Sunday, July 5, 2009

Jacque Fresco: Industrial Designer and Visionary

I sometimes really question the present social construct. I really don't buy the argument that capitalism is the best economic and social system out there. I guess it is the best out there for now and the lesser of all other evils; however, when monetary gain is the primary motivator used to move humanity forward, I feel it is accompanied by a significant level of greed, competition, sense of scarcity, and disconnection. These elements suppress the advancement of humanity thus rendering capitalism an inefficient system to move humanity forward.

Capitalism became the predominant social system around the 1300's and since then we have had tremendous technological and social advances but at what cost? Since then we have had about 165 wars and tyrannies in the 20th century alone, killing an estimated 180 million people. Today under the predominantly capitalistic world system, 80% of the world population is living on $1 a day. Something is seriously wrong here. Your telling me that the best the world can offer is a system that can only provide a 20% success rate? Granted, ultimately it comes down to the thoughts, spirit and morality of humanity and not so much what system is in place. If people are screwed up, the world is screwed up no matter what perfect system you have in place. However, I don't think capitalism is the answer even though the verdict is still out on its effectiveness.

Is there a more efficient system out there where we can advance without such high costs? We need a system that cultivates the desire to advance humanity opposed to cultivating the desire to achieve monetary gain. Jacque Fresco proposes such a system. He is the creator of The Venus Project a social model centered on the scientific method, eliminating inefficiencies, maximizing the human potential and implementing a resource based economy. The Venus Project states: "A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival."

Click here or the picture of Jacque Fresco above to watch a documentary on this great man. His vision is light years away from our current thinking and we will probably only to begin seeing a hint of such society thousands of years from now but I think this is the way to go. I hope you enjoy the movie!

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