That whole part of tvp is irrelevant. What meaning does it's idealistic state have if it isn't possible to remove scarcity?
Take food as an example. People like food. Some more than others. It is coded into us on a genetic level. So make food abundant. But some people don't want to hurt the animals. Some people have genetic aversions to certain flavors and never-you-mind preference. So you also have to produce munificent food.
And another idea with food is that sweet things are not innately sweet. they are sweet because our bodies developed to crave high calorie and easily digestible food in order to survive. People overeat sweet foods as a genetic condition. So even if you could suddenly come up with a system to produce abundant and munificent food, you still need to engineer a society around that food that will not abuse it.
What answer does tvp provide to solve all that?
I think producing abundant food is a trivial problem considering there are no monetary restrictions. Someone previously mentioned some of the technologies (hydroponics, etc.) that we can use.
On your second point, I'm assuming you're talking about the whole overeating and junk food thing. Couple thousands of years ago, before the agricultural revolution there were no such "sweet" foods around, there was no obesity issue, people were actually healthier, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618206000334 . But over thousands of years, as we found out ways to alter food, specifically those harmful to our health (junk food), we started to incorporate them in our daily lives, to the point where some people seem dependent on them. Not because their genetically predisposed, but because society has become that way and harbours such mentality as being acceptable. The point that I'm making is not that we go back to the stone ages in terms of our diet or anything like that, but to point out that we can change. So in the same way we learned to accept these foods, we can learn to part with these foods and has nothing to do with engineering a new society.
First I can't read anything other than the abstract of that paper so I have no way of knowing much at all about it or its conclusions. If you pm me your science direct login I'd be happy to read it though so I can speak intelligently.
As far as sweet foods. Honey, sugarcane, apples, watermelons, berries, are all very sweet foods. Sweet food will be in higher demand. Unequal demand of food source creates scarcity. Tvp cannot exist in the presence of scarcity. That would be contrary to its primary ideal with seems to be the elimination of scarcity.
One thing I can say about that article is that over those thousands of years that we have gotten non specifically unhealthier the average age has doubled.
On April 21 2012 07:14 Destructicon wrote: I think the idea of what they want to accomplish with the Venus project is great and it is the way forward. The architecture of today's economy and everything that it touches is doomed to failure, because the system is flawed. Money is the goal when it should be the tool, and it leads to extremes of abuse of resources and power on a massive scale.
Just because the current system we have is the only one we've experienced doesn't mean its the only one, there are better ways to distribute wealth then via money.
With just a fraction of what the US alone spends on the military world hunger could be sated, the technology is there, the incentive isn't because, people mainly are afraid of change, and the big corporations even more so because they want to maintain the status qua.
I wish people would keep more of an open mind to this, because, I don't see how our way of life, our exorbitant waste of resources, our awful distribution of wealth and power, and our ever growing "need" for energy can be sustained for much longer as the resources of the planet diminish and our numbers soar.
Heh sorry for the link thing, i don't have access to the full thing either, but that's kinda besides the point.
As far as sweet foods. Honey, sugarcane, apples, watermelons, berries, are all very sweet foods. Sweet food will be in higher demand. Unequal demand of food source creates scarcity. Tvp cannot exist in the presence of scarcity. That would be contrary to its primary ideal with seems to be the elimination of scarcity.
I'm not sure if I fully get what you mean by scarcity, but why would unequal demand lead to it (in the sense that's there's not enough to go around)? If there's a high demand for something, we would have the means to produce how ever much we need without having to worry about other things such as whether people can afford it or any other economical reasons. I mean even if you look around today, there are certain foods that have much higher demand than others such as staples (rice, bread, milk, etc.) but for the most part there aren't any shortages. Where there are shortages, gov'ts can't cope because of other factors, such as poverty, corruption, or w/e other political/economical situation that might arise. For example in Pakistan, the cost of wheat and wheat related products, which are used on a daily basis, has gone up 500-600% in the past few years and most people can't afford it (its actually a pretty huge crisis over there). Now the companies can't just drop prices either because they wouldn't be making any money either. But in TVP there are no companies, and there is no money to be made.
It's actually surprising how many things would change and how even the most simple ideas such as supply and demand wouldn't exist if there is no monetary system. In general, a lot of economic/political/social reasons you might feel TVP doesn't hold or have any value in pursuing, don't apply, for the most part. I feel you probably haven't watched the documentaries, but try to watch Zeitgeist: Addendum or Moving Forward. I think a lot interesting ideas are brought up which can be hard to find on their website, or simply aren't on there.
It's funny watching the Zeitgeist folks actually believe what they believe in is something new and has never been tried. It's actually an old tired out idea -- Communism. Let's take a look at the great successes -- Khmer Rouge. Wonderful. USSR, wonderful. Maoist China -- wonderful. Early America -- wonderful. Notice a trend yet? Death, starvation, conflict, genocide via dictator.
You can't simply wish away economics, scarcity, and every other factor we have to live with daily as part of the natural world. Yes, you are correct there would be no need for economics if there was no scarcity, but we don't live in the Garden of Eden, do we? I'd like to have a refrigator full of kobe beef stocked 24/7 for eternity, and have cabernet wine every night...you going to supply that for me, forever? I can't believe people fall for such blatant falsities.
A good hour long lecture everyone should really listen to:
Yea this guy has a lot of stuff that makes you wonder why people dont use this stuff already. If you like this check out "Transcendent Man" with Ray Kurzweil
On April 22 2012 16:03 Wegandi wrote: It's funny watching the Zeitgeist folks actually believe what they believe in is something new and has never been tried. It's actually an old tired out idea -- Communism. Let's take a look at the great successes -- Khmer Rouge. Wonderful. USSR, wonderful. Maoist China -- wonderful. Early America -- wonderful. Notice a trend yet? Death, starvation, conflict, genocide via dictator.
You can't simply wish away economics, scarcity, and every other factor we have to live with daily as part of the natural world. Yes, you are correct there would be no need for economics if there was no scarcity, but we don't live in the Garden of Eden, do we? I'd like to have a refrigator full of kobe beef stocked 24/7 for eternity, and have cabernet wine every night...you going to supply that for me, forever? I can't believe people fall for such blatant falsities.
A good hour long lecture everyone should really listen to:
If you think communism and a resource base economy are the same, then you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Please go and actually read something.
As for your fridge full of kobe beef issue, I have two main points that I can think of right now. One, people simply wouldn't live like that, there's no reason to. I get what you're saying, this system pretty much says you can have as much of whatever you like, which does sound pretty stupid. But what you're overlooking is that there will be a shift in mentality of the masses. Think of current times, why do these multi-billionaires buy all of this excessive stuff, do they really need it? No, they only buy it because of how our society works right now, to show that they are of the upper class and all that bullshit which I'm sure you've heard of before. After given enough time living in a resource based economy, the mentality of people will be different. Similar to how certain tribes who have lived in isolation from the most of the world have completely different mentality on how to behave. This is an interesting subject and i think their website has more info on it
Second point, If they somehow manage to run out of this rare kind of meat which is only produced in Japan, it's not like its going collapse the economy or anything near the that. And I don't just mean kobe beef, I mean any type of commodity that can't be created by man (like a tv, can't really run out of those). There are always alternatives. If suppose in an attempt to regulate the population of the fish we start to restrict fishing (this is just my guess, who knows what other people have thought up of), which is in practice even today, there are other alternatives to what fish provide in nutrition. This also doesn't mean that we're going to be rationing food, and only live off of bare minimums just enough to stay healthy, part of a resource based economy's main goal is to practice and find methods that will allow you live comfortably without having to worry about whether this method is profitable or not. So yes, it's possible you might not have a fridge stocked 24/7 with you're favourite delicacy, but that doesn't mean the system can't work because of it.
I would like to weigh in on the topic of the Venus Project and the resource based economic model of collectivism espoused by Jacques Fresco and Peter Jospeh of Zeitgeist. I used to be someone convinced of the logic of this thinking until I discovered the LaRouche movement some years later and the insights into economics that they can offer. I have since become convinced of the utter foolishness and ignorance of this model, and I would like to offer an example that I hope will go far towards illustrating my point that the current system we have now is much better for resource management than the Venus Project model. It is the case of Aluminum.
Do you know that it is Aluminum which caps the Washington Monument, erected to glorify the patriot George Washington? Why did the designers not choose gold or platinum instead of aluminum to cap off the memorial to their great forefather? It was because at the time Aluminum was the most expensive metal there was. Aluminum requires an enormous amount of energy to extract one gram of metal compared to iron, copper or other base metals. Furthermore, Aluminum is light, strong and corrosion resistant.
A few years after the Washington Monument was put up, a new innovation in Aluminum smelting resulted in a drastic drop in the price of aluminum, using another new technology to generate the heat, electricity. With further advancements in electricity generation Aluminum has become what it is now, so cheap we wrap our leftovers in it.
This is the essence of a key insight that the LaRouche movement was able to open my eyes to. The unique ability of humans to use their creativity for scientific discovery and technological development, to transcend resource limitations and to create a new normal which previously did not exist. What would the technocrats of the Venus Project have valued Aluminum at in the 1860s? How can a centralized technocracy make resource predictions for the future given this unique ability of man to completely change the dynamic?
I realize this is but one small example but there are many similar economic historical events. Take for example the transition from wood burning to coal to oil to nuclear fission. Each time the same amount of work (or heat) could be generated using far less material. This increases the general productivity of the entire society each time these breakthroughs occur. Looking forward in the 1890s the technocratic resource planners would have said by 2000 we will be out of coal so we better start rationing it. What is the actual result? We have coal still for hundreds of years. Why? Because we moved on to oil and nuclear instead, which is much more energy dense, so the same amount of heat can be generated more economically.
This is why LaRouche always hammers on the need to develop a commercial nuclear fusion process, why we need a crash program worldwide to achieve it for humanity's sake. WIth nuclear fusion any ore could be mined economically from any rock on earth. Think about that. You could mine a ton of rock on your property, or anywhere, and if there was iron, or copper, or potassium, or whatever, you could mine it economically. What would that mean for the centralized resource planners if suddenly every resource was abundant. What if we used nuclear fusion powered rockets to colonize the Moon and Mars and mine there, expanding humanity's resource base even more? This is the essence of true human economy, to transcend resource limitations through scientific discovery, defying the predictions of the Malthusian doomsayers.
Mankind is the only animal we know of not limited to one planet. We should start living up to that potential.
On April 22 2012 16:03 Wegandi wrote: It's funny watching the Zeitgeist folks actually believe what they believe in is something new and has never been tried. It's actually an old tired out idea -- Communism. Let's take a look at the great successes -- Khmer Rouge. Wonderful. USSR, wonderful. Maoist China -- wonderful. Early America -- wonderful. Notice a trend yet? Death, starvation, conflict, genocide via dictator.
You can't simply wish away economics, scarcity, and every other factor we have to live with daily as part of the natural world. Yes, you are correct there would be no need for economics if there was no scarcity, but we don't live in the Garden of Eden, do we? I'd like to have a refrigator full of kobe beef stocked 24/7 for eternity, and have cabernet wine every night...you going to supply that for me, forever? I can't believe people fall for such blatant falsities.
A good hour long lecture everyone should really listen to:
(The following statements are not my words, but they are true nonetheless)
The USSR was state-capitalist. Their economy was state-run and involved money. There's no modern example of a true communist economy.
The economies of those authoritarian regimes used money and were run by the state. It's called state capitalism. True communism would involve neither a state (let alone a political party) nor money. Its economy would be run by each voluntary member of the community with no authoritarian coercion from a minority. The early 20th century wasn't ready for a real communist enterprise, especially technology-wise. Hence the failure. The situation is quite different today.
Many things that were unavailable at the time of Lenin are today available. We have advanced computers, the internet, satellites, 3D printers, etc. The likes of Creative Commons are the mark of people's awareness of common ownership. We now have far better bases for collective decisions, scientific resource management, etc.
In an environment of finite resources such as this planet, capitalism with its consumerist culture is unsustainable. It doesn't ensure the continuation of production and people's welfare of being. A shift is inevitable. The real question is not whether common ownership is possible but how to bring about the change peacefully.
I'm wondering. What is their plan to overcome peoples mentalities? The theorizing is nice etc. but in the end fruitless if the first premise just doesn't fit. The nature of people is very ambivalent, and you indeed need "good" people for this to work.
If we start from point zero for example and assume we can hit "start" and the project runs I would predict the establishment of a shadow market/economy with currency etc. to come into being within days...
Otherwise nice, I like thinking up stuff :D (even better when its np if its impossible..)
OP, could you summarize what the venus project is about? There's hardly any info about this in your post, aside from a copy-pasted wikipedia article on the founder and 4 hours of video footage. I'm not too lazy to google it, but I'd like some concise and unbiased information about it. Since you referenced the Zeitgeist movie which I've watched (and which is controversial to say the least), I'm not sure the articles and videos you linked will tell me both sides of the story.
I've checked this website out before. Actually what these guys advocate is nothing more than plain old vanilla socialism (with the venus project technocrats in charge, of course). I don't know why people want to get rid of money, it is actually the greatest invention mankind has ever thought up.
On April 28 2012 00:17 Szordrin wrote: I'm wondering. What is their plan to overcome peoples mentalities? The theorizing is nice etc. but in the end fruitless if the first premise just doesn't fit. The nature of people is very ambivalent, and you indeed need "good" people for this to work.
If we start from point zero for example and assume we can hit "start" and the project runs I would predict the establishment of a shadow market/economy with currency etc. to come into being within days...
Otherwise nice, I like thinking up stuff :D (even better when its np if its impossible..)
First, they want to make a movie (not Paradise or Oblivion) wich will be watch by millions people and help them to understand the problems of our world. Next they want to build a first city created by Jacque Fresco where scientists, technicians etc. will live to see what is wrong with the first city and make another good town. With the first city, they hope people all around the world will come to see it and realize that an other life is possible and want a city like that too.
It will be difficult but if everybody TRY actually to understand that its possible so it can be real.
A suggestion to the OP: have (The Venus Project) right after your first TVP. I swear to god, I spent 5 minutes reading this wondering what this had to do with Terran V protoss, and why was this in general.
i consider this thread a spam thread from a 7 posts op who tries to fish some dumb and naive souls for his sect. cmon guys... i knew that the internet is full of people who are totally romantic, idealistic and escapist, but this is laughable. you cant just take a new form of economy and put it over a society. this works in small steps only. even with economic systems that actually are proven to work. not with such brainfarts. get real, and dont embarrass yourself further. this is like in the zombie-thread where people "think that it is perhaps not a zombie" who eat the face of the othe rhomeless guy. well, NO, its not a zombie, i assure you, and NO, this shit here doesnt work in reality, it works only in their setting, not because they changed the economy system, but because they changed the people in the system. with people willingful sharing everything, being motivated to work without payloan even this system we live in would be _paradise_. but people are not like that.
just take a long look in the mirror and tell me that you are the kind of person you try to personate here in this thread. you are not.
On May 29 2012 03:25 Toasterbaked wrote: The supporters of the Venus project (and the whole RBE project in general) are more about what it can do rather than how it would work.
Plausibility is much more important than what it can do.
The Venus project assumes superabundance- then the system makes sense.
...except that assuming superabundance is ridiculous from the beginning.
you should write the admin the open the thread and merge the others ones into it i think we could all have alot of fun with that.
These thread are nice or whatever but the creator of the threads is rarely active dont have the time or energy to structure it, I mss my trolls get the admins to open it up so we have somewhere to hang toasted .
Need you guys to keep me honest make me harder find inconsistences attack everything i say from every angle you can find this is good. Because at the end of the day im trying to convince people like you guys.
On May 29 2012 03:25 Toasterbaked wrote: The supporters of the Venus project (and the whole RBE project in general) are more about what it can do rather than how it would work.
Plausibility is much more important than what it can do.
The Venus project assumes superabundance- then the system makes sense.
...except that assuming superabundance is ridiculous from the beginning.
This. ^^
In addition, I'd like to add that at, in my opinion, at some point it will come about that some person(/s) will have more resources, or a more important or sought after resource than other people. When this point comes about (it will happen very fast, and this is assuming that: the change to this new technocracy could actually be manageable as an instant transition), human nature, which noone yet has found a way to change on a mass individual level will lead to problems. These problems could include; greed leading to stockpiling; greed leading to the demand for an unfair trade (in terms of true value in the technocracy) for the good that they have an overabundance of... etc.
As an adjunct to the above, i'd like to state that I think it's more important for idealist futurists such as Jacques to present how they are going to achieve their aims more prominently than what their aims actually are. If they just spout what people want to hear about a better society 'because it could happen, and we don't know without trying it' (as some people have said in this thread) then I do not trust them. Luckily, I'm open minded and waiting for the day when they will actually provide some tangible evidence for their ideas coming to fruition out of the current society - the out of part being crucial (NOT over).
EPT
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