The Venus Project – Pros and Cons

The Venus Project – Pros and Cons

This essay is about The Venus Project (TVP) in Venus, Florida. It was founded in 1980 by Jacque Fresco and his associate Roxanne Meadows. Consisting of 1,000 acres in south-central Florida, the Venus Project includes a 21-acre Research Center, documentaries and a major motion picture, and an experimental research city with dome-shaped buildings made of concrete. TVP says their buildings are dome-shaped because the human brain is enclosed in a dome; therefore, it could be said that we all live in domes already.

Fresco calls himself a “futurist” and recently celebrated his 100^th birthday (he was born on March 13^th, 1916). In 1975, he founded Sociocyberneering, Inc. which 5 years later became TVP. His background includes industrial design and social engineering. TVP integrates the best of science and technology into a comprehensive plan for a new society, according to their website.

His associate and co-founder Roxanne Meadows studied technical and architectural rendering and model making with Fresco for 4 years. Today she is a technical and architectural illustrator, model maker, scientific and medical illustrator, and has a private pilot license. She worked for Architectural Arts Inc. from 1997 to 2008.

TVP movies, all of which can be viewed for free on YouTube, include “Welcome to the Future”, “Cities in the Sea”, “Designing the Future”, “The Venus Project Tour”, “Paradise or Oblivion”, “Future by Design”, and “The Choice is Ours”. These films showcase the cities of the future, which according to TVP will be skyward, seaward, and subterranean.

Whether skyscrapers, floating cities on the sea, or underground, TVP cities will be circular in design, with a theme park and recreation centers in the middle of the circle. People can choose to live in a house or apartment building. All buildings will be made of concrete to save the forests. High-speed elevated trains and driverless cars will be used for transportation. This new TVP community can eventually become a new civilization. TVP says their cities of the future are neither Utopian nor Orwellian, rather they present attainable goals.

One of those attainable goals is a Resource Based Economy (RBE). This means that all of the earth’s resources are shared and divided equally among everyone, no money will be used anymore, and everyone will have their basic needs of food and shelter met. TVP suggests building a series of circular cities throughout the world and testing a RBE in each of them. As these new communities develop and become more widely accepted, they may very well form the basis of a new civilization, preferably through the process of evolution rather than revolution, according to TVP’s website.

I watched TVP’s latest film on YouTube “The Choice is Ours”. In Part 1, “The Determinants of Behavior”, Fresco talks about how to change warlike behavior, that many different factors determine human behavior, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, environment and culture determine behavior, genes don’t shape our behavior, the Blame Game, the environment you are raised in determines your behavior, and how events can change your mind.

In Part 2, “Money and the Federal Reserve”, they talk about how fake money really is, that it is just numbers typed on a computer screen, fiat money backed by nothing. Fractional reserve lending which is used by all of the banks in the world leads to nothing but never-ending debt. Several people including Dylan Ratigan, Karen Hudes, Abby Martin and Erin Ade were interviewed in this part. America is an oligarchy, not a democracy. Who makes the rules? Credit default swaps and derivatives still exist. “We are living in an illusion”, said Abby Martin, formerly with RT, now with TeleSur.

Then it was time for statistics. America has 5% of the world’s population, but it has 25% of the world’s prison population. So much for a “free” country. They didn’t mention that the reason for this is because almost all American prisons are now private, for-profit corporations like CCA. People go into debt with court costs, they are forced to pay to stay in jail, then have parole or probation costs on top of that. The prisoners are used for free or cheap labor. It’s all about money, nothing else.

TVP believes in the hoax of climate change. They had so-called “experts” in this film who claim sea levels are rising and that there will be more natural disasters due to climate change. This convenient scapegoat gets blamed for everything. Who needs proof or evidence?

Fresco quotes H.G. Wells, who in 1936 said, “If we don’t end war, war will end us.” Yes, that is exactly the direction we are heading in with these endless wars and provocation.

In Part 3, “Sustainability”, Fresco states that science and technology working together create abundance. No, getting rid of money will create abundance! We already have too much information, we don’t need more information or technology. TVP believes that science and technology can solve all of the world’s problems. I think science and technology has created many of the problems we have today. I also find it interesting that they use that UN Agenda 21 (now called 2030 Agenda) terminology of “sustainable”. What does sustainable really mean? It means lowering the world’s population to “manageable” levels to “conserve” the world’s resources. It completely ignores the fact that we live in a world of total abundance. There really is enough for everyone! Because of this scam called money, we have been brainwashed to think that there isn’t enough for everyone. Look at how much food is thrown away everyday worldwide because it can’t be sold, and look at how many billions of people worldwide go to bed hungry every night. If money no longer exists, nothing will ever be wasted.

Fresco went on to talk about the language of science (blueprints) and how it is universal, when money becomes obsolete, and a Resource Based Economy without the interference of money. “Our survival is based on resources, not money,” Fresco said. I say collectively for the entire human race that is true, but on an individual basis? Not true. You try living without money on this planet, you will die. That is why we need to get rid of money.

Fresco calls his concept of a new way of life “sociocyberneering”. It includes new housing systems and new transportation systems. In 1980, he and Roxanne Meadows bought 1,000 acres in south-central Florida and turned a former tomato patch into a tropical island. TVP is all about intelligent management of resources via a global survey of resources. “Under TVP, your average person will live better than a rich person does today,” claims Fresco. We must look at what we have and what we can work with. No excess, no waste. No empty houses, trains, etc. Everyone gets what they need.

TVP advocates a Total Global Systems Approach. Robots will do most of the work, no one needs to starve. Computers make decisions using sensors. Another so-called “expert” claimed that in the near future we will all be using Google self-driving cars. He claimed they are safe and have had no accidents. This is not true! I recently read an article from Reuters that said Google has had 16 accidents with their self-driving cars in the past 6 years, mostly in California. No one was hurt, but this obviously still needs work. The problem is, a computer isn’t human and cannot predict what a human driver will or won’t do. The accidents happened because the computer in the self-driving cars predicted the wrong move at the wrong time. TVP needs to do better research.

Fresco also seems to be enamored by AI, like speaking to our household machines via voice-recognition technology. I don’t need my computer to talk to me, nor do I wish to have a conversation with my toaster. TVP claims machines and computers “never make mistakes”, therefore they are more efficient than humans. Then they say one day a computer will run the government. Sounds like SkyNet to me! It will be “assigned” to take over the government. What Fresco calls cybernated centers, automated AI, will coordinate and build everything. I have to ask, what is there left for humans to do?

TVP has some good ideas, like automated canal diggers and clean energy (wind, solar, hydroelectric, no fossil fuels). These ideas will be used in their RBE cities of the future.

What would cities in a Research Based Economy look like? The first city will be a Research Center. It will be circular and pie-shaped. There will be recycling areas, air-conditioning, recreation areas, sports, clubs, gyms and art centers. People can choose a house or an apartment. No salespeople! No one is being spoiled! There will be fast free travel and free schools.

In Part 4, “A New Way of Thinking – Updated Values for a RBE”, Fresco says we need a new value system. He says scarcity causes greed. TVP wants to eliminate scarcity. Creativity is linked to outdated concepts of motivation. Motivation in a RBE means that basic needs are met, so we can all do and be something productive without having to worry about money.

“There is no such thing as Utopia,” says Fresco. He says we are living in an emergent society that is always learning and always changing. Emotions translate into deeds. He believes in extensionality, not love. He denies the existence of the soul, he only believes in the 5 senses. He denies the Bible and religion. He says we learn what our purpose is, and then another of his so-called “experts” appears and says “The universe has no purpose”. If that’s true, then why are we here?

Fresco says that in the future people will be loyal to other people and the earth, not money or corporations. Wouldn’t that be nice? He says we should all pledge allegiance to methodology, not to a flag. In the future, there will be no war, prisons or money. Well, that part sounds good.

In conclusion, TVP doesn’t offer any real solutions or say how their RBE system will be implemented so that everyone will benefit. They also don’t address how hard it will be to get rid of money. I think they place too much emphasis on science and technology and ignore human nature. It is human nature to fear change, even positive change. So yes, they will have to start slow and build RBE cities all over the world. Only problem is, the only RBE city that exists is in Venus, Florida (and that is just for show, no one actually lives there except Fresco and Meadows). Will any others ever be built? Or is TVP just a dream of the future that will never become reality?