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The Venus Project, a Reality? or a Pipe Dream?; The Venus Project. What do you think about it?
Topic Started: May 7 2012, 08:06 PM (503 Views)
Elkairah
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A Jedi Master of Posting
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Hi there, long time no chat. :P

I've ran into videos about this before but it never struck me as something that could actually work. I recently decided to watch a few documentaries about it though as it piqued my interest. I wanted to do some more digging before jumping to conclusions, but I thought I'd get other people's thoughts on it as well. So I figured why not ask you guys of your thoughts on the matter.

Some of you may or may not have heard of what's known as the Venus Project. There are some people who are really excited about it and others that see it as pretty farfetched.

For those who don't know about it, there's documentaries and all kinds of info about it, so you can google it, or I can post up a link to one of their videos, documentaries, or whatever if allowed. They also have a site as well, but I'm not gonna post a link to it as I forget the rules concerning advertisement here, not sure if it would fall under that.

For those who do know about it, I'm just curious of your thoughts about it.
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Hawk
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Imagine a world without scarcity, war, or waste. Then google the venus project. Pretty amazing stuff going on there. Envisioning a world society, not based on material or monetary aquisition. Where we are all able to meet our highest potential. I was blown away by the concepts of this project. It would be astounding to see it come to fruition. I encourage all of you to do as Elk has suggested and check this out. Absolutely mind blowing.
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Apollonios
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Jacque Fresco is someone I have known about for a few years now. He certainly is quite the modern day Da Vinci and surely has an aptitude in all he does that exceeds the norm. He is also notable for his long, fascinating life. I can't help but wonder what his methods are for his longevity as he is how old now ... 94? And he seems incredibly healthy from last I heard.

I recall the Venus Project relying on a "resource-based economy", an economy that does not rely on the current monetary system in the U.S. or any currency in the world as we know it, but technology itself as we already have made the advances where the technology can support itself and support our needs, with surplus. This concept fascinated me for sometime and though I do support good hearted capitalism, his arguments convinced me that the flawed system has generated too many swiss cheese wholes in the foundation of today's world. This type of economy would support all of our needs as humans without the conflict of war, government, pollution, ad nauseam, etc. No need for me to get into that here as if anyone is curious enough, they can find plenty of video material on the internet.

I am quite concerned about his association with the Zeitgeist video series, however. While the videos have generated exposure on part of the Venus Project and the goals of what he is trying to accomplish, I am afraid it may have hindered it at the same time by the Venus Project being in association with videos that fall into the realm of conspiracy theories and all that implies. Though I do think those Zeitgeist videos could have been handled differently, I still think there is something plausible with the Venus Project.

Unfortunately, I do not think the world is ready at this time for something like the Venus Project. Though I see many good things about the Venus Project, the Founder, and the thinking behind it, it is also a utopian-like world, if not a total utopia. Currently in the world, the lands of the planet are still divided by countries and I cannot see the economy as it is to phased out so easily within the past few decades. It seems it would be much easier if a global government was already in tact, which is a bit ironic considering the ultra-conservative views behind the Zeitgeist series. The issue isn't technological, but political. And though we do have the technology to begin now, there are still important technologies out there that are being developed that would very much suit the purposes of the Venus Project. If anyone is interested, there is another futurist by the name of Ray Kurzweil who has some insight to share regarding that.

Utopia is a strong word, however, and it's too easy to dismiss something without considering it's arguments because a stigmatized word is involved. My stance is currently neutral until I refresh my mind with the facts. My view is positive, but with concern.

I am curious if any recent action has been taken. If it's still around and you found out about it recently, I'm suspecting it's gaining steam.
Edited by Apollonios, May 7 2012, 11:57 PM.
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Verlathor
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Pipe dream.

It is human nature to be greedy. It is how we survived the cruel process of evolution. We strive for material wealth. The problem with removing money and replacing it with resources is that it would just result in money again. We already tried trading resources, back in the earliest times of society, but it all ended up being changed into money, because it's more convenient and it can be used on anything. Afterall, if someone only has eggs and no one wants to trade for eggs, they're buggered.

The problem that a lot of these ideas have is that they try to change human nature. Greed is hard coded into our DNA, because it's a necessary survival trait in a harsh, unforgiving world. Working together for the betterment of mankind sounds good on paper, but making it happen in reality is difficult. Most people wouldn't be willing to give up some of their comforts for the good of a complete stranger.

The idea of developing technology that is less harmful and more symbiotic with life is appealing, however. I think what we really need as a planet is more education to develop broad thinking, skepticism and critical thinking to make people realise that in order to satisfy their need to survive and accumulate resources, we might need to be willing to help each other out more.

Gotta work with the greed, can't go against it.
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Vultax
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1. Money developed from the trading of resources because it's more efficient. I would prefer to exchange money, rather than lugging 50 tonnes of coal to someone and taking away 50,000 balls of string for example.

2. This is just taking communism to the next level, and we all know how well communism works.....


It's a pipe dream and will always be a pipe dream. Setting up a seperate civilisation may work, but then theres the issue that if they do too well, the rest of the world will fear them, and therefore try to hinder their progress, through trade bans or even war. If they don't do well, they'll be exploited. It's human nature.
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Mydin
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Without money I would just be out of a job, and my resourceful skill of handling clients' money would be wasted and I would be useless. It would just breed new sorts of gangs where farmers are boss and the once ultra rich investor, are left to for the next generation of Gladiatorial battles to win these resources.

This above paragraph may be a little far fetched but it is a simple matter of life hat we prefer to work in numbers, it's much easier to say that I have 100 money that will be worth the same to everyone as opposed to 6 baskets of eggs that are only available to people who aren't allergic to whey.

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Vultax
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Mydin
May 9 2012, 01:56 PM
Without money I would just be out of a job, and my resourceful skill of handling clients' money would be wasted and I would be useless. It would just breed new sorts of gangs where farmers are boss and the once ultra rich investor, are left to for the next generation of Gladiatorial battles to win these resources.

This above paragraph may be a little far fetched but it is a simple matter of life hat we prefer to work in numbers, it's much easier to say that I have 100 money that will be worth the same to everyone as opposed to 6 baskets of eggs that are only available to people who aren't allergic to whey.

Yeah that also didn't occur to me. As an accountant, I'd be out of a job.... So, lets keep it a pipe dream ;)
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Elkairah
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Interesting points from everybody. Something like this definitely requires quite a bit of thinking. Thanks for sharing your opinions.
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ZeroTM
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A utopia never really made sense to me. In the presence of nothing but perfection how do we know what is perfection without an imperfection to compare it to? Things would just simply be and only machines function like that.

As humans we have a natural tendency to drift towards the more. One's pursuit in getting more in this world means that there will be less left for another - something as simple as the acquisition of a new job. The world functions like a scale and as much as some of us may prefer to be on one side than the other we'll all sink if we throw things out of balance.

Say we do sink and decide to start everyone off with a clean slate and say go, it's just like the start of a deathmatch in your typical FPS. Quite a different and productive thing can happen on our server at the start of our FFA, but the closest we can get to a world like that is by ridding it of its ignorance - more people everywhere need to be educated and elevated to a higher understanding of the world than just base survival.

Even as I preach for this higher understanding and imagine 6 billion other mes in the world in place of everyone else, I still have a feeling there would be the most intense competition. Nature is hard to shake.
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CJaKfOrEsT
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Another thing to consider, along these lines is The Thrive Project. Aiming for Utopian ideals are not a new thing. The Fabian socialists declared that they would see peace on earth, but they were silenced by two World Wars, for example.

As long as humanity has free will, and the freedom to choose, they will have to deal with the problem of selfishness. The way I see it, the only way we can see this kind of Utopian ideal come to fruition is to surrender our will to another. Last time I checked, that was called slavery.

Well, that's my opinion, anyway.
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