this stuff has been tried before. The cheesy 1960's "Time-Life: Vision of the Future" drawings don't help.

 

[PeterCH]

True. Human nature is essentially selfish.

 

[Open2SomethingNew]

So maybe we're not ready for change, but eventually change will be forced upon us. Technology will either elevate us or destroy us. This is a generally understood concept. But isn't it really the use and control of our technology which is trusted to a relatively small number of people who's cheif concern is profit?

In full support of the Zeitgeist Movement's mission to spread awareness that something is seriously wrong with the current system, you should support groups like the Venus Project for their merits. Try not to succomb to the trap of only criticizing the faults.

Human nature, beyond survival and procreation, is a product of your upbringing. Growing up in a system that contains a HUGE amount of social conditioning or engineering specifically with the purpose to protect the wealth of the few (and the dream to have what they have). In actuality, we're not encouraged to do much more than plod through a life consisting of a career, family and death with little regard to lives outside our "tribes".

 

[Amerikanse]

I'm going to dismantle this line by line in general terms. Feel free to escalate the conversation.

So maybe we're not ready for change, but eventually change will be forced upon us. Technology will either elevate us or destroy us. This is a generally understood concept.
But isn't it really the use and control of our technology which is trusted to a relatively small number of people who's cheif concern is profit?

I believe this statement stems from a basic lack of understanding of the world. The profit that the so-called rich and powerful classes produce trickles down to us middle-class and poor people. The profit their companies produce is shared in the forms of stocks and bonds that a huge number of people partake in through the form of mutual funds and the like. Oil companies? ALL mutual funds own oil company stock--just as an example.

In full support of the Zeitgeist Movement's mission to spread awareness that something is seriously wrong with the current system, you should support groups like the Venus Project for their merits.

I hope you are not looking for the perfect system. Capitalism is the reigning system because it works well and operates on the basic principles of human nature--greed and/or the desire to improve one's circumstaces--and not have to share hard-earned success. Karl Marx thought he could do better, but his plan failed for the exact reasons capitalism has succeeded. It is not perfect but it does a very good job.

Try not to succomb to the trap of only criticizing the faults.

The faults here stem from a faulty worldview as outlined above, which condemn the whole of the concept.

Human nature, beyond survival and procreation, is a product of your upbringing. Growing up in a system that contains a HUGE amount of social conditioning or engineering specifically with the purpose to protect the wealth of the few (and the dream to have what they have).

Marxism again. It has failed every time it has been tried. Here in America, anyone can rise as high as they want to with enough ability and drive.

In actuality, we're not encouraged to do much more than plod through a life consisting of a career, family and death with little regard to lives outside our "tribes".

Aside from the warm-and-fuzzies induced by this little gem of New Age propaganda, I happen to like my tribe. Clinging to guns and religion ever since 1630.

 

[Kosmik]

One of the cornerstones of the organization's findings is the fact that many of the dysfunctional behaviors of today's society stem directly from the dehumanizing environment inherent in the existing monetary system. Moreover, the currently utilized random implementation of automation and other technologies have resulted in a fragmented, self-defeating trend occurring throughout the manufacturing and high-tech sectors of today's global economy--namely the technological replacement of human labor by machines. The Venus Project proposes a social system in which automation and technology would be intelligently applied and integrated into an overall social design where the primary function would be to maximize the quality of life rather than profits. This project also introduces a set of workable and acceptable human values that are more appropriate and in balance with our present state of technology.

-----------------------------------------------------

Can this work?

Neo-Luddites. Random implementation of automation and other technologies? There's nothing random about it, new technologies and automations are planned and researched before implemented. It costs too much for that to be ignored and the bottom line will be if the new tech\automation will save money in the long run. As to quality of life, surely tech\automation has enabled more jobs\benefits in the long run. Eg: Toyota upgrades factory but lays off 100 workers. However the increased profits of Toyota means the countries tax revenue from that factory is increased by a couple million a year. Now if that tax was redistributed properly, you would benefit a lot more people than 100.

 

[BTTB]

Addendum

First time I saw any material about he Venus Project was in Zeitgeist Addendum.
After enjoying the first Zeitgeist Movie from 2007 I was a bit disappointed when the crux of the Addendum Movie revolved mostly around interviews with Fresco and a woman interviewee and their Venus Project.

Look, they had some good ideas if you listen to them speak, but just browse the website and the first thing that you notice is the very convenient Online Store which has everything for sale from DVD's to coffee mugs and tee shirts.
And I thought to myself, here these people are saying how we must remove ourself from the Monetary System, but in the next breath please donate some money or please buy some of our products. Makes the whole Venus Project look like just another internet site out to make a buckeroo.

 

[Arthur]

km2 say it well.
And Amerikanse righty identifies the utopian impulse at the heart of every tyranny.

Riddle: One boy mows the lawn in two hours. How long will it take two boys? (Let's grant that they both have lawnmowers).

The world of techne grounded in empiricst materialism (such as Marx) says: "Why, it will take them one hour".

But in the real world composed of flesh-and-blood human beings with their own minds and values and wills, the answer is more like "the lawn might not get mowed today, because the two boys could end up having an argument, then make up and go off and swim for the rest of the afternoon".

The first answer is mathematics and Marx.
The second answer deals with human beings as they really are.

This triviality illustrates a fundamental difference between socialist utopians and sane people. For utopians, all human questions are resolved through systems and mechanisms, through rational design, planning and execution. Every problem is an engineering problem. And the larger the problem, the larger the system must be. That is why they want a massive all-powerful and global state: to 'systematise' and 'rationalise' society and 'solve' the knotty problem of 'chaotic' individuals persons each irrationally seeking its own good according to its own lights.

The utopians - socialists to a man - find the real human persons of their time very vexing. Socialists are deeply dismayed by what they see as the chaotic muddle of personal preferences, values, priorities, abilities and choices that result in an uneven distribution of property, which for them is the greatest evil. They are profoundly perplexed by the irrational (in their eyes) choices other people make - "if only society were organised more rationally (as seen and decided by people like us!)". Their utopia is the higher, nobler ideal, and humans in their current form obstruct the achievement of that ideal. That is why every one of them wants to re-engineer human nature. "The socialist sees a man very different from today's", says George Bernard Shaw. "Socialist Man has nothing in common with today's man" says Marx. " What we are doing is nothing less than the creation of a new man: Socialist Man", says Lenin. "Human nature must be reshaped in order to realise the socialist future," says Pol Pot. The same idea lies at the centre of the social engineering efforts of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. And every one of their ideological heirs. The Venus Project suffers from the same delusions, though they hardly know it.

For socialists, their radiant socialist future is the noblest and highest ideal, and every human value can and must be subordinated to its achievement. Nothing matters more than advancing the cause of the Bright New Tomorrow - not one life or a hundred million lives, as history bears out. So fundamentalist and fanatical are these apologists for The Perfect System they cannot see the outlines of the real world populated by real people, only their ideal world (which is btw a good working definition of insanity). Don't take my word for it. Here's perhaps the most respected academic socialist today, historian Eric Hobsbawm: Some years ago Hobsbawm discussed the former Soviet Union with a television interviewer. What Hobsbawm’s position comes down to, the interviewer suggested, “is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss of fifteen, twenty million people might have been justified?” Hobsbawm: “Yes.”

The abiding temptation of the technological age is to see every nail as a technological nail to be beaten with a technological hammer. But the essential stuff that is characteristically and distinctly human, and which renders our lives worthwhile -- love, marriage, family, children, friendships, the arts, work, play, worship, sport, laughter, education, adventure, reflection, and so on -- these are not primarily or essentially technological issues. The sine qua non for all these human things is freedom. They must be undertaken in liberty or else they crumble and die.

If the bloodies-of-all centuries, the 20th, holds any lessons, then one of the most important must surely be that when we elevate systems (machines, technology, techne above humans) we dehumanise. When we subordinate humans to idealist system and use our technology to re-engineer people and society, then we industrialise the creation of corpses.

Lex orandi, lex credendi. We become what we worship. Let us not choose dead idols, for that is what systems and machines and technology are. They are here to serve man's liberty. Servants not gods. If we make them a god by letting them shape us, they will kill us.

That is what the Venus Project proposes. And why we should oppose it.

 

[BTTB]

Venus Estate Research Centre for Sale - today

If you browse further into the Website - Click on the link at the top of the page entitled Research Centre for Sale.

You notice the 21+ Acre Research Centre is on sale today for $550 000. The same day the Aliens are arriving!!

/Dons tin hat
Arg nevermind - got work to do.
/Removes tin hat

 

[PeterCH]

If you browse further into the Website - Click on the link at the top of the page entitled Research Centre for Sale.

You notice the 21+ Acre Research Centre is on sale today for $550 000. The same day the Aliens are arriving!!

/Dons tin hat
Arg nevermind - got work to do.
/Removes tin hat

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it

-- George Santayana.

Sad that people want to go back to Marxist ideas of control and genocide, albeit under new guises. History should be a compulsory subject in all schools around the world, to teach people that the same ol' garbage has come before us and has caused incredible harm.

 

[vxv]

With a profit model the banks will own all of our property in the end. We were born on this earth to have a right to own and the banks are slowly reminding us that we have no right to property.

A social technology focused resource based system ensures equality and benefit to all, not only those that can afford it. If you look at the effective approach of sanctions by the IMF and IRB (central banks) that can dictate the terms of loans to countries, you’ll find that those terms are never met and no debt can be paid off.

To refer to a model like this as German socialism or communism is using our own historic references. We should use these model to define a new one to mitigate previous mistakes not shorten our scope with bias.

There is nothing wrong with socialist ideals as long as they don’t have any leaders or propaganda with conflict.

It is human nature to try and rebel, and that should be something that is encouraged as it shows the cracks in the system. I agree trying to enforce any type of system will have conflict but the systems primary objective is not to enforce anything so that any controversial approaches and innovative rebellion is encouraged it should be constructive to all.

I disagree with the fact that “state/government” has experts to who try statistic modelling to benefit anything else other than the economy. If we did there would be no poverty in the world, and we won’t need depressions and economic meltdowns. The agenda will always be profitability with these institutions. I would suggest social or cultural statistics to ensure encouragement of all initiatives not dictating focus.

Having a choice on a car or a house is NOT an affordability concern. It is a gimmick to ensure profit and control of resources and production. Everyone should choose whatever car or house they want, even actually building it would ensure your freedom of creation. Freedom of choice should be extended without affordable limits.

It ironic though, it seems everyone thinks if you can have everything then you don’t want anything, but when you need to pay for it, then it MUST be something you want. Weird…

New Life should always be encouraged but not at the expense of nature, communism ensures economic impacts are managed and not our synergy of survival. We should manage nature to benefit all life and not economic gain.

Breeding and cloning of efficient beings is an economic agenda. Ensuring this is not entertained the system must ensure new life in any form is enjoyed with perspective.

Our beliefs should ensure we accept everyone and their views, even if they’re not family.

If you need medical care you will get it free with the best systems on earth, you won’t need money or sell anything critical to ensure life is sustained.

The human nature is not selfish, it survives. Nature has always ensured that symbiotic entities are more likely to survive and those that do not agree to that are the virus of a symbiotic culture.

Open2somethingnew, well said, the fact that you are open for new ideas with a positive approach will ensure that a giving culture is possible, other than those that struggle to see the sense in equality.

We should never let ourselves be conditioned and engineered to only refer to existing models but rather create new innovative influences to better everyone’s situation.

Amerikanse,

I believe this statement stems from a basic lack of understanding of the world. The profit that the so-called rich and powerful classes produce trickles down to us middle-class and poor people. The profit their companies produce is shared in the forms of stocks and bonds that a huge number of people partake in through the form of mutual funds and the like. Oil companies? ALL mutual funds own oil company stock--just as an example.

I believe your statement stems from a culture of narrow-minded economic slaves. I will never bow down to a boss, company, oil, bank, stockbroker, auditor or any bean counter to ensure that I have a right to live. The fact that you are so positive about this is scary, I hope they bail you out when your house or car is repossessed due to the millions they made off your money.

I hope you are not looking for the perfect system. Capitalism is the reigning system because it works well and operates on the basic principles of human nature--greed and/or the desire to improve one's circumstaces--and not have to share hard-earned success. Karl Marx thought he could do better, but his plan failed for the exact reasons capitalism has succeeded. It is not perfect but it does a very good job.

Yes we are. Greed is not human nature, it might be a religion for you, but it is not human. Capitalism is the worst human mistake ever invented. Go to Kenya and give a dollar to a kid starving at the age of 4. He will eat it. It’s ironic though, this seems to be religious nature, give someone food and enable them and you are selfless with respect and gratitude, give someone a dollar and you own them…

The faults here stem from a faulty worldview as outlined above, which condemn the whole of the concept.

100% correct.

Marxism again. It has failed every time it has been tried. Here in America, anyone can rise as high as they want to with enough ability and drive.

The leaders of Marxism failed. A methodology always fails due to those who lead it, any methodology can be effective if the intent is true and benefits all without conflict and force.

America is a joke, I can see how effective the country is…Make a sh@tload of money and your GOD.

Aside from the warm-and-fuzzies induced by this little gem of New Age propaganda, I happen to like my tribe. Clinging to guns and religion ever since 1630.

This is not propaganda, this is freedom of thought. IT’s worth more than freedom of speech in your country. That’s the nice thing about guns, they always end up being used against yourself.
BTTB,

Look, they had some good ideas if you listen to them speak, but just browse the website and the first thing that you notice is the very convenient Online Store which has everything for sale from DVD's to coffee mugs and tee shirts.
And I thought to myself, here these people are saying how we must remove ourself from the Monetary System, but in the next breath please donate some money or please buy some of our products. Makes the whole Venus Project look like just another internet site out to make a buckeroo.

I must say. I am disappointed with the fact that they sell things.

 

[Arthur]

vsxv, just a short comment on profit, which is apparently a pejorative in your vocabulary:

The surplus remaing when production exceeds consumption is called profit. It is essential if society is to advance. If people consume all they produce (ie no profit), the society is static.

If you love people, you must also find ways to get their production to exceed their consumption. This has nothing to do with greed, though some people or perhaps even most might be greedy. Profit itself is moral, desirable, good.

 

[pos(t)er]

The surplus remaing when production exceeds consumption is called profit. It is essential if society is to advance. If people consume all they produce (ie no profit), the society is static.

If you love people, you must also find ways to get their production to exceed their consumption. This has nothing to do with greed, though some people or perhaps even most might be greedy. Profit itself is moral, desirable, good.

Silicon valley.

The fundemental of economics, demand and supply, proposed by Marx, will be brought back into the centre of things.