The Venus Project

Posted by Misconstruct on Nov. 29, 2008, 1:53 p.m.

It's the change we need. Our technology has evolved significantly, now it's time for our society to follow.

Watch this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

Then look here:

http://www.thevenusproject.com/

http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/

Money is a burden which, through technology, we can get rid of.

I urge you to get involved in this revolution.

Edit: I figure I'd give this blog another run through the Recent Blogs. I'll put my pokemans back up after this gets pushed off the list, if I don't just write an entirely new entry.

Comments

PY 15 years, 11 months ago

Yeah, it's to be a twat, but are you going to stop me having them?

I'm-a run them in billion-sli, k?

KaBob799 15 years, 11 months ago

I'm sure if they did something like that there would be limits on how much you could get, maybe not a limit of 1 per person but certainly nobody would be getting 10 cars or anything.

Misconstruct 15 years, 11 months ago

KaBob is right. At the very least, you'd probably only be able to order one at a time, with some upper limit determined by computer based on resources available and population size.

s 15 years, 11 months ago

Being efficient can be rewarded, just as inefficiency can be punished. It is a matter of modifying the economic environment to adapt, not to throw it all away and start with a new system

And if the world converted to communism, we wouldn't be able to maintain cars for everyone. They're not that important, since while revolutionizing the economy you could replace all road with rail and have intercity travel be by bike and subway

And while we're at it, we could lower the population (Which, since production is maintained by robots, will have a good surplus of useless people) by ordering every person to kill another person

Misconstruct 15 years, 11 months ago

@s: You seem to be missing the point. The very thing our economy is based on, the monetary system, does not work. Watch the video, as it explains why money doesn't work.

And The Venus Project isn't a project to convert the world to Communism.

s 15 years, 11 months ago

Perhaps your view of communism is tainted by the abusers of the concept. But if you're implying it isn't, then you're saying that there will be people who are denied resources? You're going to wipe out what divides who gets more than the other and still one person will get more than another?

Money is a form of standardizing the value of two different products. It can be extended to give services material value. To set material value to 0 is to assume that there is a limitless supply. Just because you could extract an infinity supply to meet demands doesn't mean you can extract from a finite supply to meet demands

Cesar 15 years, 11 months ago

I think that will actually reduce our efficiency. Let's say there are infinite resources. Instead of actually working hard to get the same resources, they do naught to get the same results. Watch Wall-E to see what would happen if we had everything handed to us. There would be no further technological advancements since there would be no need to advance. We would be stuck in the same time for ever. When the resources do run out, there will be no skills on earth. We'd be screwed.

I don't know about you but, if I did something revolutionary, I would want recognition. If everything was free, as you said there would be no reason to actually release a new, unique creation.

Misconstruct 15 years, 11 months ago

@s: Okay, I see it's communism now. But the point of The Venus Project isn't to make people useless or expendable. It's to automate the jobs that can be automated so that people are freer to do what they want. Regarding transportation, mass transit would be the primary form. MagLev trains could potentially achieve speeds of 4000+ mph, meaning one could travel across the world in a few hours. Or travel across the continent for lunch.

@RawrSpoon: Yeah, I see where you're coming from. But do you honestly think people are going to stop working just because they're taken care of? Would all the Game Maker users quit making games? Would all the directors quit making films? Would all the architects quit designing new buildings? Would NASA quit reaching for the stars?

I think not. Automated production would allow more people to pursue research and education.

Oh, and "When the resources do run out, there will be no skills on earth. We'd be screwed." can be shortened to "When the resources do run out, we'd be screwed.", which is why we need to automate jobs so more people can work towards inhabiting other celestial bodies, among several other things we ought to work towards.

s 15 years, 11 months ago

@Rawr=Open source proves you wrong

Also, they're being a bit idealistic. No laws? No prisons? People will always abuse people. Money isn't the sole cause

The ideas seem extreme. Money is a system of resource rationing at the core. This core should not be removed. The energy proposals could be reached with a proper modification of the current system

The issue of the monetary system they are speaking out against is that there are exceptional cases of momentum in the system that have outweighed the power of the many. This no longer allows the system to be self organizing

I've been reading Future Shock, it also notes that education has an issue of rote by noting it an artifact of industrial society which needs to be updated for superindustrial society

Misconstruct 15 years, 11 months ago

@s: Most crimes are based on greed. The only ones I can think of that aren't based on greed are rape, assault and some murders. While I see why one might think that because there would be no law that rape, assault and murder would increase drastically, I think it would be counterbalanced by the fact that people in general would be happier.

Also, resources would still be rationed more or less, but they'd be rationed to their various uses by a computer, thus eliminating the greed attached to money.