Understanding The Venus Project and RBE

[Armitage]

Hey all.
You may notice that there is no introduction. Maybe there will be one, when I have time. But I'm on other skeptical forums as well, so I doubt I'll socialize here that much. However, I am hungry for other people's feedback to the Venus Project. And I want a proper one.
I know there is this thread, but nobody there actually knew what is TVP and they instead chose to discuss racism. Their choice, mine is to start a new thread.

What mistakes people often make when learning about RBE?
- They think they can understand it off the bat. The world is full of things you need to study for a semester or two on a university before you understand them. Science is complicated and TVP is based on science, lots and lots of it.

Here is the intellectual ancestry of TVP. You'll surely notice Michael Shermer or Bucky Fuller.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/download/recommended-books-and-dvds
The truth is, scientists, engineers and philosophers, those who do not respect human opinion, should be enthusiastic about TVP. Other areas about which TVP is revolutionary, is the unique look at how technology will impact social phenomena. Barbarians of today see the future full of barbarians bashing each other with hi-tech lasers and drones at a distance. That is because we are still barbarians today. We are not yet civilized and can not be, the current environment does not allow that. It does not give conditions that reward civilized behavior. We need a redesign of the environment, of the way we live, perhaps even of our language. All of these are ancient and outdated.

- You may think our technology is today still not good enough to make it work.
It has been actually, for quite a while and is still improving.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/technology

- If you think you found a flaw in TVP or RBE, think again. This stuff is in development for 70 years and most likely all your concerns have been already answered hereand here. Many video replies refuted so-called refutations of Libertarians and other opinion-havers.

- People have two fundamental biases against RBE that they leave without questioning.
Firstly, HUMAN NEEDS ARE INFINITE AND INSATIABLE.
This is not a statement by a scientist, not even a social scientist, psychologist or neurologist, but a 16th century philosopher, Rene Descartes. Descartes was wrong on many things, including this one.
A 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow suggested a hierarchy of needs. When lower needs are satisfied, the higher needs prevail and people move on to satisfy them. There is one very important detail - the higher needs on the pyramid are not physiologic or material, they are psychologic. The higher needs are not limited by material scarcity. Even if they were "infinite", they can be satisfied.
Hence, if an infrastructure can be built to sustain basic needs and offer abundant free capacity for the higher cultural needs, scarcity ceases to exist.

- Secondly, SCARCITY OF RESOURCES IS AN INEVITABLE AND FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTY OF THE MATERIAL WORLD
As Libertarians know, resources are not firmly set. We discover new resources and new ways to tap the old ones. Even if they are finite, all that matters if they are above our needs and if we can use them sustainably. Furthermore, where was scarcity during the 20th century? Humanity had more than enough resources to launch a worldwide war, a colossal waste of resources with no improvement for living whatsoever. Then humanity had even more resources to start arms race, making useless weaponry with hope of never using it. Today there is more spending on weapons than during the Cold war. Plus all the other industries - entertainment, pharmacology, food industry and so on, they are all wasteful. It is an obvious fact that Earth has a plenty of resources, it is our culture and infrastructure that wastes them so vehemently, that they seem scarce. This is not the scarcity that economists always worked with, this is a new, artificial and unnecessary scarcity, that exists only to push money around.
The actual scarcity was long ago removed by science and efficiency of technologic production of goods.

- Another mistake that critics of RBE make, is thinking that RBE is an ism. Social-ism, fasc-ism, anarch-ism, not even capital-ism, none of these have anything to do with RBE. People say that RBE is this or that ism, without even knowing what is that particular ism and what is RBE and why one is the other. They are not interested in facts, but in being right and marginalizing opposition. They could not even define what does ism, or ideology mean and how do we tell that something is not an ism. An easy way to spot it are simple statements like "RBE is just another *******ism" (no explanation follows).

- Because people are so used to thinking in isms, be it atheism or anything else, they can not comprehend something not being an ism. However, there are such things. Above all, science and engineering is not an ism. It does not rely on human opinion. It is a methods.

- People often think that TVP is about pretty buildings and trains. No, these are designed only to give its arguments some weight. TVP is based on philosophy, engineering and science. Both natural and humanistic sciences. Jacque Fresco did in his time extensive experiments with people and training of animals and insects. He affirmed that human and animal behavior is dependent on the environment and if environment changes, behavior changes. Thus he disproved the myth of unchangeable, violent and originally sinful human nature. Our environment is violent, people are just adaptive. Fresco further works with linguistics, semantics, noetics and skepticism.
If you are rational people and skeptics, Fresco would be a great ally to you - he extensively speaks about belief in woo and against religions. In his times he explored the claims and exposed psychics. He is essentially a James Randi of sociology, economy and engineering.

This guy is actually pretty awesome.

- Critics of RBE often make mistake of not using their brain and science or presuming that in RBE people are not allowed to use their brain and science. They make up a "problem" that a good idea would solve easily and say this is a problem in RBE. Then a defendant of RBE comes, says the obvious good idea as a solution and time is wasted. Let's just say RBE is a redesign of infrastracture that actually makes implementation of all good ideas much, much easier than it is today. Today when you have a good idea, you must pass the market test to sell it, make money, sell some more, make some more money.... Somewhere along the way money become more important than the good idea and the good idea slows down its development into a slightly better new iPhone per year.


- The economic calculation problem of Mises and Hayek. It is a criticism of central economic planning, arguing that centralized socialistic planning can not efficiently allocate resources.
Which is all good and well, because RBE is not centralized, nor socialistic. RBE is not a centralized market with scarcity, it is a de-centralized pool of abundance.

RBE eliminates scarcity by providing production capacity on demand so people may fulfill their wishes as they see fit. Of course, the infrastructure must be first build to make this possible. Scarcity may not occur in the necessities of life. If scarcity occurs anywhere, it would be in some rather exotic projects, while the cities are still equipped with R & D university centers (globally cooperating) to find alternate solutions to any material scarcity.

For example, in RBE we can divide all demand into three cathegories.
- Low elasticity demand - society falls apart without it. But TVP is designed to meet it inherently in the infrastructure, producing abundance of food, housing, education, medicine, etc...
-Cultural demand - culture falls apart without it. But TVP does not come out of nowhere, it is obviously based on today's resources and private sector production facilities and products that we already know. It makes sure that the production is cybernated - that is, mechanized, automated, connected to the global digital network (both sensors and demand) and connected to the automatic transport infrastructure. Furthermore, the products must undergo rationalization (fewer labels, maximal technologically possible quality & quantity). That includes favorite foods...
- Special demand - besides the cultural demand the cities in TVP must contain a large capacity of universal production lines, such as 3D printers, robots and CNC, available to everyone to produce any product they want - self-designed or chosen from the net database. Today such on-demand products would be extremely expensive or very difficult to make, but every city of TVP must have this R&D capacity available to everyone. It would be however usually used to improve and update the city infrastructure according to new discoveries.

All of these capacities can be expanded by a pool of machines that can produce and assemble machines of the same or different kind. Along the way the needs of a city will be soon met and exceeded and changed, so old production lines will be disassembled or modernized. Nothing will ever remain the same and probably the consumer basket will soon vary considerably from the 20th century consumer basket.
This is just a "good idea", one of many possible solutions. The beauty of RBE is also in flexibility, it allows to try and directly use any good idea, it does not stand and fall with a single idea. The point is, there is no problem. No fundamental objection. Our technology is good enough to create abundance, everything else is just a question of digital demand, automatic production and designed infrastructure. Technology allows people to choose what they want directly, without market and prices. Technology can be programmed to keep statistics supply a demand with a reasonable margin even without direct orders.
In 21st century our science allows us to build cities and industries as whole integrated systems, overcome scarcity, keep track of demand and get rid of money and all money-related duties.

- People think that economy, laws, weapons or politics solve problems, that such solutions are satisfactory.
This is simply not true - not only they never solve problems, they bring even more problems by themselves. Killing people is not a solution, it is a failure of all efforts to find a real solution. Neither is electing people. Politicians don't know how to solve problems.

Problems are solved only by direct applications of all scientific knowledge and by continuous broadening that knowledge. If you don't believe, ask black plague and scurvy. Enlightenment era thinkers thought that natural science will bring utopia. Didn't happen, not because the natural science wasn't valid, but because we were ignorant in social sciences. OTOH, people could have best social sciences and live in peace and harmony, but still would be regularly decimated by plagues and harsh winters.
Similarly, the economic science is just as valid in war prisoner camp to improve conditions trading cigarettes as a currency for rat meat and soap stolen from the officers. Economy does not remove scarcity, it ust spreads it around to minimize harm from it.

RBE removes scarcity, gives the citizens instruments to produce what they personally desire and eliminates scarcity together with pseudo-solutions of economy, laws and politics. The only restriction is the measured carrying capacity of environment.

 

[Vivre]

I know there is this thread, [The Venus Project-Bullshit?]

I didn't ~ so thanks ~ it is well worth to be checked out first :idea:

 

[Armitage]

I know there is this thread, [The Venus Project-Bullshit?]

I didn't ~ so thanks ~ it is well worth to be checked out first :idea:

No, it isn't. Very few people there have any idea what TVP is about. I find the philosophy of TVP flawless and compelling. Nobody actually explained why they don't. An idea should be defended by someone interested, nobody else apparently can demand a fair hearing.

 

[Prolescum]

First of a series of questions:

Why isn't the Venus Project a utopia?

 

[Visaki]

No, it isn't. Very few people there have any idea what TVP is about. I find the philosophy of TVP flawless and compelling. Nobody actually explained why they don't. An idea should be defended by someone interested, nobody else apparently can demand a fair hearing.

I couldn't really care less if the philosophy of TVP is in your oppinion "flawless and compelling". The philosophy of communism was flawless and compelling if you ask the right people. Hell, the philosophy of both even might be objectively flawless and compelling. I'm more interested if it is feasable in the real world. Admittingly I have very little knowledge about TVP, only thing I remember is the "no more money" part (and I'm not even sure I got that right). I have no idea, for example, what RBE stands for.

P.S. Welcome to the forum.

 

[Armitage]

First of a series of questions:

Why isn't the Venus Project a utopia?

Good question. It has #100 on the FAQ list.

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The word utopia is described as an ideal or perfect society. Ideals and perfection have a finality to it, inability to improve. TVP is something different. It does not claim to be perfect, only better than what we have now. It does not claim to be futuristic, only systematically and intelligently using the technologies and science (both natural and social) that we have now. And it avoids any kind of finality, a fundamental property of TVP is a great capacity for further development. For example a city in TVP is just another device, like a computer and can be developed and replaced to be better, just like computers. There is no ideal computer, their abilities double ever so often according to Moore's law.

Living in such a society will inevitably bring cultural shift that would make most of us feel like a grandma on a beach full of girls in thongs and bikini, with their butts sticking out. Yet even then there is no finality to it. Culture can develop indefinitely and individually and can not be predicted. This is why TVP is only a platform for development, both technical and cultural. I see a great merit in the idea that we can only safely handle as much technology as cultured, civilized we are. Today we are not cultured. But in the future people might be so well educated and autonomous, that they might work even with powerful technologies and energies without misusing them. If technologic development goes forward so fast, why couldn't there be a similar ethical development?

 

[Armitage]

No, it isn't. Very few people there have any idea what TVP is about. I find the philosophy of TVP flawless and compelling. Nobody actually explained why they don't. An idea should be defended by someone interested, nobody else apparently can demand a fair hearing.

I couldn't really care less if the philosophy of TVP is in your oppinion "flawless and compelling". The philosophy of communism was flawless and compelling if you ask the right people. Hell, the philosophy of both even might be objectively flawless and compelling. I'm more interested if it is feasable in the real world. Admittingly I have very little knowledge about TVP, only thing I remember is the "no more money" part (and I'm not even sure I got that right). I have no idea, for example, what RBE stands for.

P.S. Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome. Well, I'd disagree here. What is the difference between the philosophy of Communism and science? Why one failed terribly and the other is the best thing our civilization has? There has to be a difference, or we may not be sure about anything, the hobo next door might be a genius and have the best ideas and the most intelligent scientist might be secretly planning to destroy the world. So where is the difference?

The difference is, Communism is not a philosophy. Philosophy as such is concerned with True, Certain, Necessary and Objective things. It has universal validity. OTOH, Communism is an ideology. An ideology is a very relative, limited claim about reality that may be true within some limits. But Communists do not know and don't care where these limits are, they think Communism applies in all circumstances. If only everyone were Communists like them, there would be no other circumstances, actually. The bloody history is full of intelligent people with good ideas, who applied them too broadly and thus caused much harm. Communism may seem a good idea because it is internally consistent, but internal consistency is never enough for truth.

OTOH, the scientific method is directly supported by philosophy. Philosophy (noetics) proved that it is possible to have a valid, objective knowledge about the world. And The Venus Project is a direct, systematic application of science to solve all kinds of problems. It does not say what the solution is, it says, let' s make a test and let the result of that test decide. An ideology cuts only one way, saying "A is good and B is bad" or "B is good and A is bad", but a philosophy must be universal, allowing intelligent use of knowledge at all circumstances.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

You claim that it is more than just pretty and futuristic looking trains and architecture, but I contests that it is even less than that because they are certainly not futuristic but more akin to a 80's rendition of what would be the future.
Although the idea itself might have noble intentions, it is doomed to fail from its inception. It not only fails to address as it refuses to addresses a quite essential problem that has been ignored trough the entire human history (and it is still being ignored) that has been the source of all conflicts. That we are human beings.

Humans are heterotrophic and sexually reproducing species with wants and desires that go way beyond food and sex.

There are 2 ways to get food, you either hunt it or farm it, both of which require very laborious work. You can argue that machines can make the task much less laborious, which is true, but machines need to be made to. The more work the machine saves when it use, the more work it takes to produce it, someone has got to do it. To have a minimally competent engineer you have to start his/hers education almost as soon as they are able to speak and they only finish by the time they are in their mid twenties. Its an herculean and desperate task and they even haven't produce anything of value yet (and that is if that they even manage at all, most people don't). Not everyone can be an engineer, but now the problem does put itself in a society where you are provided for virtually for free, then why should you choose to waste 25 years of your life with much sacrifice and do laborious tasks when you can be essentially provided for without effort? If nothing is done you are doomed within a generation.
You can now say, well we can implement an incentive system, the bigger your efforts, the bigger the payoff for those efforts. Now this not only means that there can not be equality in society but now human greed comes into play. The harder you work the better the payoff, and if you want to compete in order to get the benefits of work (and not be trampled by inflation) you have to work even harder than everybody else, so now there is an escalation where people compete to their limits, effectively producing more laborious and stressful lives than ever before (ending with a society that mirrors the ones we have today). A person that can do complicated things is better than a person that can only do simple things, and it is thus more valuable. Work will always be hard.

Humans are born and eventually die, in order to sustain a population new people must be born, and this is an unstable balancing act. On average each human couple must produce a minimal of 2 offspring in order to maintain a population. But the minimal is not enough because:
1. Not everyone is capable of reproducing
2. The birth of either male or female is random, so some unevenness should be expected in human peer bonding.
Even if the imbalance is small, this must inevitably causes a competition to find a mate, plus some mates are better than others, so competition is inevitable and this causes social tension.
So now the problem puts itself, who are the ones who are going to have more than 2 kids in order to compensate for this unbalance? And more importantly who gets to decide?
Now for this to work, not only there can not be reproductive freedom as it also needs to exist privileged families (and this causes major social conflict). Now if there is reproductive freedom, what prevents societies from either fail to adapt to increasingly lower populations or to simply increase exponentially. The later is more likely than the former, because people who tend to have less kids will produce less people for the next generation while people who tend to have more kids will produce more people that tend to have more kids. You only have to look into the world to see that this is indeed the case.
Now this produces a very obvious problem that TVP has refused to address seriously, resources are finite, and no matter how good you are at tapping at them they will eventually run out. Our society is currently living way beyond its capability, and the sources of energy we are using today will run out (and the sad thing is I will live to see it). And when the inevitable happens to a society living beyond its capabilities, people will die. Man have been fighting for land and resources since the dawn of times, technology may postpone conflict, but conflict is inevitable and now the technology shows the other face by making conflict more ruthless. Knowing human nature, talks of permanent peace are a fools errand, war is inevitable, always has been, always will be. Plus even in our current world, detrimental ideologies carves the world apart setting them for conflict even before resources are strained to braking point, a progressive future is still a major uncertainty. It is yet unknown if humanity will destroy itself. That can be averted, permanent peace is possible, but not without major sacrifices that people are simply not willing to make. And yet it is this ideologies that you must conquer if you want to have a shot at TVP.
The world is extremely complicated and the TVP is to naive.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

What is the difference between the philosophy of Communism and science? Why one failed terribly and the other is the best thing our civilization has? There has to be a difference, or we may not be sure about anything, the hobo next door might be a genius and have the best ideas and the most intelligent scientist might be secretly planning to destroy the world. So where is the difference?

The difference is, Communism is not a philosophy.

Sorry, communism is very much a philosophy despite your protest. The difference is that science doesn't care if it does good or causes harm, it only cares for the cold reality, it admits that it can be wrong, it doesn't tell you what to do.
Oh and most importantly communism is socio-political and science isn't.

 

[Armitage]

You claim that it is more than just pretty and futuristic looking trains and architecture, but I contests that it is even less than that because they are certainly not futuristic but more akin to a 80's rendition of what would be the future.

TVP is Fresco's lifetime project and some designs are decades old. As the technologies progressed over the years, we can do many things much better than then. Which actually works in favor of TVP:

Firstly, even back then TVP has been technically possible even with the primitive trains and secondly, TVP does not pose any obstacle to technologic innovation, as the current monetary economy. In monetary economy we can't afford to quickly replace all the trains with better trains, in TVP this is much easier. In the current economy we try to save money at the expense of energy and resources, in TVP there are no money, no mechanical human labor and efficient use of resources is one of priorities, while energy is based on renewable sources on abundant scale.

Although the idea itself might have noble intentions, it is doomed to fail from its inception. It not only fails to address as it refuses to addresses a quite essential problem that has been ignored trough the entire human history (and it is still being ignored) that has been the source of all conflicts. That we are human beings.

Humans are heterotrophic and sexually reproducing species with wants and desires that go way beyond food and sex.

That would be a question #79 and #80, Isn't this against Human Nature? For further study of psychology and human behavior, see the recommended books.

Show More Hide

{TEXT}

There are 2 ways to get food, you either hunt it or farm it, both of which require very laborious work. You can argue that machines can make the task much less laborious, which is true, but machines need to be made to. The more work the machine saves when it use, the more work it takes to produce it, someone has got to do it.

The truth is, today we have a minimum of farmers and not many more engineers and even less engineers engaged in a meaningful work. Most engineers design inferior products designed to make money, be cheap, incompatible with competitive devices and break down soon. But even so our society is highly technologic. There is no lack of engineers.
Furthermore, firstly many commercially available technologies can be used in TVP (examples here) and Fresco is an industrial designer himself, he already did the work of making the technologies fit each other. One of works the TVP people do is getting his designs into AutoCAD. Furthermore, in TVP anyone can improve upon these designs.

To have a minimally competent engineer you have to start his/hers education almost as soon as they are able to speak and they only finish by the time they are in their mid twenties. Its an herculean and desperate task and they even haven't produce anything of value yet (and that is if that they even manage at all, most people don't). Not everyone can be an engineer, but now the problem does put itself in a society where you are provided for virtually for free, then why should you choose to waste 25 years of your life with much sacrifice and do laborious tasks when you can be essentially provided for without effort? If nothing is done you are doomed within a generation.

Have you ever visited MIT, CalTech, Silicon Valley or Google HQ? These people are nerds. Their brains are grown to understand systems better than the social stuff. Many of them have a mild form of autism, which is extremely rising today in all countries. They are fascinating people and you can be sure they enjoy their jobs and would exchange them for nothing else. And there are universities like MIT in every modern country.
The serial The Big Bang Theory is in fact a parody on the rapidly expanding nerd culture of technically adept but socially clumsy people. However, even Silicon Valley is dwarfed by the same kind technologic creativity found in great city aglomerations along major sea coasts in USA and Asia.

You can now say, well we can implement an incentive system, the bigger your efforts, the bigger the payoff for those efforts. Now this not only means that there can not be equality in society but now human greed comes into play. The harder you work the better the payoff, and if you want to compete in order to get the benefits of work (and not be trampled by inflation) you have to work even harder than everybody else, so now there is an escalation where people compete to their limits, effectively producing more laborious and stressful lives than ever before (ending with a society that mirrors the ones we have today). A person that can do complicated things is better than a person that can only do simple things, and it is thus more valuable. Work will always be hard.

Please see the video of Dan Pink, about the science of human motivation. We don't need the incentive of money, TVP is designed to work without it.

Humans are born and eventually die, in order to sustain a population new people must be born, and this is an unstable balancing act. On average each human couple must produce a minimal of 2 offspring in order to maintain a population. But the minimal is not enough because:
1. Not everyone is capable of reproducing
2. The birth of either male or female is random, so some unevenness should be expected in human peer bonding.
Even if the imbalance is small, this must inevitably causes a competition to find a mate, plus some mates are better than others, so competition is inevitable and this causes social tension.
So now the problem puts itself, who are the ones who are going to have more than 2 kids in order to compensate for this unbalance? And more importantly who gets to decide?
Now for this to work, not only there can not be reproductive freedom as it also needs to exist privileged families (and this causes major social conflict). Now if there is reproductive freedom, what prevents societies from either fail to adapt to increasingly lower populations or to simply increase exponentially. The later is more likely than the former, because people who tend to have less kids will produce less people for the next generation while people who tend to have more kids will produce more people that tend to have more kids. You only have to look into the world to see that this is indeed the case.
Now this produces a very obvious problem that TVP has refused to address seriously, resources are finite, and no matter how good you are at tapping at them they will eventually run out. Our society is currently living way beyond its capability, and the sources of energy we are using today will run out (and the sad thing is I will live to see it). And when the inevitable happens to a society living beyond its capabilities, people will die. Man have been fighting for land and resources since the dawn of times, technology may postpone conflict, but conflict is inevitable and now the technology shows the other face by making conflict more ruthless. Knowing human nature, talks of permanent peace are a fools errand, war is inevitable, always has been, always will be. Plus even in our current world, detrimental ideologies carves the world apart setting them for conflict even before resources are strained to braking point, a progressive future is still a major uncertainty. It is yet unknown if humanity will destroy itself. That can be averted, permanent peace is possible, but not without major sacrifices that people are simply not willing to make. And yet it is this ideologies that you must conquer if you want to have a shot at TVP.
The world is extremely complicated and the TVP is to naive.

Sorry, you don't know what TVP is, you haven't yet learned about it. You haven't read a single book from the downloads on the website. You can't say whether TVP is or isn't naive. The world is complicated, but our science is well equipped to deal with it. And science already provided many instruments to make it much simplier. I have provided examples of scientific solutions and facts that help us to deal with complexity of the world. If the fact that we now communicate at a great distance isn't enough...

The principle of demographic transition should address your concerns. Plus if you refrain from the fallacy of human nature, the questions #80 or #79. Demographic transition proves that people can and do change their behavior for according to circumstances. The problem is, in poorer countries children are used as a cheap labor force and retirement security, so making still bigger families works as a giant Ponzi scheme of the third world. If people are given their social needs, their values will evolve and shift on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. TVP is the plan to do that. TVP has for example plans for whole floating hospitals that can be towed to coasts of Africa or India without a lengthty and costy transport and building.

For the reasons why people have children, even too many children, please see this video. Most people won't want children in TVP. Children are a pain in the ass. Even today they are and people choose career before children, even today the values are different and they will be even more different in the future. Today the original population of Europe actually declines, only immigrants keep it up. Only market system does not allow us to apply our technologic level in all countries on Earth to improve people's conditions of living regardless of their religions or nationality. So where the conditions are still terrible, there results the overpopulation and immigration.

 

[Armitage]

Sorry, communism is very much a philosophy despite your protest. The difference is that science doesn't care if it does good or causes harm, it only cares for the cold reality, it admits that it can be wrong, it doesn't tell you what to do.
Oh and most importantly communism is socio-political and science isn't.

Care to prove what is a philosophy, what is an ideology and why Communism is one and not the other? I did so. Do you want to actually address and disprove that? And please search for definitions of concepts before making up your own. People who hijack definitions belong among demagogues. Demagogy is often seen when Creationists make up their own definitions of evolution and morality and we both know that's not right.

Yes, science doesn't tell you what to do. Neither does philosophy. Ideology tells people what to do.
Communism(from Latin communis - common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless[1][2] and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production, as well as a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of this social order.

Philosophyis the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[1][2] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.

An ideologyis a set of conscious and unconscious ideas that constitute one's goals, expectations, and actions.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

A philosophy (which is different from philosophy) is a specific set of taught constructs, that is it. Ideological or not, right or or wrong, it doesn't come into it.

 

[Armitage]

A philosophy (which is different from philosophy) is a specific set of taught constructs, that is it. Ideological or not, right or or wrong, it doesn't come into it.

Care to provide a source? And what is your point? I suppose your point is, I'm full of crap and TVP can not possibly work, but why?

What are taught constructs? A culture is made of taught constructs as well. TVP is not based on isms (ideologies). It is not based on taught constructs, it aims for elimination of human opinion and decision-making. In TVP decisions are automatized, based on measurement, such as when we have scales at the butcher's, when we measure a distance of airplane from the ground by laser. Human ability to make decisions is inferior - we must study the environment to arrive at a conclusion, not come up with a conclusion beforehand.

Fresco talks at length against teaching our children what he calls bullshit - taught constructs of gender roles, work roles, fairy tales, religions and so on. He advocates to teach children facts about the world and methods of problem solving and conflict solving. No, he actually advocates making children want to learn these things and letting them learn it.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

TVP is Fresco's lifetime project and some designs are decades old. As the technologies progressed over the years, we can do many things much better than then. Which actually works in favor of TVP:

You don't get it. No, it doesn't work in favor of TVP because none of the drawings were based in reality to begin with, drawing looks fine but they are essentially non functional. They never were, never will be.

Firstly, even back then TVP has been technically possible even with the primitive trains and secondly, TVP does not pose any obstacle to technologic innovation, as the current monetary economy. In monetary economy we can't afford to quickly replace all the trains with better trains, in TVP this is much easier. In the current economy we try to save money at the expense of energy and resources, in TVP there are no money, no mechanical human labor and efficient use of resources is one of priorities, while energy is based on renewable sources on abundant scale.

This is extremely ignorant, sorry but there is no other way to put it. Money is just a trade medium, when someone earns a salary he/she is effectively converting their work efforts into something tradable in order to obtain other goods and services that costed other people much work and effort. Pumping infinite money or removing the money altogether wouldn't magically solve the problem and there would be no shortage of anything, it is still good old human effort that drives the offer of goods. Machinists still need to be feed, still need housing, clothing, health and education.
If you give everything for free and expect that such would work as an incentive to be more productive, you will very soon face the cold reality that you have rather achieved the opposite.

That would be a question #79 and #80, Isn't this against Human Nature? For further study of psychology and human behavior, see the recommended books.

I have read that, and although you think it addresses the issue, it actually doesn't. This is one of the examples where I have stated that TVP simply refuses to address the problems. If you have actually read the answers, you will see that it actually evades and dismisses the issues without providing anything practical. It doesn't solve the problem, it ignores it as a problem. It's bunk!

There is no lack of engineers.

Bullshit! Engineering is one of the currently most undeserved professions of our societies. While everyone else struggles to get a job, engineers are still as valuable as gold because there simply isn't enough to go around for everybody. Very few people even considers becoming an engineer and even less succeed, from my personal experience from my original class only half ever make it to the end (and it was not a fluke, it is like that every year) and some developed psychological issues as a result.

Have you ever visited MIT, CalTech, Silicon Valley or Google HQ? These people are nerds. Their brains are grown to understand systems better than the social stuff. Many of them have a mild form of autism, which is extremely rising today in all countries. They are fascinating people and you can be sure they enjoy their jobs and would exchange them for nothing else. And there are universities like MIT in every modern country.

You are talking to an engineer graduated from one of the most prestigious engineering schools from his country, and I can pickup from your conversation that you are most obviously not. You have no idea how frustrating it could be, how many times I have felt that I was in the wrong place, that I just wanted raise my middle finger at it all and do something less stressful, which was only avoided by the clear notion of the consequences those actions would cause. And I was not alone.
There is already a shortage of engineers, if you take away the motivation you will be in trouble. If you are counting on autistic people with goodwill (who are a minority of a minority of a minority, and who already see themselves as misfits in society) in order to provide for you while you yourself couldn't bare to go trough the same process, then you are fucked!

Please see the video of Dan Pink, about the science of human motivation. We don't need the incentive of money, TVP is designed to work without it.

Although an interesting video, you have missed the point of it entirely.

Sorry, you don't know what TVP is, you haven't yet learned about it. You haven't read a single book from the downloads on the website. You can't say whether TVP is or isn't naive.

I assure you that I have known it way before you did, more than 10 years ago. It was a bad idea then, it is a bad idea now.

The world is complicated, but our science is well equipped to deal with it. And science already provided many instruments to make it much simplier. I have provided examples of scientific solutions and facts that help us to deal with complexity of the world. If the fact that we now communicate at a great distance isn't enough...

No. That is so naive, to think that we have the technology to solve all the worlds problems and remove all of its hardships just because you can talk to someone on the other side of the world.

TVP is the plan to do that. TVP has for example plans for whole floating hospitals that can be towed to coasts of Africa or India without a lengthty and costy transport and building.

[sarcasm]Yes, it will float on hopes and dreams and a sprinkle of fairy dust, the walls will be made of unicorn tears and rainbows and we will all sing cumbaya when that glorious day arrives.[/sarcasm]

Even today they are and people choose career before children, even today the values are different and they will be even more different in the future. Today the original population of Europe actually declines, only immigrants keep it up.

Do you know why they don't want to have children?
It is not because we don't like children, its because children are expensive. The only difference is that we have the means to prevent pregnancies to save a buck. If you make having children costless, they will boom again.

 

[Armitage]

You don't get it. No, it doesn't work in favor of TVP because none of the drawings were based in reality to begin with, drawing looks fine but they are essentially non functional. They never were, never will be.

OK, now tell me how do you know that. It's good back up our assertions with something, or people will get a wrong impression.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/jacque-fresco/resume
Here's Fresco's resume, looks like impressive engineering and industrial design career to me. From what I gather from his videos, he frequently describes how form of his models follows function, how this or that is designed to resist earthquake, or that cone roof to resist a hurricane and tornado. His ships and trains have detachable segments instead of taking the containers one by one - that is actually a better engineering than what we see today! And segmented circular cities indeed are more efficient for transportation and building than medieval or linear cities seen today. The man doesn't talk any nonsense. He explains why does he design things in such a way. His designs are functional, while most designs of today are just a tribute to architect's ego.
If it isn't, you can show where and how.

This is extremely ignorant, sorry but there is no other way to put it. Money is just a trade medium, when someone earns a salary he/she is effectively converting their work efforts into something tradable in order to obtain other goods and services that costed other people much work and effort. Pumping infinite money or removing the money altogether wouldn't magically solve the problem and there would be no shortage of anything, it is still good old human effort that drives the offer of goods. Machinists still need to be feed, still need housing, clothing, health and education.
If you give everything for free and expect that such would work as an incentive to be more productive, you will very soon face the cold reality that you have rather achieved the opposite.

I know what money is. Human effort drives the offer of goods still less and less, speculation and marketing took over long ago. Money actually disconnect the supply from demand, people have still needs even if they don't have money. Human labor is getting cheap and doesn't get people enough money.
How is it that the American army has enough of food and clothing, even though soldiers don't work and don't shop? Why are people being laid off when a company installs automatic production lines?

Why would we need an incentive to be more productive? Machines need no incentive, they produce as they are built, programmed and controlled to be. We need more freedom, education and basic security to be more creative. Productivity is for machines.

I have read that, and although you think it addresses the issue, it actually doesn't. This is one of the examples where I have stated that TVP simply refuses to address the problems. If you have actually read the answers, you will see that it actually evades and dismisses the issues without providing anything practical. It doesn't solve the problem, it ignores it as a problem. It's bunk!

I have seen you repeatedly making up your own definitions and refusing to back up your claims. The "problems" you present are only problems in your mind. In real life people and machines routinely solve them, as problems of motivation, logistics and engineering. No matter whom you pay, nobody can do a job better than a machine that is designed for it. People used to pay freakin' lift operators and policemen on crossroads, now we have automatic lifts and semaphores who need no pay. People can solve problems without money.

Face it, people can motivate themselves even without money. In fact, non-monetary motivation allows us to be truly creative. Machines can produce food and clothing, even better and faster than human farmers and weavers. Agricultural and Industrial revolution, anyone? The fact is, very few people today actually produce anything in the developed world, they're mostly in the service sector. And they lose their ways of making money to automation.

Bullshit! Engineering is one of the currently most undeserved professions of our societies. While everyone else struggles to get a job, engineers are still as valuable as gold because there simply isn't enough to go around for everybody. Very few people even considers becoming an engineer and even less succeed, from my personal experience from my original class only half ever make it to the end (and it was not a fluke, it is like that every year) and some developed psychological issues as a result.

Well, and what are the current engineers doing? Are they doing something worthwhile, or do they tiptoe among patents and DRM and non-competition contracts? How many of them are employed in Amazon or Barnes & Noble, making mutually incompatible, redundant entertainment devices? That's a waste of good engineers, man.

And what are the other people learning to be? Bankers, managers, marketing experts, financial advisors, tax advisors and similar bullshit jobs that produce nothing. What a waste of potential. What are they doing it for? Money, of course. Easier way to money than learning actual engineering.

You are talking to an engineer graduated from one of the most prestigious engineering schools from his country, and I can pickup from your conversation that you are most obviously not. You have no idea how frustrating it could be, how many times I have felt that I was in the wrong place, that I just wanted raise my middle finger at it all and do something less stressful, which was only avoided by the clear notion of the consequences those actions would cause. And I was not alone.
There is already a shortage of engineers, if you take away the motivation you will be in trouble. If you are counting on autistic people with goodwill (who are a minority of a minority of a minority, and who already see themselves as misfits in society) in order to provide for you while you yourself couldn't bare to go trough the same process, then you are fucked!

To start a showcase city and prove the concept, TVP needs about 7,000 experts. It has currently more than 5,000 registered, though of course the money for it aren't anywhere near, it's going to need probably some international agency funding. But anyone can sign up. TVP movement aims to make one major movie and build one showcase city as a proof of the concept and test facility.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/get-involved/scientific-and-technical-database

Although an interesting video, you have missed the point of it entirely.

I assure you that I have known it way before you did, more than 10 years ago. It was a bad idea then, it is a bad idea now.

So why can't you explain to me why it is a bad idea? You had so much time to think about it! You should be able to refute easily anything I say.
I could go into the problem of wealth production and distribution, but I'm not sure if that's the problem you have. I'm not a psychic and I don't see into your head, you have to tell me or better yet, show me. You may be a good engineer, but we've got a lot to work out in communication and problem solving. Engineers shouldn't just say their opinion, they should give data and evidence.

No. That is so naive, to think that we have the technology to solve all the worlds problems and remove all of its hardships just because you can talk to someone on the other side of the world.

No, but we have other technologies. Food production, automation, construction, and more. Why aren't we using them properly?
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/technology/latest-technology

Do you know why they don't want to have children?
It is not because we don't like children, its because children are expensive. The only difference is that we have the means to prevent pregnancies to save a buck. If you make having children costless, they will boom again.

You're again seeing everything as the problem of money! Get it out of your head, humans are more than just automatons driven by genes and money.

People don't have children because they count the money. It is a thing of desire, tradition, expectations of parents and grandparents, cultural norms, family pressure, and ticking biologic clock. But most of all the need for cheap labor in third world countries.
There are no costless children. They are a great strain on one's time and nerves. People don't sleep whole nights for the first year or so. Children are very stupid for the first several years. If TVP infrastructure makes social needs costless, people will make less children to take care of them when they're old. If people are educated to be active and creative, they will pursue hobbies and careers and less of them will have children. Empowering women and allowing them education and career results in fewer children. Breakdown of traditional cultural forms, seen today as post-modernity does that too.

If only demographic transition was allowed to occur in all the world regardless of money, we'd have no problem with overpopulation. But no, this kind of thing is limited to money, limited to someone else's demand, of largely self-sufficient developed countries. Instead of making a war-like effort to bring the rest of the world up to the today's technology, we waste lives and resources to continue in the old business, economic and cultural models.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

OK, now tell me how do you know that. It's good back up our assertions with something, or people will get a wrong impression.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/jacque-fresco/resume
Here's Fresco's resume, looks like impressive engineering and industrial design career to me.

This is a typical excuse people make when they don't know enough about the subject. If you expected to impress me and therefore make feel more inclined to accept this shenanigans, you are barking on the wrong tree.

His designs are functional, while most designs of today are just a tribute to architect's ego.
If it isn't, you can show where and how.

Ok, Take a look at this:

Or this:

Need I say more?
But I will.
Do you see that helicopter majigy? How do you suppose it is capable of countering its own momentum?
What about the trains, how do you suppose they are able to go around a curve with a rigid body trough and trough? What forgot about that?
On the video at 0:20, how is it supposed to do that without supports?
How would prefabricated bridge would accommodate for varying factors such as depth and composition of the soil? What you taught it was all the same?
How could a symmetric aircraft without actuators is supposed to have a controlled flight? Are those crafts even capable of flight?
Did he conducted aerodynamic studies to see if that design is capable of flights? What about structural analysis? Stability? Controlability? Navigability? Any study of any kind what so ever?
It's just pretty pictures, those things could have never work.

Screw this, I have wasted allot of time trying to reply to every bullshit you just spewed here.
I have explained my case, I have pointed the problems in a way that explains why they are a problem, my arguments are valid no mater who makes them. You on the other hand have this distorted notion that supporting your case is posting links of other people saying the same bullshit you do when they in turn haven't justified anything.
Until you have tried to make a proper engineering project for yourself you are not allowed to tell me "machines can do anything, people can solve all this problems" (who makes those machines exactly?), you don't even know if the problems are in principle solvable. That "people can solve any problem" is a nice excuse that people who know nothing about anything make, but can you solve it yourself? No, you can't. So don't try to sell me solutions that you don't have.

 

[Armitage]

Do you see that helicopter majigy? How do you suppose it is capable of countering its own momentum?

Interesting question. I could think of a few attempts (magnetically suspended, perhaps?) but I don't know if that's enough. I just had read somewhere that it's propelled by jets at the end of the wings and these jets can be turned around, that's how it maneuvers. But how would the jets get their fuel?

What about the trains, how do you suppose they are able to go around a curve with a rigid body trough and trough? What forgot about that?

I don't consider myself skilled enough to recognize if they have rigid body or not, or if there is any compatible solution to this with current maglev trains.

On the video at 0:20, how is it supposed to do that without supports?
How would prefabricated bridge would accommodate for varying factors such as depth and composition of the soil? What you taught it was all the same?
How could a symmetric aircraft without actuators is supposed to have a controlled flight? Are those crafts even capable of flight?
Did he conducted aerodynamic studies to see if that design is capable of flights? What about structural analysis? Stability? Controlability? Navigability? Any study of any kind what so ever?

Why don't you ask Fresco directly? Have you ever contacted TVP with these questions? Or do you wait till he dies so that you can be even more self-righteous? I have asked a couple of questions on Youtube TVP channel and they replied to me. You can do the same. In fact, I'll rather do it. If you couldn't ask a few questions in 10 years... Or did you? What kind of replies did you get?

I have just re-posted your questions here. We'll see. If you have a better idea where to ask them, go ahead.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jacquefresco/discussion

Meanwhile, Fresco worked as an aircraft designer and so he did have access to the kind of equipment that he'd need and apparently he did his job well. I admit these VTOL planes seem a bit exotic, some of them look like ion jets or something, but I'm not the expert here.
Aircraft Designer for the Northrop Division of Douglas Aircraft, Los Angeles, California
Design consultant for Rotor Craft Helicopter Company, Los Angeles, California
Design consultant for Landgraf Helicopter Co., Los Angeles, California
Designer in the Army Air Force Design and Development Unit, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio

It's just pretty pictures, those things could have never work.

This is the attitude that Fresco describes too - people saying "It can never work! You're full of crap!" That's their way of saying "I don't know how it works, can you please tell me?"
However, fortunately the only objections you seem to have are about some things in transport system, nothing essential. All the other design seems sound, is that so? Or do you have any other problems? I mean, this is the first technical criticism I see, everything before were ramblings of pseudo-economists. You should write that down somewhere, so people can respond to you properly. Make a criticism of TVP from purely technical standpoint, you seem to do that well.

Let's say if Fresco scraps the airplane designs, uses conventional trains (or almost straight railways only, or rotating stations, or the segments are somehow not rigid), if Fresco finds some way to build bridges automatically so that they hold...
Tell me, in principle, can TVP work?

Screw this, I have wasted allot of time trying to reply to every bullshit you just spewed here.
I have explained my case, I have pointed the problems in a way that explains why they are a problem, my arguments are valid no mater who makes them. You on the other hand have this distorted notion that supporting your case is posting links of other people saying the same bullshit you do when they in turn haven't justified anything.
Until you have tried to make a proper engineering project for yourself you are not allowed to tell me "machines can do anything, people can solve all this problems" (who makes those machines exactly?), you don't even know if the problems are in principle solvable. That "people can solve any problem" is a nice excuse that people who know nothing about anything make, but can you solve it yourself? No, you can't. So don't try to sell me solutions that you don't have.

[/quote]
No, you made lots of fallacies about human nature, you overrated the role and motivation of money, you made up definitions of concepts. Man, you didn't even know about demographic transition! Apparently I do need to spell out the basics for people, right from the start with Maslow's pyramid and so on. Perhaps I need to make a survey first and find out if the people I'm talking to are technically oriented, economists or humanists and then educate them about economy, technologies or humanistic sciences, so they can comprehend what TVP is about. That would be a very Frescoish approach.

What do you consider a solution or a justification? Would you please provide an examples, of how you once had opinion A, then you got this piece of evidence and changed your opinion to B?

Instead of wasting my time, you should come up first with these technical objections, this is what I needed to see. That's the only relevant thing you said. Now I can see what answer I get from Fresco's side. Meanwhile I hope someone else comes here and looks at who's more full of crap and who made more sense. And why.

I am not a tech guy, I graduated from automation technologies, but since then I switched to humanities. I do what I can, communicating, essentially a politician's job, that's less or more my current area of study. It's not easy, as you see. During last discussion elswehere I wasted a lot of time getting the person to admit the human nature fallacy and the "inevitable" scarcity, so I started with these in the first post. Now the most important problem turned out to be in technical objections, I'll watch out for them as well.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

What you are asking is for me to teach you physics, I don't have time for that.
This isn't the only guy that thinks that he has "a revolutionary vision that is going to change the world, and how the world will be so much better if only people listened" to them. How exactly will they achieve that? Nothing, just a piece of scribblings that they expect other people to piece them together for him. And there are thousands and thousands of such people, and I am sick an tiered of having to explain to them that the world is not build out of hopes and dreams, and they never listen, they don't care, they keep thinking that they have the greatest thing in the world even after years of slamming against the wall. It never works, it couldn't ever work to begin with.
I just finally decided "fuck it, why even bother? It never changes anything. If they want to learn it the hard way its their problem. And it is not like they could have ever get anywhere like government to produce an effect that I would care.". I'm sorry that you don't get the step by step explanation that you wanted, but I literally have no patience for that.

 

[Armitage]

What you are asking is for me to teach you physics, I don't have time for that.

Not physics, engineering. And teach not just me, but all the proponents of RBE. Make a blog or something. But if you don't have time, well, that's too bad, but if you meet someone else interested and competent, make sure to tell him please.

This isn't the only guy that thinks that he has "a revolutionary vision that is going to change the world, and how the world will be so much better if only people listened" to them. How exactly will they achieve that? Nothing, just a piece of scribblings that they expect other people to piece them together for him.

IIRC, the scenario for the major motion picture that TVP plans should be already written long ago. A film would explain much about the practical and social aspects of RBE that I can't. A film is more than an education, it is an experience. A lifetime can be summed up in a single film. People need not listen, they just need to visit a cinema, as they usually do. Many films leave us in thought after we see them. So it's just a question of money right now, to fund the film.

And there are thousands and thousands of such people, and I am sick an tiered of having to explain to them that the world is not build out of hopes and dreams, and they never listen, they don't care, they keep thinking that they have the greatest thing in the world even after years of slamming against the wall. It never works, it couldn't ever work to begin with.
I just finally decided "fuck it, why even bother? It never changes anything. If they want to learn it the hard way its their problem. And it is not like they could have ever get anywhere like government to produce an effect that I would care.". I'm sorry that you don't get the step by step explanation that you wanted, but I literally have no patience for that.

No matter how I look, everyone today steers in the direction of RBE (except bankers, politicians, priests, managers...). Transportation, hydroponics, housing, medicine, production, education, everywhere you can find technologic innovation of the same kind that RBE proposes. Houses are getting modular and smarter, cars are getting automatic, medicine is getting cybernetic, education is getting digital and so on.
Only all these engineers make one mistake: they design their own thing separately and then try to fit into an old system, old infrastructure, old roads and city layouts, old buildings and so on. Which is very expensive, very inefficient and it does nothing to help any further technologies, they have to face the same obstacle + 1 more engineer who took their space and a piece of their market.
Look, this video wasn't even on the TVP website. (pipeline transport systems)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnlZYvkz5ss

One of things that RBE proposes is, guys, why the fuck don't you make all these things fit into each other?! Why don't you make a top-down design so that trains fit into pipes and boxes into trains and robotic arms into boxes? Anyone can make as free designs as they want, just make sure the pipe ends meet. Just like Lego, build whatever you want, yet it fits together. Racking my brain as I can, I don't see what's wrong with that. RBE is suggesting what everyone is doing anyway, only to do it systematically. That and the sharing of resources. But considering that EU faces a proposal on a plan of universal living income per capita, I think direct technologic social infrastructure is a better idea of the two. But just to be sure, I signed petitions for both. Both proposals explore the possibilities, they'll just tell us what is or isn't possible. We deserve to know.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Not physics, engineering.

Engineering is just applied physics.