The technology nut cases in this world (Long message)

Well that was fun!

 

Voice of Truth, have you ever heard of the Venus Project?

 

Yes and Jacque Fresco is obviously a believer in Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism. Many futurists and technophiles have a distorted view of Objectivism believing that computers will bring stability and greater democracy.

But all of these financial crises and wars have shown that opposite is true. That in fact technology redefines power and concentrates it into the hands of an even greater few. Ergo, the military, financial speculators and hedge fund managers.

Just take a look at Indonesia to see how computers and the role of the Internet destroyed them and their way of life. Because they are now even poorer. The same is now happening here in the USA.

But on that note I'll leave you with an "undistorted" and in "context" Ayn Rand quote;

"In love the currency is virtue. You love people not because of what someone can do for you or you for them. But because of the virtues they have achieved in their own character.

But technology brought with it another idea. That we are components in systems, just nodes in a global network. Unfortunately systems have no virtues, only marketable commodities and consumption." ​

 

Whoa whoa whoa.

You are demonstrating your ignorance and being very presumptuous. Just because people embrace technology, does not mean they are Randian megalomaniacs. The amount of compassion and thought about others in Fresco's work is unparalleled. I would implore you to listen to Jacque Fresco speak on youtube, there is hours of material on there. You could also find out more about his application of technology, I really feel it would help you to understand in places where rygoody is coming from and hopefully give you a better angle on technology in general.

I don't mean to sound disrespectful but you seem to be acting with extreme prejudice on this issue (I think you admitted that yourself). I request that you keep this discussion open, I have been considering entering it for quite some time, though I didn't want to derail the case that rygoody was putting forth and be seen to be taking sides. I think rygoody will learn a lot in this process, too. I would recommend he learns about Jacque Fresco's contribution to humanity.

 

Hold on and don't put words in my mouth. I never called Fresco a megalomaniac nor did I say everyone that embraces technology was "Randian megalomaniac." My exact commentary was,

"Many futurists and technophiles have a distorted view of Objectivism believing that computers will bring stability and greater democracy."
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Having made the above commentary, I then dissected that belief by noting our current global situation. And I also noted the repercussions of their pursuits on the nation of Indonesia.
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I'm not prejudice at all in this situation. My opinions and values are not based on supposition but careful research and life experience.

If you read back my comments you will find a consistency in them.

1) Technology is devoid of all moral components. IE: A computer does not feel love or hate. Things without emotion have no morality or loyalty. Therefore they tend to serve the most corrupt and most powerful in a society.

2) Even if a scientist is seeking to do good with his discoveries. The resources and money required to create new technologies leads to corruption and immorality of anything produced.

3) Humanity threatens to make itself obsolete. And our society has shown that obsolete things are discarded. Intelligent machines that can create better and newer machines will eventually discard humanity.

4) The secret to humanity's success rests in societies based on craftsmanship, artisans and mechanics.
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Jacque Fresco's vision is well intended but poorly considered. He neglects certain factors. Namely that those individuals who in some way control the machines in his city of the future, will use that power to control the people of that city. And we have thousands of years of recorded history that underline this point.

The unfortunate thing of Fresco's vision is that if it became true, there will eventually be moments of strife. But unlike today, the vast majority of people will be so dependent upon the services provided that any attempt to move away would result in tragedies. Like junkies upon drugs, humans would be dependent upon machines for their daily substance.

ie: Continue to be a node in a system or suffer.

All you have to do is look at today's youth. How many are functionally illiterate, incapable of cooking for themselves, repairing their own clothes and worst... How many are fat social morons just sitting for hours in front of the computer stuffing their faces ? (From video games to downloaded movies, to sex webcam shows to 60lbs overweight )


Furthermore systems depend on conformity and standardization to function. So humans will have to modify their individual comportment to such an extent that any expression of individuality will be considered a negative trait... Perhaps even a crime.

 

You don't seem to have any idea about what you're talking about now. You really don't understand Fresco's work. It is not just about implementing machines to serve people, it is about redesigning society to produce the sort of people that can do all that for themselves and would never dream of oppressing others.

It's as I feared, to be honest, you don't seem to understand that what makes people evil and immoral is not how much technology they have access to, it is their value system. Using the technology you describe in your ideal, somebody could easily oppress others. The human race could easily still be a bunch of idiots, just like today. Go and do some research on it, then we'll talk. I really think you would find Jacque Fresco very interesting, if you actually listen to him with the aim of understanding his vision.

You have to apply future ideas to the future, you're acting as though people will always be the same, that there is something rigid and unchangable about human nature. There isn't. Our films about the future are full of war and laser battles because we take our present-day mindset and impose it on a futuristic background. We take the cowboys and indians mentality, the old empire and the rebels stories and we put them in spaceships and make the doors open automatically.

Can't you see that when you say "Continue to be a node in a system or suffer" really that applies to your version of society as well? If the carpenter doesn't make an axel for the village cart then people will condemn him. If the tree-feller never cut the wood in the first place, the carpenter wouldn't be able to do anything anyway. We all have to be nodes in a system whatever society we have, we're social creatures and that's what society is, a great machine made of individual pieces.

Please, listen to Fresco some more, you will find that the man doesn't actually leave gaps, he's covered all the bases.

 

Please note,
You're using the word "vision" as in idea or concept of a possible fruition. I have no vision, I'm assessing things on history. Your anger with me is that I don't share this dream.

I met Roxanne Meadows back in the 80s and I even toyed with the idea of seeing if we could get involved with the project. But in the end I agreed with my wife and that we could not rectify the inherent flaws of his concept of a sustainable economy.

Regardless if it's a resource based economy that has eliminated money and uses machines for the bulk of its requirements or our current human generated mess. The result will still be a corruptible and cruel society. Greed and lust have existed before the industrial revolution and even before the advent of standardized currencies.

The solution lies in accepting what Ghandi has taught us. And that is to learn to be happy with less and how to do things for yourself. When each man is able to satisfy his own needs by the fruits of his own labors. Not only does he see just how little it requires to have high standard of living; But he also gives himself value and worth. And in doing so, he learns to respect the value and the work of others.

And when a man respects the work and value of others... He becomes a man of peace and compassion.

Let me say that I won't dispute the accomplishments Fresco has made. But given a choice between embracing his concepts or the teachings of Ghandi. I'm going to choose Ghandi. Because as a course of historical record, Ghandi's methodologies have been proven. Whereas Fresco only has unproven theories.

Like all men of vision, Fresco talks a lot. But in reality, the visions of a visionary have more to do with his own personal beliefs and hopes than they do with reality. A visionary's vision is always beautiful but it also always has unrealistic expectations of the others that need to be involved.

Look I'm a lot older than you and I recognize the appeal to men like Fresco. Fresco is offering you a great vision of the future and here I'm saying to learn to make homespun cloth, learn to pick seeds in the forest and dig toilet ditches. For a young person the idea of embracing simplicity and craftsmanship appears to be a step backwards, boring and oh sooo much hardwork.

It is in the concept of hardwork where Fresco has his greatest appeal... He appeals to human laziness.

 

I don't have any anger with you. Please read my posts as if you were listening to somebody talk in a calm voice, that's how I say the words in my head as I write them. Why would I be angry over your view? I respect your view and I understand it, I do not wholly disagree with it. In fact, on a fundamental level I totally agree with it. What I meant by your vision or your ideal is when you describe a world where man weans himself off of his dependency on technology. I stand by you when you say we don't need Iphones, x-boxes, that sort of junk. All they do is distract us and waste resources. But then so does motorsport, fashion, restaurants, bars, clubs and the vast majority of jobs or entertainments going.

The really big thing you're missing is that shedding technology will in no way protect us from the market. You are describing basically a medieval scenario, where serfs work the land and risk their lives in construction work done by hand. You think nobody would try and take advantage of another person just because they had to learn farming and carpentry? Naivity at its purest.

Not the same as meeting Fresco himself but I would love to meet her myself. It would be nice to hear people that talk sense. What are these inherent flaws that you would hope to rectify?

Really, a good way to think about this is something like this: Imagine a kind, thoughtful human being who values love very highly, wants a better world for everyone and cares about his fellow man. I'm talking about you, basically. But imagine that you had a completely neutral view of technology; you were neither against it nor for it, not interested in developing it or disassociating from it. Now imagine if this theoretical version of you ruled all the nations of the world and their technology. Imagine that this person had the world at their fingertips and their word was final, absolute ruler. Would the same thing happen in Indonesia? Or would you recognise the indigenous culture and prevent the huge corporate interests from strangling the country with debt? Or take Honduras, where 1/4 children are suffering from malnutrition. Would you continue to operate under business as usual or would you divert all resources and labour, all technology in that region to stabilising the health of the population?

I know what you'd do. You know what you'd do. You'd save those people from suffering and structural violence using the technology at your fingertips. And that's exactly what we could do in the world. The problem is our power structure and our people's value system. Until they change, nothing will change. Whether we are ploughing fields by hand or allowing automated hydroponic systems to provide sustenance for us, it is the social stratification of society and the values imposed upon each stratification that will dictate how we treat one and other.

I could say:
Regardless if it's a moneyless society where each person learns a particular craft and we all work with hand tools, growing food the organic way, the result will still be a corruptible and cruel society. Greed and lust have existed before the industrial revolution and even before the advent of standardized currencies.

You see, part of the Venus project, as I alluded to before, is changing the very fabric of society to produce people who do not act with avaricious and oppressive traits. The embracing technology means that we create abundance. Abundance of energy, food, shelter, warmth basically everything a person could need. Once abundance is created, we have no reason for a monetary system. Once money is gone, that's 95% of crimes out of the window. With no social stratification, as money has gone, social cohesion becomes prevalent and there goes most of the rest of the crimes! Since machines (self repairing, I might add, foolproof!) do all the repetitive jobs like sewage and laundry, this leaves us free to heal any other wounds that society may have. And all through this, if you want to go and farm your own food you're free to do so. If you want to build archaic homes out of wood, you are free to do so. As long as you don't cut down too many trees. And don't forget that education will be of a massively high standard! School would never end for anyone, they could learn and learn and learn, as much as they want, whenever they want!

So how, then, did we end up like this? Surely at points in human history many people were happy with less and did things for themselves. They all lived from the fruits of their own labours and gave themselves worth and respect and gave it to others through this. How, from this way of life that Ghandi states will make men of peace and compassion, did we not end up as a race of people of peace and compassion? How was it that when people had only hand tools, simple mechanical devices, natural building materials et al, they still managed to wage war against each other, they still managed to rape and pillage, steal and accuse? Why did their simple mechanical tools not teach them to be good people?

I don't think you've thought this through properly.

Not sure what you mean by that.

Replace Fresco with Voice of Truth. People were saying the same sorts of things about Ghandi in his time. Also, another massive facet in Fresco's vision is that he says himself "the amount of this and that (whatever the subject is) is not decided by Fresco, or that guy, or that guy. It's decided by how much is needed, what the requirement actually is." He also openly states that his vision is not perfect, he doesn't expect it to be. Things can always be improved and people will always have better and better ideas. Another thing he has considered that makes his vision that much better.

Appeals to human laziness, eh? Again, you demonstrate nothing but your ignorance on the subject. Once all the menial tasks are done by machines, humans are FREE to do what they want. Art, culture, science, social responsibilities! Exploring space, writing concertos, caring for the sick, tending the gardens, saving the species previously endangered by man and otherwise fixing the world and progressing human society! And we will be conditioning our young to seek pleasure in bettering themselves and the world around them, not trying to get away with doing as little as possible to get by like this society teaches!

It's like rygoody said, a very poignant little phrase, IMO: You expect people to behave like robots. Come on, leave all this robotic, repetetive work to the machines! They're powered by solar power and made from recycled skyscrapers! Come and make love in the fields and philosophise about the meaning of our existence, there's nothing for us to complain about anymore! And when we get back home we can check out the designs for the new lander that will take mankind to Europa, I had an idea for a telescopic conveyor that they might appreciate!

The hydroponics will allow us to farm in the most efficient way possible without destroying biodiversity or cutting down more trees. Our processing of hemp cellulose will produce an endless supply of clean plastics that we can extrude as whole abodes for those that need them! Our gathering of solar, wind and geothermal will give us clean enrgy for millenia! Our nano-bots will be able to remove all cancerous tissue! Our entire-world-reaching computer network will give us access to the whole of mankinds knowledge and the newest information as soon as it's discovered!

Think of the greatness we would forsake to return to... to what? A life of endlessly replacing wooden houses that are rotting through, cutting down the little remaining forests as we go. Once again being at the mercy of nature as a drought decimates a region's crops and out of desperation they steal food from the next region who did not have any surplus to share. Once again knowing that that cough you have or the lesions on your leg will lead only to a slow and painful demise, even for the strongest and well-meaning among us.

Also, my greatest ambition and a voyage that I hope to make soon, is to forsake all in this society and strike out into the little remaining wilderness of the world and live with the land. Studying picking seeds in the forest, digging toilet ditches and primitive crafts has been a big part of my life recently and I am fascinated by it. Once again, you seem to be acting a leetle bit prejudiced in your view. My age has nothing to do with this, I can see how childish most men that are older than me are in today's society.

And please, VoT, like I said, I don't have any anger towards you. I have a great deal of respect and love for you, which I expressed before and I won't take it back, you're stuck with it. I think you're a wonderful person and I wish there could be more lawyers like you. I wish there were more professional graduates like you. Hell, I wish there were just more people like you. Please don't read any of what I have written as aggressive or attacking you in any way, I don't mean any of it to sound vindictive or disrespectful. But don't hold back on me, either. Give it to me straight.

 

The Venus project was born out of the same ideas of cybernetic and ecologist philosophies and movements of the 60s and early 70s. Fresco owes a lot of his ideas to men like George Price. He's proposing nothing new, there was many many men such as himself and I've explored most of them.

Having said that,
To build the Venus project will require massive financial resources and commitments. And in return for these resources, Fresco is saying that he is going to create a world without money. In other words what Fresco is promising is no return on investment.

Without an ROI he can only solicit for help and donations. But can you imagine can you imagine Bill Gates or Steve Jobs donating the software and hardware without strings attached? Or Rupert Murdoch providing the information backbone and not wanting to make a dime from it?

No government, bank or businessman will ever sign up to project without an ROI or seeks to put them out of business.

His only hope lies in getting the masses of common everyday people to sign up to volunteer to build his vision. And that's not going to happen either, just look at New Orleans. They can't get enough people, money or materials to rebuild the homes destroyed after hurricane Katrina.

Having said that here is the ugly truth behind Fresco the visionary.

Fresco and Meadows have been at this since the 60s. He has had many investors in the past and duped them for their money by leaving town and creating new legal entities. He hates all things spiritual, bases his vision on Marxist ideologies and makes it very clear that it's his vision and it will be the way he wants it or not at all.

The Venus project itself was formed out of the original investor money from the now defunct Sociocyberneering. First he created a new legal entity, Venus Project Inc. And then proceeded to sell the land and assets from Sociocybereering to purchase a new tract of land. These actions effectively removed all say his investors had in his vision and no recourse to the money they gave him.

Roxanne Meadows is the president of Venus project inc. According to the last available data the company only earns about 110k to 140k per year. I hesitate to call Fresco a conman but like all visionaries, he talks a good game but his dream inherently flawed, if for no other reason than he himself is inherently flawed.

 

Ok, it seems to me that you're talking about something which is beside the point. It is not Fresco I'm interested in but his designs and visions put forth.

Except from wikipedia:

Again, what you are saying demonstrates how little you know about the man and his motives. Fresco doesn't claim to be presenting anything new. He himself says "There's no such thing as a smart human being" meaning that no ideas are really new, they're just a mish-mash of what we have learned before, just a progression defined by a culmination of the ideas of others.

And again, the same could be said about the system that you advocate. You are offering no ROI, no incentive for anybody to back your ideas. The ROI on Fresco's design is betterment of mankind, a society that's improved in all areas. The ROI is the ending of all wars, poverty, famine, bullshit politics, health damaging jobs for human beings and all the other problems humanity currently faces. There is no better ROI, except for people whose value system is centered around money and a higher status than those around them but obviously these people are "unsane" and otherwise ill-educated.

This film might give you an idea of what that money you mention was spent on:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxe7tlr-2I4


So, can we drop the speculation on Jacque Freco's character and all the things that stand in the way of his vision coming to fruition and return to the issue? I don't feel you responded to the questions and facets of the issue raised in my last post.

 

Anything that has no reasonable chance of becoming a reality is not a vision, it's a fantasy.

So I'm afraid the answer is no.


In as much as I give Fresco credit for his accomplishments in getting people to rethink the global situation. In the 70s there were hundreds of similar men saying similar things and he unfortunately is one of them. Whereas most were content to return to the daily grind of life when the theories they were building their visions upon had been proven wrong. Fresco continued on and I think that speaks volumes about his commitment. But sadly his vision will never happen and therefore it's just a fantasy.

• The concept of self-stabilizing systems was effectively proven fallacy by the 1980s.

Arthur Townsley's theories of a self-regulating and self-stabilizing were proven false. There was no hidden natural law operating as an underlying mechanism that regulated nature (including humans) as a machine. As such nature and humanity remain unpredictable. Therefore disproving Jay Wright Forrester's belief that within every system, the actions we undertake create consequences that we can not foresee but computers would be able to calculate.
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• The promise of the Californian ideology that came to a crashing end after 2008.

Bankers and politicians were convinced that it was computers that had brought the stability to the system. The machines created mathematical models for passing out the loans and then hedged and balanced so that there was no risk. But as we know in 2008 Greenspan's vision of a new stability and Gordon Brown's promises of no more boom and bust economics came to an end.

They had promised a new type of market based democracy that would be stable. But again and again it led to the opposite, chaos and instability. And the myth that computers and machines would produce stability by freeing us from all the old forms of control was destroyed.

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As for your commentary on the Return On Investment being the betterment of humanity. That has always been the ultimate goal but big business and government aren't concerned with that. Unfortunately it's big business and governments that control 98% of the resources of this planet.

As I've often pointed out. In sub-Sahara Africa, the overwhelming majority of problems stem from lack of sewage facilities and clean water. We've had plumbing and toilets since the epic of the Roman empire. And it's estimated that as little as 50 billion dollars would change the lives almost everyone located in that area of Africa. But Rockfellar said it best in the 90s,

"All you need to do is let us install pay toilets and prepaid water meters and we'll have the job done in no time. "

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Since you can't convince big business and you certainly can't convince governments. The only thing that remains is to convince the public there is nothing these two groups can do for them that they can't do for themselves.

So let me say as poor as India is,
When you leave the Indian cities and visit its interior. The people are well fed, highly skilled and enjoy much higher stress free standard of living. And that's because they practice what Ghandi taught them.

They make their own clothes, gather their seeds from the forest and trade them amongst themselves, etc. I've even seen them use their own poop not only for fertilizer but fuel.

Personally,
I would like live out my retirement in India but that would be too far away from my grandchildren.

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That is all totally beside the point. These concepts of Townsley's and the end of the Californian ideology have nothing to do with what I was talking about or very much to do with Fresco's vision. You're just talking about the financial system and its handlers, not what we were discussing.

Those people in the interior of India you speak about are completely at the mercy of thier government and whichever corporations they might be involved with, their way of life could be interrupted in two shakes of a lamb's tail if big bsiness fancies their forests for the resources or the people themselves for workers. Again, though, this is not the issue and beside the point.

We wre discussing something to do with technology and ethics.

 

My Auntie lived in India for 9 years...as far as seeing "well fed" and "highly skilled stress free" people living outside of the cities, I can't say that she said that was the norm. Many women still suffer terribly and as for practicing what Ghandi taught them, while we was a nationalist and achieved freedom for India, lets not forget that he was infavour of the caste system...

 

We're all at the mercy of governments. Which is why that I, like Ghandi, have grown to hate the state.

On that note, I'm not going any further with these 1970s Star Trek based fantasies. So either you win or I win or we agree to disagree. I'm an old man and I when I agreed to let my son connect the Internet to my home, I thought I might make some sort of difference. Unfortunately, I'm not and I'm really starting to hate this machine.

I started volunteering at a soup kitchen and the results of my efforts not only make a difference and but are appreciated. Furthermore the time I spend on here 2 finger typing my responses are taking time away time spent with my lady friend. And she is far more cuddly and beautiful than a computer.

Good luck to you and all the best.

 

I ain't talking about no star trek. So what was the overall point of your posting of this thread?

To dictate to us what we should do and how we should think?

 

bullshit. That is it. Voice of Truth is just an old reactionary that can't see how technology has even been able to give him the ability to speak. The Wheel, the printer, god damn it, give up your god damn clothes!!!! Everything is because of technology. Get rid of your lighting, get rid of your ability to refrigerate.
VOT wants to live in a fantasy world...but in that world there would be no vaccine for polio....god damn it I've had enough of these idiots. Fuck off and live in your idealistic world...you wouldn't survive two weeks. Oh, and nice one to blame your son for giving you the internet...you fucking victim!!!!!! Grow some balls. Don't blame others for your inability to change.

 

Gentlemen! Lighten up! You are so into disagreeing that you have gotten off the path. Sadly, I do not think that any of us common citizens will ever be availed the opportunity to be immortal - we're not going to get that far. There are wheels that were set in motion decades ago for plans that include solely the extremely wealthy "elite" (as they call themselves). So, it would behoove both of you to stop your petty squabbling and re-direct your focus to helping us all pool our thoughts and ideas towards figuring out what we can do; as a huge group; to put a halt to the plans the wealthy elitists have in mind for us. From information I've learned, one thing that the elitists are afraid of, is being exposed and having us all find out about them, because we outnumber them by far. You ever heard of the group called the Illuminati? Do a YouTube search on them, then come back here and let's figure out what we can do.

 

I was hoping I could have a reasoned debate in this thread but I guess not. Find out what we can do about the illuminati? At this rate I'm going to fucking join them.

 

Immortality simply does not exist and never will exist. And no amount of money and power over others will make it so. Having children doesn't indefinitely extend your life, it only creates theirs. Which also come with limitations and sometimes lead to shortening yours. Having gobs of money doesn't really lead to anything but the envy of others over your wealth. And may lead to a shorter life span for you and those you "supposedly" love if those that are envious seek to usurp that wealth or power. Ask all the pharoahs and other wealthy world leaders that met untimely ends and had their families wiped out.

When will man ever accept that. The plant and animal kingdoms already do. Instead they put their resources and efforts into evolution and adaptation. And they will exist when we've annihilated each other.

 

I am thinking you were never invited to join them, and your entrance will be barred before you ever get close to their enclave.

The question should never be us against them, or them against us or even security....it should always ever only be about basic survival. As long as you still have access to the basic necessities of life you will survive. When you sell or sacrifice those necessities for something else, say "security" or "the promise of wealth", you risk your very existence with very little hope of any guarrantee. You make a poorly reasoned bargain.