Understanding The Venus Project and RBE

[Armitage]

You are dreaming - Wake up Man!
You are wasting your precious life as second hand menial of a recursivism

PLEASE
_ Don't preach science
__ Learn scientific methods
___ Practice scientific thinking

[/quote] Nah, science is somewhat of a menial labor for me. What I do is closer to philosophy. Science can not judge any values, it can only record and test data. Our current decaying civilization is specialized on "instrumental rationality", which means the know-how. However, it ignores the know-why, the value rationality. What is the science used for and why. If the enlightenment ethos failed in anything, it was in the task to integrate instruments and values.

Which results in top-notch scientific discoveries being used in the most despicable and barbaric pursuits that harm us all. Science is not good nor bad, it's how you use it. And how do we use the science, could we do that any better, or for better purposes? That's my job to know. There's a plenty of experts with instrumental rationality, who would gladly sell their ass to design weapons and kill people. Me and Fresco have a very low opinion of them and even lower of those who hire them and even lower of the corrupt monetary system that makes it possible to hire people to do anything.

 

[IBSpify]

Let's say, what if cargo ships weren't unloaded by one container after another, but the whole loading section would come off?

First off i'm going to preface this with response with a simple question, "Exactly how much do you know about the shipping industry?"

you would still need the laborers to drive the container forklifts to move said containers from the stacks and onto the trucks for shipping.

Effectively all the above proposal would do is replace the giant crane designed to move the up to 30 ton containers from the boat to the docks, with an even more massive device that would need to move the up to 400,000 tons of cargo as well as the weight of ships loading section.

Personally, as someone who has worked in shipping, I would love to see the machine that you are proposing that is going to move that much weight, and i would love to hear the pitch that you give the shipping industry CEO's that tells them that this would be more cost efficient.

I know that this was one small example you gave of the typical Venus Projects "Wouldn't it be cool if..." but it's indicative of the problems with the movement, they never bother to flush out their idea's. Yes it would be neat if you could do what our proposing, but you really wouldn't save much time, and until you have a feasible design for the machine that is going to move all that weight at one time safely, then all that you have is the cry of "Wouldn't it be cool if....?"

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Everybody can do what if's, and dream about the future, everybody knows how to speculate and thinks that they are right and that everybody else should do as they dream. But we don't live out of philosophy and wishes, one thing is thinking about it and another completely different thing is figuring out how to do it and if it is a solid solution that we would want, we need the later and not the former.
If you can't bother the trouble of doing the later, you can't expect the others do do it for you, you can't skip a step. Do you think that scientist or engineers have some sort of secret knowledge that allows them to do anything easily? It doesn't get any easier as you learn it, you just learn some tools that may or may not help you know what the hell are you doing.

 

[Armitage]

I know that this was one small example you gave of the typical Venus Projects "Wouldn't it be cool if..." but it's indicative of the problems with the movement, they never bother to flush out their idea's. Yes it would be neat if you could do what our proposing, but you really wouldn't save much time, and until you have a feasible design for the machine that is going to move all that weight at one time safely, then all that you have is the cry of "Wouldn't it be cool if....?"

TVP does not need exactly this or that technology to have merit. Fresco says it himself, many of the designs are just projections, extrapolations of what we have today. We can't go too far designing without knowing what the future will bring.
The question is, how all this and future technology would be used. If it's used in monetary system, people will not get a cent out of it. Technologic unemployment is going to destroy the economy and social system, every technologic innovation we make, puts someone out of job and the jobs do not come back nearly as fast. Only the expert jobs like in engineering will be needed, but everything else will go, sooner or later. This is dangerous because it cuts masses of people away from purchasing power and in this world we are only as free and secure as much we have the purchasing power. Governments will not be able to fix this, not by taxation or welfare. How popular job for young high school graduates is going to army? Does America need Iraq and Muslims as a post-grad welfare? More like Orwellfare.


Hey, I was surprised about this documentary. A few years ago I flew to France and there were still people at the terminals. I knew about the Kiwa robotic warehouses, but looks like this is a very commercially successful technology. I as a forklifter have no future. Chinese and Indian workers neither. Middle class innovators have no future, replaced by corporate research teams.
As long as we use monetary system to ration resources, we have no future. We have overcome the need for market capitalism decades ago but we still hold onto it like an American biology teacher clings to Genesis. People must be given an access, not market, to machine production and that means implementing TVP, in some form.

Well, fuck me, I think this is pretty impressive. Who the hell am I to doubt they could build a mere TVP city? Of course they can.

And who the hell are you to say that they should?

Someone who needs food, water, housing, medicine, education, travel, communication, energy, peace & security... But at times like this I feel like the only one.

The question is, do you agree that technology can decrease and replace human labor? Last time I checked, I haven't seen people hauling buckets of water and sheets of ice from the river.

It can in principle. That however never happens in practice. There is more employment now than there was 200 years ago.

That's true, but my study of economy suggests this has a different cause. The monetary system. Resources, such as food, are rationed for money. If a population of workers, such as in textile industry gets sacked, they lose their source of money. They need to find another one fast, or they'll have no way to buy food and other stuff. For some decades or a century this always freed the labor force for some new useful industry, which was good.
But some time along 20th century this menial labor became so mechanized, or the population so large, that the unsecured people (and businessmen!) had to invent new jobs that weren't actually in demand by customers, just to get the money. And even these jobs are getting automated now. Voice recognition is now a reality, fuck me I haven't seen in practice, but in USA where people have iPhones, it apparently works. Don't ask me how much mathematics went into it (kudos for figuring out English pronounciation!), but it apparently did. Bye bye call center jobs, I'll miss your Indian accent.

So that's about it, even if there is more than enough products and services due to efficient technology of production, people can't just get access to them. They have to exchange money for them. And they need to get the money somehow. The usual way is by providing some more or new product or service. However, businessmen often replace people with machines (or outsourcing abroad). People who lose jobs try to make up bullshit jobs (such as marketing) to get some money. Companies need to do the same, so they invest heavily into marketing bullshit products and other ways to increase spending and profit, such as the credit card boom. Nobody can generate profit without generating debt, the system has to generate "empty money" not covered with real goods & services in order to generate profit in the new business cycle.

It's of course way more complicated than that (national debt of the U.S., IRS, no golden standard, etc...) but one thing is clear, none of this would happen without the monetary system. Monetary system is not good at following supply and demand, 95 % of money today are not used for exchanging goods and services, they are not covered by any value.

No, bullshit! You are technologically illiterate, don't try to blow smoke on my face.

I am actually a very rare person on Earth, a white young male with university education, from technologic society, knowing a foreign language fluently. You couldn't wish for a more technologically literate group of population. If you can't make me understand, you sure as shit can't make anybody understand. Much less your boss, managers and so on.

Do you want to still pretend you are qualified? Ok, lets play that game.
Lets analyse your loading sections idea.
How would the containers get on the loading section exactly? And what would I gain from loading containers into a loading section instead of just loading stuff into the ship? Nothing! Actually you lose, because now you need a bigger lift to load the loading sections into the boat, and extra step that could have been saved by just loading the things into the damn boat to start with. And what happens to the boat while the loading sections are being loaded? Well that is right, its stays there until the loading sections are returned. [sarcasm]But wait, I have a better idea, why not make each loading section the capability to float on its own and go to the destination without needing a boat? Wouldn't that be awesome?.... What we already got that? What's it called?... a goat? a moat?[/sarcasm] Yeah it's called a boat!

Have you ever seen (un)loading of ships? A ship is sitting in the port and there is a crane taking the containers one by one, moving them at a great distance, placing them, returning back, taking another one... It takes about 3 hours to unload the ship, Fresco says. Fresco lived in Miami and I had the opportunity to observe the Miami port and containers in the serial Dexter, but I digress...
Of course, the lift has to be designed big enough to move a whole section of the ship. But why the hell not, if the new light and superstrong materials allow that?
Now, if the ship used Fresco's solution, it could speed up the loading and unloading process just by exchanging one loaded ship section for an empty one, so the ship can leave the port quickly. If not all cargo would be unloaded at that destination, then obviously unloading it from the detached section onto some kinds of ramps out of the section would be much faster than hauling the containers one by one through the air. Modern storage software can of course stack the containers so that they get prepared by schedule of the ports they're meant for, or some even better system.
On the TVP website there are a few commercial completely automatic storage systems, that could be adapted for this. In my opinion, the inner storage racks could be suspended for a moment, so that the outer shell can be dragged aside and the racks can be filled very quickly by automated forklifts or something. (yes, I do have a forklift driver's license, a foolishness of youth, but still, I've been through so many shitty places that I just want to automate them all, without mercy)

So what about your city planing?
Why does every apartment need to exactly at the same distance from the central district? Why does there even need to be a central district? If you want the apartments closer to the central district why not build them right besides it? ... [sarcasm]What was that again? Circles aren't efficient at compacting apartment, and people wouldn't like to live in banana shaped houses? You don't say?[/sarcasm] Ok, what happens when you get out of your apartment and want to do business lets say in the other side of town? Well you got 2 options, or you either go around or go trough the hub. What happens if we go trough the hub? Grid lock, because you designed a traffic system where half of the entire town will try to use it concurrently paths. Ok, so what happens if we try to go around? Well it takes a long ass time, not to mention that the trams are padded full because the other half of the town decided to go around. You have just concentrated every human being into few alternatives instead of dissipating the traffic.
Now what happens when cities become to big, lets say 2 million 3 million people? What are you going to do then? There is no way anyone will want to spend hours in traffic to go about their daily business, so pretty soon you will another city. How will you connect those cities together?...What was that again about circles wasting tones of space?

A circular shape of a city makes sure that no point on the circle is ever further away than a half circumference of the circles and no car ever has to backtrack too much (instead it just goes around). Fresco however designed at least one closer circle with apartments, one more distant (thus bigger) with gardens and houses. The actual shapes of houses are individual, except for the apartments, of course.
The city is designed to use the already commercially existing transport system, which is individual, solar-powered magnetically levitating trolley car. It does not have to go through the hub and it should get anyone anywhere in the city within 10-20 minutes. It should intelligently choose routes from the network, that is several concentric circles and 8 straight ways to the hub. Not counting the underground. I'd say the traffic has many more options to dissipate and plan its own routes automatically.
However, in RBE there is no business, no need for all people to go to work at 9 AM and back at 5 PM, so gridlocks don't happen. Everyone's daily schedule may be individual and all (automated) services run 24/7.

As for 2-3 million people towns, I seriously doubt that. My best estimate is, this is not what the circular cities are designed for, and it would seriously overstep the carrying capacity of the environment. Too many people at one place is not a good idea. I think it would look more like that.

Ok, lets say you would try to do it. What will you do about water lines and topographical irregularities? Are you going to flatten the entire world? And what about the different soils? Not every construction can be done on every soil, are you going to revolve all the soil as well?
Do you know what would be better, decentralized cities, with mostly square blocks when possible so that you can efficiently pack and harmonize the city, you try to flatten within reason but you will follow the contours of the terrain and avoid water lines, so that it doesn't take forever to build a city with to much human cost and your house doesn't get flooded. How about that? Wouldn't that be nice?

Obviously, the circular city requires to strip the top soil (saving the valuable soil for agriculture) and build it as one integrated system from the bottom. Starting with foundations and basic infrastructure like sewage processing, water lines and so on, and most notably, distribution tunnels and pneumatic package delivery. As for the soil, I haven't ever seen that it would ever stop anyone from building anything. Certainly not Fresco with his liking in huge automated construction robots controlled by satellite. Don't geologists solve these problems all the time? (by choosing an adequate place...)

As for your design, I find it inadequate. People are not goods. Square cities are good for apartments only, everything but housing needs centers. Be it art, production, research, recycling... Existence of centers requires the city to be centralized around a hub. Other less centralized institutions like production are in closer circles to the hub (which serves for many diverse uses, including university). The most individual, least centralized need (housing) is further away. I find Fresco's design very logical, it resembles organism. Your design is basically human storage. Current square designs, such as Manhattan or New York are terribly unsustainable and dependent on constant inflow of goods and prone to gridlocks. Also, their capacity is overburdened.
TVP philosophy commands to build another circular city, instead of pressing more and more people together. Everything - ocean liners, airplanes, cars, has an optimal carrying capacity of people and it is not safe to overburden them. So it is with the city.

No you don't. You think you do, but you don't. You are as arrogant as you are ignorant.

Have you ever heard of projecting? I may simply be someone who disagrees and thinks in a very different way and that might translate into character qualities in your eyes.

The question is, how long and in what way do I have to work for this shit?

As long as it takes. If we could have done better we would, but we can't so we don't and that is that.
And before you give the predictable response "but we can figure it out if we work at it", well then figure it out!.... Have you figure it out yet? What you can't because you are not an engineer? Well that is to bad ain't it? How hypocrite is that?

You missed the point. For a given item, how did its production costs and time decrease over the last 200 years or so? What was the need for human labor? Let me guess, it has been decreasing. The question is, can the human labor be entirely removed from the production of a given item, if both the production process and the exact product are specifically designed for that process? Let me guess, some business already does that and more will join.

Bullshit! Do not evade the point. By what standard do you measure that most of the jobs do nothing to contribute to the well-being of others?
You don't need to answer that, you just pulled that out of your own ass.

Because most jobs only serve to earn money and money serve to get basic standard of living and beyond that they don't increase happiness very much. Marginal utility of money is hell of a decreasing one, THAT's human nature and Maslow's pyramid in practice. Jobs can be stacked as a Maslow's pyramid as well as human needs.

Of course it should! Look up the Dan Pink TEDx speech. Interesting work increases productivity and helps new solutions to old problems.

If I wanted to argue with Dan Pink, I would have talked to him instead. This is the second time I am calling you into the attention to not commit the fallacy of "X says that". Now tell me how would an interesting working environment increase the creativity of a factory worker on a production line?

You misunderstood the point. A factory line is intrinsically un-creative, un-interesting environment, up to the point of inhumane practice. And it can be done by machine much faster and better than by human hands.

I do not mention "person X" as an authority but purely by the internal merit of what he says. It is not a fallacy, it is a reference to the source, not claiming the wisdom as my own. If you can't take in the qualitative information, if you think only positivistic measured data are real, you're going to be quite disappointed in life.

How would you fix that? By enacting a broken culture like TVP? And what point were trying to make with this exactly?

The behavioral aspect is extremely important in TVP. TVP aims to re-design all the human culture. You would surely say this is impossible, because of human nature. I would argue there is no human nature - or rather it is indiscernible in an average person and great human capacity to perpetuate the culture. I say the nurture is for all practical purposes stronger than nature and easily malleable by the design of environment, such as TVP.
Maybe we can't change human nature, but we can change human nurture easily enough. The problems of humanity are caused by a bad environment and its resulting psychotic culture. If anything, human nature is a great capacity to behave in any way imaginable, including the healthy, social, well-adjusted ways you find impossible.

Obviously not, humans are naturally competitive.

No, we just o and we react to the environment by competing for scarce resources. Removing scarcity removes conflict, as proven by Fresco on Tuamotu. The tribesmen of Tuamotu lived completely happy, peaceful and active lives full of cooperation and sharing. The tribesmen of Yanoamo tribes killed each other for stealing women, because they killed firstborn girls to have more warriors, resulting in scarcity of women.
The tribesmen of Tuamotu used to send their excessive children on boats to the ocean, to "find their own island", thus kept their population in check and kept scarcity at bay (literally :twisted: ), which made the rest of their lives completely peaceful and idyllic. A harsh solution, but we already have contraception.

They are, always will be, because we are human beings. What you are asking is that we stop being humans.

Man, social sciences are sciences too! You sound like some medieval fire & brimstone preacher, mouthful of original sin and fatalism of human depravity. We are social beings, which gives us both great ability of inter-group cooperation, and extra-group competition. However, the notion of in-group can be expanded to a social class, nation, even the whole humanity.

Where does your allegiance lie, what nations do you think that USA army should invade next? Apparently you find that perfectly acceptable to human nature. If you believe murder is in human nature, do you think murder is right?

There is, it is called law and law enforcement.

[sarcasm]Please, tell me again the story how the law and law enforcement solved the problem of crime, so that criminality is a thing of the past like black plague and smallpox?[/sarcasm] How suppressing anything ever solved anything? :facepalm:

So your argument is, to make an argument from some area, one has to have academic credentials from that area.

If you are going to make such sweeping abject statements, then you must absolutely do. Else on what are you basing those statements on? In Fresco's case, its out of his ass.[/quote] Well, that was more like a half sarcastic question, half hypothesis on the workings of your mind.

Bullshit! Why would the corruption in sports be an argument against the fact that "need gives a motive to compete and competition increases productivity that otherwise wouldn't be available"?

Competition is destructive to society. It is the plague of our culture, a cause of all crime, violence and waste. Let's say I competed with you for your wife, house and job, would you like that? Nope, the only acceptable competition is symbolic, in sports and games. WW1, WW2 and Cold war were forms of competition.
Competition is productive only in a closed system. Yet every competitor constantly tries to break the closed system and externalize the costs at the detriment of the system, in order to gain advantage over other competitors. Every competitor is doing his best to make the competition ineffective.
Even if it stays effective, competitors are basically people doing all the same thing. Even if one succeeds, his success does not outweigh the waste of all others. The overall net benefit is low, as the game theory says.

 

[Toth]

I'm curious. If in a TVP city all resources are free, and you can redesign your living environment as you wish. What would you do with your time? Could you talk me through what you think 24 hours would be like living in a TVP city? Lets assume that it's an average day, no one needs to go to a floating hospital, and your house just had a new climbing wall installed, and doesn't need anything else right now. What would you personally do for 24 hours? We know you don't really have training in science or engineering, so what do you do?

Also why would anyone study for ~10 years to be a doctor, work 60 hour weeks and carry massive amounts of responsibility for your patients, when you don't get any more out of it than the guy next door who does nothing but add neon lights and speakers to his garden and holding outdoor midnight raves? Some people might be doctors due to a genuine desire to help people, but there are lots of different ways they can help people that would involve a much easier life, so why would they take the doctor path?

What happens when the population expands in a TVP city. Is the population level controlled to remove competition? If so how do you control it? What happens if people have more children than you allow, through desire, accident or nature?

 

[Vivre]

PLEASE
___ Practice scientific thinking

Nah, science is somewhat of a menial labor for me. What I do is closer to philosophy.

I doubt that you can earnestly philosophise as it requires reasoning.

Science can not judge any values,

Science provides the tools to make values comparable

Science is not good nor bad, it's how you use it. And how do we use the science, could we do that any better, or for better purposes? That's my job to know.

So, you don't practice scientific thinking but feel capable to judge the effectiveness of scientific applications.

I understand more and more what that Dunning-Kruger effect comprises.

 

[Armitage]

I'm curious. If in a TVP city all resources are free, and you can redesign your living environment as you wish. What would you do with your time? Could you talk me through what you think 24 hours would be like living in a TVP city? Lets assume that it's an average day, no one needs to go to a floating hospital, and your house just had a new climbing wall installed, and doesn't need anything else right now. What would you personally do for 24 hours? We know you don't really have training in science or engineering, so what do you do?

One kind of answer is #78, in the FAQ. I can understand that, because as a child I was very curious towards several scientific subjects and remained so to a large degree. The school with its ruthless mental bulimia killed in me all curiosity towards mathemathics and many other subjects, but I held onto other interests. I think it has to do with my social isolation, that I have such interests. Most people get totally flattened and spread thin by the pressure of the environment. Even if they have high IQ, they learn to put the brain on the same level as a shovel or a pickaxe, an instrument of labor. But curiosity is far more valuable than any piece or area of knowledge that is taught in schools. Curiosity is the ability to stay up to date on any knowledge for all your life, instead of zombifying after your 40's.

Show More Hide

{TEXT}

You want my example? My understanding of TVP would be very specific, I'm not a normal person, I'm very hobby and structure-oriented. I would probably develop a new scientific field studying historical occult and mystical traditions, experiences and states of consciousness with neurology and electric knowledge of physics. I find this field rather undeveloped today, too many mechanistic Cartesians in the field, trying to defend it against Deepak Chopra woo woo, but stifling the development at the same time. I'd set this up as a project and then make a couple of other projects or work groups (game development, for example) just for fun and alternate between them not to get bored. Meanwhile I'd travel around the world, to learn, discuss and lecture about the project results. You see, I'd have a plenty to do if it wasn't for this pesky global crisis thing. For some hours of the day I'd meditate, or do some activity that I can do while meditating, like contemplation and writing, talking or listening. Of course one of the main projects would be a live social experiment, such as a long term marriage and a small family. I suspect I'm very monogamous and I have no understanding for this frequent changing partners, but I suppose in TVP more people would prefer free dating if anything.

You want to know how a general social life would look like, for example. You will find a very detailed description of a typical TVP day in the free PDF book Looking Forward. (second half of the document) Very interesting read, but not in any way mandatory, merely a suggestion. The mandatory part of this society is rigorous scientific testing of every new feature and its effect on human happiness and society, before it becomes its part. Such as genetic modifications.
Fresco equates the life in TVP to the life on an ocean liner, which is a kind of floating city, in which every citizen has full attention and selection from the rich program that the crew tries to offer. All systems and automated "personnel" on this city are designed to offer social continuous stream of interesting and stimulating pursuits and experiences to the people, while securing their social needs. Fresco uses the term "total enclosure systems".

Also why would anyone study for ~10 years to be a doctor, work 60 hour weeks and carry massive amounts of responsibility for your patients, when you don't get any more out of it than the guy next door who does nothing but add neon lights and speakers to his garden and holding outdoor midnight raves? Some people might be doctors due to a genuine desire to help people, but there are lots of different ways they can help people that would involve a much easier life, so why would they take the doctor path?

Have you ever heard of "obsessive interests"? People like me would rather study their obsessive interest than be even near a rave party. Too much noise, cigarette stench, a confusing stream of faces... Instead, what about looking into this aorta valve, what a fascinating mechanism! What happens if I inject 10 miligrams of some alcaloid into it...? :twisted: Helping people is great and there are other additional motivations, like the power over disease, the insight into human workings, and most of all, the direct ability of a TVP citizen to influence his environment. If let's say a doctor or engineer discovers what causes the disease in his patients, what element of the life, he can suggest city modifications that would prevent it. Today we let accidents happen, we don't fix the road, just put up a sign.
I suspect my dentist is one of such people, he really enjoys his job and he's good at it. He always explains me all this dentistry stuff and shows me x-rays which I totally don't understand.

Anyway, I might have something. I can't find the video, but on Youtube there was a very popular American show back from the 60's, some famous moderator asked children who do they want to be when they grow up. They really did say things like they want to be a doctor, a nurse, a garbage man, an astronaut and so on. I for one, wanted to be an inventor But now children want to be like some movie star or superhero, they want to imitate. They are quite specific that they don't want real achievement or real happiness, they want to look like they are happy or that they achieved something. And that can be bought. This is actually a result of extremely focused marketing on children. It is artificial. It may have something to do with attention. I spent my childhood with long periods of unbroken attention focusing on construction problems like Lego, but children today have their attention shattered every 20 minutes by a loud and colorful advertisement.
Under the onslaught of consumer culture, forceful repetitive learning in schools and boring jobs for money, no wonder we developed the ideal of laziness, passivity and self-narcotizing. We imagine this is human nature and we believe the myth that without the constant threat of having no money to pay the rent humanity would just vegetate on a sidewalk, drinking beer and jacking off.

I for one can not imagine a greater social exclusion than doing nothing when everyone around have some kind of success in helping the society. I could not look in the mirror if everyone around were experts and talked their expert stuff and discussed latest achievements in the field, paraded as the great problem solvers and troubleshooters without me. I'd rather have a few expert areas and dabble into many others just out of curiosity.

What happens when the population expands in a TVP city. Is the population level controlled to remove competition? If so how do you control it? What happens if people have more children than you allow, through desire, accident or nature?

Like it or not, the media shape culture and culture defines how do we see children. Fresco speaks how culture molds people, it molds women into childbearing caretakers. Current sociologic research of fairy tales finds them extremely gender unbalanced, female characters have literally zero active role in them (except of unreal characters like witches and fairies). The culture also shows a fake, idealized image of babies.Children are loud, stupid and helpless, they can not say anything new and demand lots of attention. We love them, but let's say studying a coral reef in a personal submarine or descending into a volcano in a fireproof capsule can be much more interesting. Specially with a freely available contraception, which is a necessity. However, "accidents" improbable as they are, should not be stigmatized, they should pose no economic difficulty or social ostracism. Sexual education, man.

The VP city is designed to provide such a stimulating environment and such a freedom for personal pursuits, so that having and raising a child is comparatively a very dull and constraining activity. Fresco wants to present TVP as a family environment, but he knows family will change. The forces that shaped it over centuries will be gone. Already today family is a very different thing than it was in history. In history family was very formal, open and permanent, now it's very closed, informal, emotional and impermanent. Nevertheless, question 49:

Show More Hide

{TEXT}

Fresco places a great emphasis on prevention. All children must be taught at school about the carrying capacity of environment and how to measure it. How over-population causes scarcity and scarcity causes mass killings, wars and murders. This is a scientific fact and it must become a firm part of the culture. Everyone must have access to the computer systems that measure the capacity of the cities and resources and see for himself what is the current state of population and the capacity. Fresco already installed on his website an application that shows real time world statistics, what is the number of people, of diseases, crimes and so on. Such statistics would probably become a part of culture and daily life.
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/technology/live-world-data

Everyone knows that in the system of shared resources in RBE we become richer as a humanity, the fewer of us shares the resources. Of course it is always possible to build a new city in a suitable place. But Fresco in the book Looking Forward describes a cultural aspect, when society accepted a stable population level as a norm and old people die peacefully, knowing that their death makes room for a new person to be born.

In other words, there is no law, rule or force against overpopulation. Such methods are not effective. Humanity follows environment, not laws. If laws go against the environment, they fail. If laws reflect the environment, nobody needs them. A law against overpopulation would be about as effective as a law against digital piracy or law against drugs. An environment must be free, stimulating and full of costless advanced contraception.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

TVP does not need exactly this or that technology to have merit.

Of course it does. It's the very thing you are promoting!

Well, fuck me, I think this is pretty impressive. Who the hell am I to doubt they could build a mere TVP city? Of course they can.

And who the hell are you to say that they should?

Someone who needs food, water, housing, medicine, education, travel, communication, energy, peace & security... But at times like this I feel like the only one.

The need for "food, water, housing, medicine, education, travel, communication, energy, peace & security" does not qualify you to be able to tell if a society based on TVP is capable of providing "food, water, housing, medicine, education, travel, communication, energy, peace & security".

That's true, but my study of economy suggests this has a different cause.

And what do you know about economy exactly?

I am actually a very rare person on Earth, a white young male with university education, from technologic society, knowing a foreign language fluently.

You are not rare, white kids with bullshit educations who knows a foreign language is a dime a dozen. And that does not qualify you to know how technology works.

If you can't make me understand,

Obviously not. And you still haven't realized that the very same group of people that you criticize as being useless and not productive, is the exact same group you fall in. So I want you to keep this in your head the next time you say something.

Do you want to still pretend you are qualified? Ok, lets play that game.
Lets analyse your loading sections idea.
How would the containers get on the loading section exactly? And what would I gain from loading containers into a loading section instead of just loading stuff into the ship? Nothing! Actually you lose, because now you need a bigger lift to load the loading sections into the boat, and extra step that could have been saved by just loading the things into the damn boat to start with. And what happens to the boat while the loading sections are being loaded? Well that is right, its stays there until the loading sections are returned. [sarcasm]But wait, I have a better idea, why not make each loading section the capability to float on its own and go to the destination without needing a boat? Wouldn't that be awesome?.... What we already got that? What's it called?... a goat? a moat?[/sarcasm] Yeah it's called a boat!

Have you ever seen (un)loading of ships?

Yes I have. I have also not failed to notice how you evaded the issues I raised.

A ship is sitting in the port and there is a crane taking the containers one by one, moving them at a great distance, placing them, returning back, taking another one... It takes about 3 hours to unload the ship, Fresco says.

1. I don't care what Fresco says.
2. Just 3 hours? That is pretty good if you asked me.

Fresco lived in Miami and I had the opportunity to observe the Miami port and containers in the serial Dexter, but I digress...

Of course, the lift has to be designed big enough to move a whole section of the ship. But why the hell not, if the new light and superstrong materials allow that?

Because it is more wasteful, less efficient, more laborious and more dangerous, not to mention more expensive.

Now, if the ship used Fresco's solution, it could speed up the loading and unloading process just by exchanging one loaded ship section for an empty one, so the ship can leave the port quickly.

And how would you load the cargo into the loading sections? How much time would that take?
Where you you store the loading sections? How do you know that it actually doesn't do the opposite? (i.e. make the process take longer)
If I have a ship that goes around many ports with several months interval, how do I keep track of my loading sections? If it is a communal loading section who bares its maintenance? And how would I guarantee the safety of my cargo against ill responsible previous handling of the loading sections?
If I have cargo for many ports but each port is not enough to fill a loading section, what would I do then? Make 5 trips with almost empty loading sections instead of one fully loaded vessel? How would ensure compatibility between the loading sections and each caliber of ship?

If not all cargo would be unloaded at that destination, then obviously unloading it from the detached section onto some kinds of ramps out of the section would be much faster than hauling the containers one by one through the air.

And how would you load a container into a truck from within a loading section?

Modern storage software can of course stack the containers

"Modern" storage software can't stack, its software, what stacks things is the actual physical equipment. What you probably could mean is that we use a schedule, that we use today, in order to load onto the ship last the containers destined for the ports it will visit first.

A circular shape of a city makes sure that no point on the circle is ever further away than a half circumference

Why? A square shape makes sure that no point is further from another then the Manhattan distance. And look at this, because squares can be more easily compacted together, this means that any city with comparable infrastructure, the distances needed to travel would be smaller with square blocks than with circular blocks. Plus a city with square blocks can expand indefinitely while a circular one can't.
So what exactly did you gain by that?

of the circles and no car ever has to backtrack too much (instead it just goes around).

Except of course it isn't true.

The city is designed to use the already commercially existing transport system, which is individual, solar-powered magnetically levitating trolley car.

Which actually doesn't even exist, much less commercially.

It does not have to go through the hub and it should get anyone anywhere in the city within 10-20 minutes.

And your time estimate is based on what exactly?

It should intelligently choose routes from the network, that is several concentric circles and 8 straight ways to the hub. Not counting the underground. I'd say the traffic has many more options to dissipate and plan its own routes automatically.

Which concentrates all the traffic into one place. Inevitably causing grid locks.
And 8? Why 8? Why not 6 or 34?

However, in RBE there is no business, no need for all people to go to work at 9 AM and back at 5 PM, so gridlocks don't happen. Everyone's daily schedule may be individual and all (automated) services run 24/7.

So who exactly would produce everything you need to maintain the demand of a such a system?
Predictable answer: "Machines". Do you have those machines? And who makes those machines? And were do people go to start relations? Wouldn't you need transport to get to those places?

As for 2-3 million people towns, I seriously doubt that. My best estimate is, this is not what the circular cities are designed for, and it would seriously overstep the carrying capacity of the environment. Too many people at one place is not a good idea. I think it would look more like

1. Your best estimate based on what?
2. Right now, people live in cities with over 3 million people just fine. And you think that your system, that can't handle that, is better?

Obviously, the circular city requires to strip the top soil (saving the valuable soil for agriculture) and build it as one integrated system from the bottom.

Are you seriously suggesting to strip the entire top soil? Thank Jebus you are not a civil engineer.

As for the soil, I haven't ever seen that it would ever stop anyone from building anything.

You don't know because you are not an engineer, and this sort of details are completely oblivious to you. And you are here making suggestions that makes no sense as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I want you to take a look at the shape of the skyline in the New York city

Why do you think Sky scrapers are concentrated on one side, and then the buildings flatten out, then you have a couple of mushrooms of skyscrapers?
Why do you think that is?
And now at Tokyo subway system:

Why do you think it has that quirky shape?
I will give you a hint. Its a 4 letter word that starts with an "S" and ends out in "oil".

Certainly not Fresco with his liking in huge automated construction robots controlled by satellite.

[sarcasm]Yes, because prefabricated buildings are better at adapting to the conditions of the different soils. Oh, and the satellites certainly make the buildings extra safe.[/sarcasm]

Don't geologists solve these problems all the time? (by choosing an adequate place...)

I want you to read what you just said again. Because you just answer your own question. You completely destroyed the idealistic TVP city planing.

As for your design, I find it inadequate.

And who are you to say that it is inadequate?

People are not goods.

How does straight cities transforms people into goods?

Square cities are good for apartments only, everything but housing needs centers.

I disagree, after all we have been living just fine in such cities.

Be it art, production, research, recycling... Existence of centers requires the city to be centralized around a hub.

No it doesn't! Who said that?

I find Fresco's design very logical, it resembles organism.

[sarcasm]I wonder what other organisms besides onions look like onions?[/sarcasm]

Your design is basically human storage. Current square designs, such as Manhattan or New York are terribly unsustainable and dependent on constant inflow of goods and prone to gridlocks.

Oh really? Tell me again where is the farming complex within Fresco's project cities?
What was that again about gridlocks and the fact that TVP concentrating the traffic?

Also, their capacity is overburdened.

Tell me again how the cities from TVP can accommodate for more than 8 million people?

No you don't. You think you do, but you don't. You are as arrogant as you are ignorant.

Have you ever heard of projecting? I may simply be someone who disagrees and thinks in a very different way and that might translate into character qualities in your eyes.

No, its not a matter of different opinion. You suffering form the Dunning Kruger effect.

The question is, how long and in what way do I have to work for this shit?

As long as it takes. If we could have done better we would, but we can't so we don't and that is that.
And before you give the predictable response "but we can figure it out if we work at it", well then figure it out!.... Have you figure it out yet? What you can't because you are not an engineer? Well that is to bad ain't it? How hypocrite is that?

You missed the point. For a given item, how did its production costs and time decrease over the last 200 years or so? What was the need for human labor?

No, you are the one missing the point. You arrogantly proclaim that it can be done and should be done while you don't know how to do it nor do you try to do it.
Unless you have a way to do it, don't say that you can.

Bullshit! Do not evade the point. By what standard do you measure that most of the jobs do nothing to contribute to the well-being of others?
You don't need to answer that, you just pulled that out of your own ass.

Because most jobs only serve to earn money and money serve to get basic standard of living and beyond that they don't increase happiness very much. Marginal utility of money is hell of a decreasing one, THAT's human nature and Maslow's pyramid in practice. Jobs can be stacked as a Maslow's pyramid as well as human needs.

BullShit! You haven't answered the question. Just admit that you can't!

Of course it should! Look up the Dan Pink TEDx speech. Interesting work increases productivity and helps new solutions to old problems.

Now tell me how would an interesting working environment increase the creativity of a factory worker on a production line?

You misunderstood the point. A factory line is intrinsically un-creative, un-interesting environment, up to the point of inhumane practice. And it can be done by machine much faster and better than by human hands.

I misunderstood the point? Unbelievable! I present a clear example where your theory falls apart and I have misunderstood the point? Just admit that you were wrong.

I do not mention "person X" as an authority but purely by the internal merit of what he says. It is not a fallacy, it is a reference to the source, not claiming the wisdom as my own.

No, it's not a reference, it's a fallacy. You yourself admit that you don't know, and yet you present it to me like a solution.

If you can't take in the qualitative information, if you think only positivistic measured data are real, you're going to be quite disappointed in life.

I'm not the one struggling in life because of the lack of meaningful qualification. You are the one mistaking ignorance for knowledge, and how far has that taken you until now?

You would surely say this is impossible, because of human nature. I would argue there is no human nature - or rather it is indiscernible in an average person and great human capacity to perpetuate the culture....

We have been here before. Instead of repeating myself, go back and read my objections. and if you can try to address them before peddling this back.
Oh, and I couldn't pass this gem:

Maybe we can't change human nature, but we can change human nurture easily enough.

Just stop. Take my advice. Take a step back, take a deep breath, relax, and now pay attention to what you are saying and what that implies.

Man, social sciences are sciences too!

No it's not. Social "sciences" are a misnomer, very rarely has any science in it.

You sound like some medieval fire & brimstone preacher, mouthful of original sin and fatalism of human depravity.

I'm not preaching fire and brimstone. I am telling you that we don't do better because the problems that we face are much more complicated than you think, we don't do better because right now we can't.

Where does your allegiance lie, what nations do you think that USA army should invade next? Apparently you find that perfectly acceptable to human nature. If you believe murder is in human nature, do you think murder is right?

I don't think it is acceptable, I think it is currently unavoidable, and that it is extremely unlikely that it will ever be avoidable.
It's called being a realist, either we like the outcome or not.

There is, it is called law and law enforcement.

[sarcasm]Please, tell me again the story how the law and law enforcement solved the problem of crime, so that criminality is a thing of the past like black plague and smallpox?[/sarcasm] How suppressing anything ever solved anything? :facepalm:

There are no perfect solutions, but the one we have now keeps people in check, it actually does something, it actually works. It isn't based in imagination.

Competition is destructive to society. It is the plague of our culture, a cause of all crime, violence and waste.

Says who?
How else do you expect to maintain the productivity we have now?

Let's say I competed with you for your wife, house and job, would you like that? Nope, the only acceptable competition is symbolic, in sports and games.

We already do that!
And just because you don't like it it doesn't mean that it isn't good. You will learn that when you gain maturity.

The overall net benefit is low, as the game theory says.

And what exactly do you know about game theory?

The school with its ruthless mental bulimia killed in me all curiosity towards mathemathics and many other subjects,

The "mathematics" you have taken at school (which is even debatable that it was real mathematics or not) is extremely easy compared to what you need to become an engineer. If you get turned off just with that, you wouldn't survive a day in engineering school.

I'm not a normal person, I'm very hobby and structure-oriented. I would probably develop a new scientific field studying historical occult and mystical traditions, experiences and states of consciousness with neurology and electric knowledge of physics.

I wouldn't doubt that you would dedicate your life to Woo for a moment.

People like me would rather study their obsessive interest than be even near a rave party. Too much noise, cigarette stench, a confusing stream of faces... Instead, what about looking into this aorta valve, what a fascinating mechanism! What happens if I inject 10 miligrams of some alcaloid into it...?

Let me ask you a serious question. Do you do that?

 

[Toth]

One kind of answer is #78, in the FAQ. I can understand that, because as a child I was very curious towards several scientific subjects and remained so to a large degree. The school with its ruthless mental bulimia killed in me all curiosity towards mathemathics and many other subjects

Do you think that there are people who would thrive in the environment that you were schooled in? Do you think that you could have achieved more at school if you had applied yourself more? Also how responsible would you say you, your school, and your parents were for your performance at school?

But curiosity is far more valuable than any piece or area of knowledge that is taught in schools. Curiosity is the ability to stay up to date on any knowledge for all your life, instead of zombifying after your 40's.

So if curiosity is more important than knowledge, would you say that being curios is more important than knowing about TVP? I don't know who you know in their 40's, but none of the people I know I would describe as being zombified. Maybe you should meet more people.

You want my example? My understanding of TVP would be very specific, I'm not a normal person, I'm very hobby and structure-oriented. I would probably develop a new scientific field studying historical occult and mystical traditions, experiences and states of consciousness with neurology and electric knowledge of physics. I find this field rather undeveloped today, too many mechanistic Cartesians in the field, trying to defend it against Deepak Chopra woo woo, but stifling the development at the same time.

Have you seen any evidence so far that would justify further investigation in this area, or is it just an idea that you would like to prove true?

The mandatory part of this society is rigorous scientific testing of every new feature and its effect on human happiness and society, before it becomes its part. Such as genetic modifications.

And how would you measure human happiness in society? You could drug the water supply with ecstacy, and everyone would be happier. The highest degree of happiness would be if the people didn't know that you were doing it, so what would stop you? People who watch endless reality shows are largely happy, but I wouldn't want to live in a society entirely populated with those people.

What sort of genetic modification are you referring to?

Also why would anyone study for ~10 years to be a doctor, work 60 hour weeks and carry massive amounts of responsibility for your patients, when you don't get any more out of it than the guy next door who does nothing but add neon lights and speakers to his garden and holding outdoor midnight raves? Some people might be doctors due to a genuine desire to help people, but there are lots of different ways they can help people that would involve a much easier life, so why would they take the doctor path?

Have you ever heard of "obsessive interests"?

As I said, that might be true for a few people, but not enough to run a health service.

People like me would rather study their obsessive interest than be even near a rave party. Too much noise, cigarette stench, a confusing stream of faces... Instead, what about looking into this aorta valve, what a fascinating mechanism! What happens if I inject 10 miligrams of some alcaloid into it...?

I'm not suggesting that you would prefer to go to a rave. I'm asking about how you would feel about the next-door neighbour who does nothing but throw raves all night every night, disrupting your highly trained and essential service, 60 hour, stress loaded, work week. Your work saves peoples lives, and was the result of over a decade of dedication. His work is making larger speakers for the raves. You both have the same resources to use. How would you feel about that?

Helping people is great and there are other additional motivations, like the power over disease, the insight into human workings, and most of all, the direct ability of a TVP citizen to influence his environment. If let's say a doctor or engineer discovers what causes the disease in his patients, what element of the life, he can suggest city modifications that would prevent it.

My point was that you could achieve all of that with a fraction of the work of becoming a doctor. A research scientist could be trained in 5 years, would work a 40 hour week and has a fraction of the stress. Why would anyone chose to become a doctor, when they could satisfy all of their curiosity and research desires without the drawbacks?

Anyway, I might have something. I can't find the video, but on Youtube there was a very popular American show back from the 60's, some famous moderator asked children who do they want to be when they grow up. They really did say things like they want to be a doctor, a nurse, a garbage man, an astronaut and so on. I for one, wanted to be an inventor

So what was it that stopped you from becoming an inventor?

But now children want to be like some movie star or superhero, they want to imitate. They are quite specific that they don't want real achievement or real happiness, they want to look like they are happy or that they achieved something. And that can be bought. This is actually a result of extremely focused marketing on children. It is artificial. It may have something to do with attention. I spent my childhood with long periods of unbroken attention focusing on construction problems like Lego, but children today have their attention shattered every 20 minutes by a loud and colorful advertisement.

All of the roles, both past and present, have a sense of recognition in them (apart from the garbage man, but I suspects that's more from a desire to play with big machines). Children want attention, and the people they see getting the attention are the roles they mentioned. How many of those children went on to achieve what they said they wanted to be at the age of ~6? I would guess 1% at most. Why do you take the first set as naive aspiration, and the second as a goal that they work tirelessly towards? Do you think the percentage of kids who said astronaut were any more or less successful than the kids who said rock star? if not, then what does it matter? The end result is the same.

On your other point. Do children play less with Lego now? I still see lots of sets for sale, with even more complicated constructions than when I was a kid.

I for one can not imagine a greater social exclusion than doing nothing when everyone around have some kind of success in helping the society. I could not look in the mirror if everyone around were experts and talked their expert stuff and discussed latest achievements in the field, paraded as the great problem solvers and troubleshooters without me. I'd rather have a few expert areas and dabble into many others just out of curiosity.

So what are you currently an expert in? Or are you happy to not be an expert as long as the people around you aren't? Unfortunately not everyone can be a great problem solver. That's conditional on the word 'Great'. There will only ever be a few 'Great' minds in any society. The odds of you being around them would be highly unlikely as you don't work in engineering or science. So would you be as motivated?

What happens when the population expands in a TVP city. Is the population level controlled to remove competition? If so how do you control it? What happens if people have more children than you allow, through desire, accident or nature?

Children are loud, stupid and helpless, they can not say anything new and demand lots of attention. We love them, but let's say studying a coral reef in a personal submarine or descending into a volcano in a fireproof capsule can be much more interesting. Specially with a freely available contraception, which is a necessity. However, "accidents" improbable as they are, should not be stigmatized, they should pose no economic difficulty or social ostracism. Sexual education, man.

As endearing as your view of children is, it seems to indicate that you have never had any, or met anyone with whom you would wish to have any. This is not a problem, but you must realise that there are other people who feel differently, and as much as you might like to look at fish, you might find a time where your love for someone else is even stronger. You may find that there are many parents who take a great interest in their child's development, and find it even more interesting than being in a pressurised container. Some of these parents might want to have more children. What happens when they decide to have 5, or 8, or 15 seeing as how they can have a house big enough and resources to look after all of them?

On the other hand, if you're absolutely correct and the human race is more interested in looking at rocks than procreating, what will happen to the population of your city?

At present, both husbands and wives work. Monetary economics has undermined family cohesion and childcare. Parents have little time to spend with their children, and they are constantly stressed by ever-rising medical bills, insurance payments, educational expenses, and cost of living expenses.
In this area, one of the most profound benefits of this new civilization can be realized. Shorter workdays will provide greater opportunity for family members to pursue areas of personal interest. Free access to goods and services will make the home a pleasant place, without the economic stress that causes so much family turmoil.

This sounds like the opposite of your point, suggesting that families will form stronger bonds and have more time together, so which is it?

Fresco places a great emphasis on prevention. All children must be taught at school about the carrying capacity of environment and how to measure it. How over-population causes scarcity and scarcity causes mass killings, wars and murders. This is a scientific fact and it must become a firm part of the culture. Everyone must have access to the computer systems that measure the capacity of the cities and resources and see for himself what is the current state of population and the capacity. Fresco already installed on his website an application that shows real time world statistics, what is the number of people, of diseases, crimes and so on. Such statistics would probably become a part of culture and daily life.

And what happens to the children who don't thrive in Fresco's educational environment? Everyone learns differently, so how does TVP deal with the children who don't take on all of Fresco's learning? Maybe they disrupt the classes to get attention from the teacher because their parents are more interested in looking at funghi then spending time with them.

Everyone knows that in the system of shared resources in RBE we become richer as a humanity, the fewer of us shares the resources. Of course it is always possible to build a new city in a suitable place. But Fresco in the book Looking Forward describes a cultural aspect, when society accepted a stable population level as a norm and old people die peacefully, knowing that their death makes room for a new person to be born.

I don't think everyone does know that, otherwise you would have encountered less opposition here. Fresco seems to suggest maintaining a static population here, so again, how is that maintained? Your views seem different from Fresco's, but you're still quoting him, even when it seems to contradict your other points.

In other words, there is no law, rule or force against overpopulation. Such methods are not effective. Humanity follows environment, not laws. If laws go against the environment, they fail. If laws reflect the environment, nobody needs them. A law against overpopulation would be about as effective as a law against digital piracy or law against drugs. An environment must be free, stimulating and full of costless advanced contraception.

Twins and triplets happen, some people want large families, even if it's against the greater good of society.

You seem to have the impression that after TVP comes into effect (with all of the education/cultural changes you want), everyone will be 100% behind it, accept all of the cities values, work for the benefit of all mankind. There will always be people who don't agree, who take advantage and exploit the system. You seem to believe that you can create a 'Stepford Wives' version of humanity if you modify it enough. The modifications you're trying to achieve are only going to come about by changing what it is to be human. You say you don't believe in human nature, give me an example of how TVP has successfully modified the drives of a child by controlling their environment and culture.

 

[Prolescum]

:lol: Oh wow. I'll think I'll step out of the conversation for a time. Too much detritus left strewn across the floor to safely navigate at this point.

 

[Armitage]

Do you think that there are people who would thrive in the environment that you were schooled in? Do you think that you could have achieved more at school if you had applied yourself more? Also how responsible would you say you, your school, and your parents were for your performance at school?

Thriving in our school system is less likely, because it is extremely outdated. It is very dull compared to the rest of our culture. If you read the wonderful book "What Are Schools For?" by doctor Ron Miller, you'll see the schools are formed by outdated Christian ideas on human depravity and Hegelian (I hope I've got him right) ideas on the animal within us. Also, by the empress Mary Theresa, 220 years ago.
We are exposed to digital advertisement designed by brain imaging methods and then we go to a school that uses centuries old methods. I'd say if any children thrive in there, it is thanks to extreme resilience and adaptability of homo sapiens as a species.

So if curiosity is more important than knowledge, would you say that being curios is more important than knowing about TVP? I don't know who you know in their 40's, but none of the people I know I would describe as being zombified. Maybe you should meet more people.

Being curious is more important than knowing about TVP. In fact it's a prerequisite, so please warn me if your curiosity on TVP is weakening.

Have you seen any evidence so far that would justify further investigation in this area, or is it just an idea that you would like to prove true?

What prove true? I mean just a preliminary research. The only thing I'd like to prove true is to find something tangible enough so it can be researched and proven true or false at all. That would be great.

What sort of genetic modification are you referring to?

Nothing in particular, in Fresco's piece of sci-fi one was, IIRC a few additional human races, to make people more interesting. In Fresco's book the culture values diversity and change.

As I said, that might be true for a few people, but not enough to run a health service.

Depends what kind of health service. Nobody can be sure what's left of doctors after the current developments in automation get underway. Doctors could make a surgery over the internet. Soon maybe a robot could make the surgery automatically and faster. Robots can learn the moves from surgeons, see better than them, correct their mistakes and tremors... The technology is already halfway there.

I'm not suggesting that you would prefer to go to a rave. I'm asking about how you would feel about the next-door neighbour who does nothing but throw raves all night every night, disrupting your highly trained and essential service, 60 hour, stress loaded, work week. Your work saves peoples lives, and was the result of over a decade of dedication. His work is making larger speakers for the raves. You both have the same resources to use. How would you feel about that?

My point was that you could achieve all of that with a fraction of the work of becoming a doctor. A research scientist could be trained in 5 years, would work a 40 hour week and has a fraction of the stress. Why would anyone chose to become a doctor, when they could satisfy all of their curiosity and research desires without the drawbacks?

I don't think anything of loud neighbors, I have earplugs and they certainly would not make me lose interest in anything.
What are you trying to get me to admit? What is your argument? So far, it seems to me your argument is something like,
"The study and work of doctors is so difficult and stressful that nobody does it voluntarily. Without monetary system, it is impossible to have enough doctors for a population, because everybody would choose something easier." Is that what you mean?

So what was it that stopped you from becoming an inventor?

A new obsessive interest.

All of the roles, both past and present, have a sense of recognition in them (apart from the garbage man, but I suspects that's more from a desire to play with big machines). Children want attention, and the people they see getting the attention are the roles they mentioned. How many of those children went on to achieve what they said they wanted to be at the age of ~6? I would guess 1% at most. Why do you take the first set as naive aspiration, and the second as a goal that they work tirelessly towards? Do you think the percentage of kids who said astronaut were any more or less successful than the kids who said rock star? if not, then what does it matter? The end result is the same.

And what result is it? Let me guess, they could not become a rock star or an astronaut because there is scarcity of such job positions. What about TVP? Fresco believes that children can be interested even in stuff like continental drift, meteorology, anything that is in an environment they grow up in.

On your other point. Do children play less with Lego now? I still see lots of sets for sale, with even more complicated constructions than when I was a kid.

I don't know, it's been almost a lifetime ago. I'd say these are the various movie editions.

So what are you currently an expert in? Or are you happy to not be an expert as long as the people around you aren't? Unfortunately not everyone can be a great problem solver. That's conditional on the word 'Great'. There will only ever be a few 'Great' minds in any society. The odds of you being around them would be highly unlikely as you don't work in engineering or science. So would you be as motivated?

Currently? Nothing, I'm busy learning to be a generalist. Fresco says generalists are important, especially today in world full of experts who can't see beyond their own field.
I am happy of my "expertise" only as long as it is useful to people around me. I use it as a way to socialize, not as a decoration.

I dare not claim what kind of great problem solvers and geniuses it is or isn't possible to bring up by Fresco's methods, but I'd love to try them.

As endearing as your view of children is, it seems to indicate that you have never had any, or met anyone with whom you would wish to have any. This is not a problem, but you must realise that there are other people who feel differently, and as much as you might like to look at fish, you might find a time where your love for someone else is even stronger. You may find that there are many parents who take a great interest in their child's development, and find it even more interesting than being in a pressurised container. Some of these parents might want to have more children. What happens when they decide to have 5, or 8, or 15 seeing as how they can have a house big enough and resources to look after all of them?

On the other hand, if you're absolutely correct and the human race is more interested in looking at rocks than procreating, what will happen to the population of your city?

Of course I realize there are other people who think differently. I might be one of them, I don't have an opinion on children right now. I just say that human motivation to have children has a cultural element, it's a convention today, old folks want to be grandparents.
The main problem with children is the third world, where they are used as a cheap labor source and retirement security system, creating a Ponzi scheme of a population explosion. The secure conditions in TVP should be even more effective at eliminating population than dying out Europe.
TVP is not about telling people what to do, but to provide them the best environment, that negates all scarcity and cultural pressure, thus giving them freedom to whatever they want to do. There is no freedom without social security, no freedom of mind without education and no freedom of will without the ability to make informed decisions. If TVP can educate people and protect them from scarcity and today's cultural bullshit, I think they'll be much better at making informed decisions than they are now. TVP doesn't have to be perfect, it is just hell a lot better than what we have today. If there's a big problem, we study environment, not the people, what in it motivates people to have more or less children than is optimal. And then we change the environment. Not the people.

This sounds like the opposite of your point, suggesting that families will form stronger bonds and have more time together, so which is it?

TVP is not about telling families how they should look like. It should secure them materially no matter how they look like, which gives them freedom to be whatever they really want to be. That's the true freedom and democracy. Today a family is halfway a corporation.

And what happens to the children who don't thrive in Fresco's educational environment? Everyone learns differently, so how does TVP deal with the children who don't take on all of Fresco's learning? Maybe they disrupt the classes to get attention from the teacher because their parents are more interested in looking at funghi then spending time with them.

I'm not sure there will be classes, actually. Classes are very dull places, killing curiosity. If you see in the sci-fi movies children sitting in rows and pews and a teacher, with a computer screen on pews, that's bullshit.

Fresco speaks of lots of active, hands-on learning experience. I say, education should raise curiosity, not satisfy it. Curiosity helps learn the "dull theory", if such a thing exists, on their own. Fresco says, whatever qualities we want children to have, we don't tell them, we integrate them into the environment. If we want to prevent child obesity, we place the crafts workshop on a hill at an island, so children have to row boat and climb a hill to get there and back. If we want children to cooperate, we don't tell them to cooperate. We prepare a car parts for them that they can only put together and make the car ride if they cooperate, if one group lifts one side of the car and the others put the wheels on.
Nobody must tell us "be liberal!" "Cooperate!" "Think for yourself!" "Be spontaneous!" "Fight for peace!" "Forgive, or I'll punish you!" That's bullshit. Either you grow into it, because that's the way to have most fun without even thinking about it, or it doesn't work, noble intentions don't work, telling people doesn't work.
I really like TVP, because it makes my thinking hell a lot sharper, I notice things I haven't thought of before in a completely new ways. It's fascinating to see the way to real solutions and how the current solutions just pretend to solve the problem. It's mind-expanding.

I don't think everyone does know that, otherwise you would have encountered less opposition here. Fresco seems to suggest maintaining a static population here, so again, how is that maintained? Your views seem different from Fresco's, but you're still quoting him, even when it seems to contradict your other points.

My views or Fresco's views are irrelevant compared to the scientific method. Anyone who applies the scientific method to research of environment and its effect on human behavior will have a superior argument. We just say, study the environment first, the causes of behavior are there.

Twins and triplets happen, some people want large families, even if it's against the greater good of society.

I can't see how that would be a problem when it's not a problem even today. The population in developed countries is decreasing, because of the life, business, culture, education...

You seem to have the impression that after TVP comes into effect (with all of the education/cultural changes you want), everyone will be 100% behind it, accept all of the cities values, work for the benefit of all mankind. There will always be people who don't agree, who take advantage and exploit the system. You seem to believe that you can create a 'Stepford Wives' version of humanity if you modify it enough. The modifications you're trying to achieve are only going to come about by changing what it is to be human. You say you don't believe in human nature, give me an example of how TVP has successfully modified the drives of a child by controlling their environment and culture.

Fresco did work with children back in the 60's, from the most criminal areas. Full of social workers, who talked at them, not with them. Yet Fresco educated the children, gave them skills to make a decent, honest living. How? He showed them something they wanted. A gun he made himself. And they wanted to know how to make guns too. So he taught them descriptive geometry and metalwork and how to make guns and many other items. He did not tell them to go to work. He made them want to work. That it was good for them and good for the city, that was completely irrelevant to them.

You think TVP is based on telling people what to do and they will do that or else, and then TVP will work. Nope. TVP is like an ocean liner, you come there and if you need something, you just take it off the table like everyone else, it's all there for you. You don't stock up on food, you know the place runs 24 hours a day and there'll be enough even after nightly scuba diving. You can't cheat the system, the system is already cheated in your favor. Someone clever who came before rigged it to give you all you want, everyone is already cheating there. It's like an automat rigged to work without money, it just gives out things and nobody will ever come to fix it. Cheating is good, because if you had to pay money, there would have to be a dozen times more problems how to let you earn the money and to watch you from taking the money in some other way and to punish you if you take the money anyway. So it's better to let people cheat and just give them access to goods and services any time they want.
If you're a gamer, you know what happens when you cheat a lot. The game stops being so damn compelling and you don't feel the need spend a night and day playing it.

This is why it's so important that the TVP cities have a limited capacity, it can't work with too many people at one place. There must be some safety margin and enough interesting things to do and see so that everyone has their interests and there's not just one interesting thing.

We believe all human behavior is lawful. There is nothing in our genes that would drive us to have X wives, Y children, Z shrunken heads on the wall. If children are brought up among head hunters, they will grow up as head hunters. A Jewish child in German Nazi family would grow up saying "Heil Hitler". A child of Ronald Reagan brought up in China would grow up as a Communist. An intelligent child would just become a Communist faster. An african child from the region with biggest harems and families brought up in Sweden would grow up to move out into a solitary apartment and have a family in his 30's.
All drives we have express themselves within the culture. And the culture is the result of environment. Do you have a spinster aunt with lots of cats but no children? Well, I do. So did English widows in times when war killed off all the prospective men. The need for children can be manipulated into caring for animals. We can cheat our drives and have "children" without the need for pregnancy and schools and so on.

What's wrong with the system, that it doesn't fit some people? What's wrong with the environment that they come from, what mechanisms in it made them that way?

 

[Vivre]

So what was it that stopped you from becoming an inventor?

A new obsessive interest.

emphasis mine

I'm busy learning to be a generalist. Fresco says generalists are important,

... great problem solvers and geniuses ... to bring up by Fresco's methods, ... I'd love to try them.

I really like TVP, because it makes my thinking hell a lot sharper,

It's fascinating .... It's mind-expanding.

TVP is not about telling people what to do, but ... giving them freedom to whatever they want to do.

If there's a big problem, we study environment, not the people, .... And then we change the environment.

TVP is not about telling families how they should look like.

We believe all human behavior is lawful. ....

A Jewish child in German Nazi family would grow up saying "Heil Hitler".

TVP = A totalitarian anarchy designed and conducted by fanatic-ism.

 

[Armitage]

TVP = A totalitarian anarchy designed and conducted by fanatic-ism.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Totalitarian anarchy is oxymoron :lol: What do you say next, atheism is a religion? :facepalm:

This is about the time you admit that you don't know what TVP is. Because it is a radical new idea, one of these you have to study to understand. Armchair politology just won't do.

 

[Vivre]

TVP = A totalitarian anarchy designed and conducted by fanatic-ism.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Totalitarian anarchy is oxymoron :lol: What do you say next, atheism is a religion? :facepalm:

gotcha :mrgreen:

 

[Armitage]

gotcha :mrgreen:

emphasis mine

*clapping*

RBE is not anarchism, but it is a method of applying science and technology to social problems that actually makes anarchism a possible and obvious choice of life style.

 

[Vivre]

gotcha :mrgreen:

emphasis mine

thx ~

 

[Nemesiah]

@Armitage:

The idea that people should put their trust in amateurs with "obsesive interests" is (I'm really sorry to say) idiotic.

Having an "obsesive interest" in something does not make you prepared to face the rigours of actual real-world problems.

Universities and specially certifications arose for a reason, when you are building a bridge you need to be relatively sure that the guy doing it can acualy do some math and has had enginiering experience, since if something goes wrong people will want (and deserve) to know what was it that killed their loved ones, personal incompetence an actuall accident, negligence, etc...

It is easy to believe that "obsessive interests" will alow us to grow food (as in a happy farm from the 50s), or make bricks for building 2 story houses. But who is going to dedicate 10 years of their life to an "obsesive interest" so that he/she can have the equivalent of a PHD in that subject? Even more, where are the teachers with the "osesive interest" for teching going to come from? Which incentives will this society give to keep people focused on tasks that need them to keep focused for decades.

Also, anyone that has studied a mayor will tell you that there were parts of the mayor that they didn't like, or that they had to go over a few times so that they could actually comprehend the material, how is it that in TVP people with "obsesive interests" go throuogh the stuff that they don't like? who gets to say "this guy actually knows what he claims he knows" so that bridges don't fall down.

On the other hand, Who is going to have an "obsesive interest" in learning how to navigate swerpipes so that they can unclog all that shit? Robots will be able to do a ton of jobs yes, but humans with the actuall knowledge will be needed to program them. Who is going to have an "obsesive interest" in dangerous activities?

The idea that robots can help us with boring, unsavory or dangerous work is correct, but what you are not taking into account is that there will be a need for actual experts, yes there are a ton of algorithms for machine learning but in the end, unless we are willing to pay a rather exhorbitant price in human missery people will have to guide the robot's learining curve.

Education is NOT perfect but so far has given us a lot, yes it is frustraiting to have to learn stuff you feel you won't need, or that you believe is too dificult but it has gotten us to the moon and back.

Your assesment that curiosity is better than knowledge is wishfull thinking at it's best, when you have a brain tumor you don't need a free spirit that has dabbled on the interwebs in topics of neuro-surgery because they were neat. You need a trained profesional that has had decades of studies and decades of practice so that either he performs the surgery or that he programs the robot that will do the actuall surgery, who is going to train this guy?

Science and engiering are very difficult jobs, thats why people train for them all their lives, learning a bunch of unsexy stuff that may not be used more than a handfull of times during their lifetimes but that is escentiall that they know it.

Being enthusiatic about TVP is good I believe, it is a very interesting idea, but don't blind yourself to it's failings and limitations, Jaques Fresco did not have all the answers, look critically at his proposals; also don't fall in the error of believeng that because school isn't fun it is useless, it is not; yes it could be much improved but so far is one of the best bets one has at becoming an expert on something. The time of the genious amateur is long gone, yes there are a few exceptions but if we relied on those exceptions for our society to survive we would doom ourselves to a new dark age.

 

[Armitage]

@Armitage:

The idea that people should put their trust in amateurs with "obsesive interests" is (I'm really sorry to say) idiotic.

Having an "obsesive interest" in something does not make you prepared to face the rigours of actual real-world problems.

Universities and specially certifications arose for a reason, when you are building a bridge you need to be relatively sure that the guy doing it can acualy do some math and has had enginiering experience, since if something goes wrong people will want (and deserve) to know what was it that killed their loved ones, personal incompetence an actuall accident, negligence, etc...

It is easy to believe that "obsessive interests" will alow us to grow food (as in a happy farm from the 50s), or make bricks for building 2 story houses. But who is going to dedicate 10 years of their life to an "obsesive interest" so that he/she can have the equivalent of a PHD in that subject? Even more, where are the teachers with the "osesive interest" for teching going to come from? Which incentives will this society give to keep people focused on tasks that need them to keep focused for decades.

Also, anyone that has studied a mayor will tell you that there were parts of the mayor that they didn't like, or that they had to go over a few times so that they could actually comprehend the material, how is it that in TVP people with "obsesive interests" go throuogh the stuff that they don't like? who gets to say "this guy actually knows what he claims he knows" so that bridges don't fall down.

On the other hand, Who is going to have an "obsesive interest" in learning how to navigate swerpipes so that they can unclog all that shit? Robots will be able to do a ton of jobs yes, but humans with the actuall knowledge will be needed to program them. Who is going to have an "obsesive interest" in dangerous activities?

The idea that robots can help us with boring, unsavory or dangerous work is correct, but what you are not taking into account is that there will be a need for actual experts, yes there are a ton of algorithms for machine learning but in the end, unless we are willing to pay a rather exhorbitant price in human missery people will have to guide the robot's learining curve.

C'mon, it was more of a private joke. "Obsessive interest" is a medical term in autistic community. It's more like love for a subject. And this is how some most famous scientists focused on a single aspect of a problem to find the solution. They say a dash of autism is necessary for scientific work. So after all I'd believe that at least here genetics plays a role in human behavior.

As for going through stuff we don't like, does it mean that we need monetary system to motivate (economically extort) people to do it? Or is it rather, that these jobs are still left to human hands, because money do not allow to automate the hell out of it? And what about division of labor? I've been in jobs I hated, yet there were people who liked them. And I liked parts of the job that nobody else did. Don't underestimate human diversity.

Education is NOT perfect but so far has given us a lot, yes it is frustraiting to have to learn stuff you feel you won't need, or that you believe is too dificult but it has gotten us to the moon and back.

That's the problem. Technologically you're right, but culturally it got us nowhere. It was just a political dick measuring contest between USA and Soviet Union. Astronauts didn't see any borders on Earth. Only the astronauts saw that this planet is a tiny place in vast cold universe and all the petty squabbles for resources between states are preventing us from making it a nice place.

Your assesment that curiosity is better than knowledge is wishfull thinking at it's best, when you have a brain tumor you don't need a free spirit that has dabbled on the interwebs in topics of neuro-surgery because they were neat. You need a trained profesional that has had decades of studies and decades of practice so that either he performs the surgery or that he programs the robot that will do the actuall surgery, who is going to train this guy?

Your assessment that curiosity and knowledge are mutually exclusive or even contradictory is completely mistaken. In fact, they're mutually supportive. I'd rather have someone who is curious about his job and authored some innovations in the field.
As for who is going to do what... You're like a social democratic government that can't trust the people to do their job, so it creates regulations, subsidies, quotas, state curricula and standardized tests. You're thinking like the present would not grow from the past, like there would be no neuro-surgeons, no universities, no students and no way or will to organize, coordinate and motivate people. People have their groups, colleague networks, journals and associations, a professional life. There is a plenty of life between a single person and the almighty state.
So what, maybe TVP does not pay people a heavy buck. But it "pays" them with house, comfort, security, food and all other necessities of life. That must be worth something. The rest is self-motivation these people must have. In my country doctors are underpaid and overworked, yet they (most of them) did not run away yet. They do, but not as many as you'd think.

BTW, I heard Fresco once speaking about something... He spoke about an experiment. Scientists took 3D printer, and put a scalpel on the head. Then they hooked it up to a computer with software with a detailed brain scan. Then they had put a corpse with brain tumor into the printer. The scalpel did the surgery extremely precisely and 10x faster than is the usual time. You think you're going to see this on the market? No, that would put neuro-surgeons out of work! Is it dangerous and untested on live subjects? Sure. About as dangerous as having a brain tumor.

Science and engiering are very difficult jobs, thats why people train for them all their lives, learning a bunch of unsexy stuff that may not be used more than a handfull of times during their lifetimes but that is escentiall that they know it.

Being enthusiatic about TVP is good I believe, it is a very interesting idea, but don't blind yourself to it's failings and limitations, Jaques Fresco did not have all the answers, look critically at his proposals; also don't fall in the error of believeng that because school isn't fun it is useless, it is not; yes it could be much improved but so far is one of the best bets one has at becoming an expert on something. The time of the genious amateur is long gone, yes there are a few exceptions but if we relied on those exceptions for our society to survive we would doom ourselves to a new dark age.

You're missing the whole social dimension. People learn this stuff to become a part of something greater than themselves. An important part of it, if they can help it. It's not if money stopped, people would stop like machines switched off. They all use the money to buy social security anyway. Money hold back innovation of technologies, because every new investment must return in short term. So people are forced to work with old technologies and forced to buy social security for money. Yes, many would leave the job if they didn't need the money. So what? How many others would love the opportunity if they weren't too poor to go to a university?
If children grow up around engineering or software, most of them grow up as engineers. It becomes normal for them and people do what is normal. I had a roommate, he was from a software developer family (famous here, you maybe heard of some of their games) and he had two brothers going in their father's footprints. He took up cooking. But there was still lots of engineering in him, He watched lots of documents about machinery and automation in industry.

And please, I don't say that school is useless because it isn't fun, that's a vast over-simplification. We probably still need it, the current economic system is geared to having a fresh meat every year or so. The problem is, we need it less and less and for wrong reasons too. The things they teach in it are still further and further from reality. Some stuff is sorely needed, like engineering or plumbing. Some stuff is sorely needed too - like psychology or autism counseling - but nobody has the money to pay for it. But the state-driven, funded and tested curricula hold back the development. Kids still learn bullshit like medieval literature and then go unemployed. Or they learn bullshit marketing and financial manipulation to fuck the system better.
Schools need to be de-regulated, people need to find their own motivation. Not money.
This is why I'm for all of this, TVP provides security and freedom for innovation while eliminating the state and government power.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

BTW, I heard Fresco once speaking about something... He spoke about an experiment. Scientists took 3D printer, and put a scalpel on the head. Then they hooked it up to a computer with software with a detailed brain scan. Then they had put a corpse with brain tumor into the printer. The scalpel did the surgery extremely precisely and 10x faster than is the usual time. You think you're going to see this on the market? No, that would put neuro-surgeons out of work! Is it dangerous and untested on live subjects? Sure. About as dangerous as having a brain tumor.

Citation please. To the actual experiment, not the talk by Fresco.

 

[Armitage]

BTW, I heard Fresco once speaking about something... He spoke about an experiment. Scientists took 3D printer, and put a scalpel on the head. Then they hooked it up to a computer with software with a detailed brain scan. Then they had put a corpse with brain tumor into the printer. The scalpel did the surgery extremely precisely and 10x faster than is the usual time. You think you're going to see this on the market? No, that would put neuro-surgeons out of work! Is it dangerous and untested on live subjects? Sure. About as dangerous as having a brain tumor.

Citation please. To the actual experiment, not the talk by Fresco.

Sounds too good to be true,right? Looks like 3D printers are currently used rather to create practice organs and implants for surgery, not for the process itself. So there's a lot of Google results to go through. I wonder if it was just a macabre experiment of some medical student. Corpses can't get better, after all. I'd love to know more about 3D printers, if that's even a technical possibility, sufficient resolution of movement and so on.
I've got a lot of interesting odd news items in my head that got stuck there months and years ago and they just pop out when the time's right.
Sorry, I've been busy and continue to be busy, because of exams at school, googling and fact checking everything is too much right now. Even the post for MGK is hanging in there, I don't have time to fix it, there's triple quote somewhere in it.
(if I didn't know all ten fingers writing, I couldn't reply at all)