The Venus Project is an organization that advocates for what founder Jacques Fresco calls a resource-based economy. The organization seeks to combine sustainable development, energy efficiency, natural resource management, and advanced automation within a global socioeconomic system based on social cooperation and scientific methodology.
Based in Venus, Florida, the Venus Project is located in a 21.5-acre (8.7-hectare) facility.[1]
History
The Venus Project was founded in 1995 as a for-profit corporation by Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows in Venus, Florida.[2]
A separate, nonprofit organization started by Fresco and his business partner Roxanne Meadows is Future By Design, founded in 2003.[3]
Currently, Fresco lectures his ideas and gives tours of The Venus Project location.[4]
Resource-based economy
Vorlage:Grammar Vorlage:Distinguish
The term 'resource-based economy' is used by the Venus Project to describe a hypothetical economic system in which, goods, services and information are free. Fresco's system is based on the idea that the earth is abundant with plentiful resources but that our current practice of what he calls 'rationing' resources through monetary methods or a price system method is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival.[5]
Automation
In a resource-based economy, most industries are automated, from food production, the production of electronics to the building of houses. The production of goods is controlled by a central computer system that calculates on the basis of human needs for given goods and services and human holds only control function. The system also provides for the development of artificial intelligence and robotics that will allow to minimize the human factor.
Energy management
The system involves the abandonment of fossil fuels for energy production to renewable energy sources such as geothermal, controlled nuclear fusion, solar, wind, wave and tidal power.[6] Currently used methods of energy production leads to slow environmental degradation and increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the abundance of deposits of fossil fuels is on the verge of exhaustion. Production of energy from renewable sources can eliminate the problem of lack of energy, problems with the transmission, as well as the problem of increased demand for energy in the future.
Jobs and unemployment
In a resource-based economy the need to work is reduced to a minimum. Most of the work is automated and fully human only acts as a control function and is responsible for the development of systems and research that have the potential to deliver even greater mental humanity. Unlike the monetary system wherein, along with automation unemployment increases, which results in the shift of workers in the service sector and the emergence of professions that do not produce any real wealth, in the economy based on resources, unemployment becomes less important and professions such as lawyer and banker, an insurance agent, marketer, advertiser, salesman, stockbroker etc. are completely eliminated.
The Zeitgeist Movement
The Venus Project concepts are featured as necessary alternatives for a future society in the documentary-style film Zeitgeist: Addendum.[7] The independently produced film premiered at the fifth annual Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles, California, on October 2, 2008.[8] The film was made available on YouTube by Peter Joseph.[9] Following its release, director Peter Joseph formed the Zeitgeist Movement, and advocated the Venus Project. In January 2011, a follow-up film entitled Zeitgeist: Moving Forward was released also promoting the Venus Project.[10]
In 2011, the two groups ended their relationship and parted ways. Speaking in an interview with London Real TV, Fresco cited personal differences between himself and Joseph, as well as lack of control over their collaborative efforts. He specifically noted his concern about the Zeitgeist Movement's professed role as the "activist arm" of the Venus Project, stating that Joseph "never consulted [him on] what the activist arm would do."[11]
Films directly connected to the Venus Project
- Welcome to the Future (1998)
- Cities in the Sea (2002)
- Self-erecting Structures (2002)
- Designing the Future (2006)
- Paradise or Oblivion (2011)
Further reading
- The Venus Project: The Redesign of Culture. Global Cyber-Visions, Venus, Fla. 1995, ISBN 0-9648806-0-1 (archive.org [abgerufen am 30. Dezember 2010]).
- The Best that Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty & War. Global Cyber-Visions, Venus, Fla. 2002, ISBN 0-9648806-7-9 (zeitgeist.pt [PDF; abgerufen am 26. März 2009]).
See also
References
External links
- ↑ Staff: The Venus Project: About. www.thevenusproject.com, abgerufen am 19. Dezember 2013.
- ↑ Detail by Entity Name: THE VENUS PROJECT, INC. In: Division of Corporations. Florida Department of State, abgerufen am 21. Januar 2014: „Florida Profit Corporation“
- ↑ Detail by Entity Name. Search.sunbiz.org, abgerufen am 15. Dezember 2013.
- ↑ Alex Newman: Zeitgeist and the Venus Project. The New American, 10. März 2011, abgerufen am 29. Januar 2014.
- ↑ Resource Based Economy. Thevenusproject.com, 1. Dezember 2013, abgerufen am 15. Dezember 2013.
- ↑ http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/technology/energy
- ↑ Vorlage:Citation
- ↑ Vorlage:Citation
- ↑ Vorlage:Citation
- ↑ TZMOfficialChannel: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (Official Release 2011). YouTube, abgerufen am 26. Januar 2014.
- ↑ Jacque Fresco – The Venus Project. London Real, 2. September 2012, abgerufen am 26. Januar 2014: „…he said 'I got the idea now. I’m going to run it my way.' I said: 'You can’t do that, I’ve spent 75 years working on this. You have to study more. So I split with him, because I’ve been working on it for so many years, and doing away with my own beliefs in order to understand what shapes human behaviour…he said that he would use TZM movement as the activist arm of TVP. But he never consulted me [on] what the activist arm would do.“