Let me start by congratulating the makers of this movie for producing an exceptional piece of propaganda in the classical sense of the term — it very articulately conveys a message that even us unenlightened gentiles can understand. But fortunately for the world, it’s not quite persuasive enough to effect any meaningful change. In this stormy cloud of ideas lies a dangerous system of beliefs that despite the best intentions of Jacques Fresco and his followers will further entrench the power elite onto their thrones.

Despite a fascinating discussion about the nature of human nature the film fails to address some of the main causes of irrational decision making; one of the most important of which is a desire to be consistent. I believe the creators of this film are suffering from this inadequacy; they have begun their journey with the conclusion that money and trade are evil then ironically evolved a belief system that advocates a scientific dictatorship by un-scientifically “fixing the facts” around their case. Rather than designing the perfect system and concluding trade and money are no longer required they have done the reverse by starting with the premise that money and trade are unnecessary then filling the gaps with idealism and delusion. Nobody even questions whether perfection is possible or desirable.

As any prophet in the past advocating radical change has experienced, Jacques Fresco describes the hostility he has faced from those who disagree with his belief system. I personally found this quite amusing after the torrent of insults and personal attacks hurled in my direction after the previous film. If any followers have managed to contain their anger and disgust sufficiently to read this far into my review, I would simply direct you to the comment section of the following post – not to form the basis of any rebuttal of Jacques’ gospel, but to make a simple point – people everywhere hate being exposed to information that contradicts ideas they have already accepted as truth. You may score some sympathy points for your meaningless banter but it doesn’t add value to your argument, we have all had similar experiences. The flaw runs deeply on all sides of any argument, psychologists call it cognitive dissonance.

Bites of Point

The people advocating a resource based economy still fail to recognize the difference between money and currency. You will not eliminate items of persistent value that can be predictably exchanged by shutting down the printing presses. The film does nothing to address this reality.

The film also fails to explain how abundance can be achieved, other than by including a veiled concession that desires will be addressed by dismissing them as wasteful ‘wants’ or contradicting the whole premise of the new order by suggesting we should share and trade any scarce items of value – because to maximize the efficient use of resources ownership is evil and I really want a stranger sleeping in my bed when I take a vacation or go to the park. I lived in a hotel for a few months once… I didn’t even realize how uncomfortable I was until I got my own place. Similarly, this system is dependant for its survival on building a wall of ignorance to separate people from understanding the true pleasures of satisfying their ‘wants’.

It astonishes me that nobody in their “movement” recognizes the risk of entrusting 100% of the responsibility to manage the new order into the hands of just 3% of the population. After complaining about a small percentage of the population manipulating the economy today, how is that an improvement? How is that something consistent with abolishing powerful elite or de-centralizing power to prevent catastrophic abuse?

If only 3% of the population is needed to maintain the system, why do we need the other 97%? Isn’t it obvious the most efficient use of resources, ultimately, is to farm non-contributing people for desirable genes and eliminate the rest? The movie begins with an argument against eugenics only to make the case for it.

I asked some important questions about the lives of the other 97% and all we hear is fantasy about people looking at the stars and returning to their childhood. Give me a break! Creativity is good and we should encourage people to think differently but maturity is not a problem that needs to be fixed.

I still see no adequate answer to how the system will prevent non-resource based conflicts that often cause hostility and could ultimately develop into criminal levels of behavior (cheating, lying, deception, relationships, sports, arts, culture, fashion, music, decency, etiquette, manners, etc.)

Given that most research projects fail, there is still no adequate answer for who will ultimately be responsible for determining which projects are allocated which finite resources. Does each city maintain their own master computer’s source code? Who are the programmers?

There is still no adequate answer for distribution of newly invented goods in an equitable manner.

There is still no adequate answer for who controls the master global resource allocator.

There is still no adequate answer for dealing with people who refuse to submit to this system.

Please, feel free to extend this list in the comment section below.

Listen an decide

Dollars are money, but money is not dollars. Gold is money, but money is not gold. How do I explain these apparent contradictions? Simple, there is a one-to-many relationship between money and things we use for money. Referring to dollars as a form of money is technically accurate, but referring to money as dollars is not sufficient to describe all the properties of money — it limits the definition to dollars. Money is anything we use to trade for what we want. It’s a store of purchasing power. It’s something people either want, or will accept, in exchange for their property or labor. Sometimes money is a physical object, sometimes not. Not all forms of money are equal.

People will always assign different values to different things. People will always be willing trade things they want less for things they want more. Unless people have nothing, they will always be willing to trade something they possess for something they don’t. The price is not a numeric figure glued to a box, it’s the difference in the perception of utility between that item and what you are prepared to sacrifice. The price is not measured in dollars, it’s measured in desires, and it’s different for everyone. Therefore, as long as people desire things they don’t have, they will be willing to trade to acquire them. It doesn’t matter what they are trading, all that matters is they are willing to sacrifice some object, or offer some service, to gain something they perceived was lacking. It doesn’t even matter if their assessment is accurate or logical. It doesn’t matter whether the item will yield any benefit or advantage whatsoever.

Human desire is limitless. Econometrics is a failing science because human desire can not be modeled, it is not rational. Producing an abundance of anything will create demand for anything else. Our desires are governed by our biology and our perceptions of utility, both of which are variable, non-quantifiable and often wildly out of touch with reality. If you deny this fact, then you deny humanity because you reject what differentiates us from our creations. We are flawed creatures, not machines. You can not quantify how much you like things in any consistent way. If you asked me to choose between an apple and an orange, I may choose the apple. If you then asked me to choose between an orange and a banana, I may choose the orange. If you then asked me to choose between an apple and a banana, would you call me a liar if I chose the banana? No, you would call me human. Repeat the same experiment tomorrow and it may turn out completely different.

If somebody were to ask whether you are completely satisfied with life, either you are, or you are not. If you are, you’re not human. If you’re not and somebody then asks you to list everything you want in life in order to be completely satisfied, either you will prepare a list or you won’t. If you have no list there is no way any person or system can satisfy your desires because they would have no idea what to do. If you have a list, find out how many of those items are material and how many are not. If they are all material, you’re either an idiot (because you didn’t understand the question) or a liar. There is no person with a perfectly balanced existence (health, love, family, emotions, interests, friends, challenges, victories, safety, comfort, hope, skepticism, curiosity, memories, optimism, excitement, etc) because there is no definition of a perfect balance. Your own perceptions of balance are variable and non-quantifiable. What is perfect in the current moment will be imperfect in the next, what is perfect today will be imperfect tomorrow. The interminable and unpredictable fluctuations of our imbalances and imperfections continually create and destroy desires until the day we die.

Experience with these imbalances and fluctuations throughout life and events are what define personality, goals, dreams and desires. There is no way any person or system can satisfy you completely without taking away these flaws that make you human. Thus, you will always be lacking something. It is immaterial whether it’s real or just perceived, whether it’s persistent or transient, whether it’s acknowledged or subconscious. You will be willing to trade, you will offer money, for a price.

We are not machines.

The Venus Project assumes there can be an abundance of everything. That is simply not true. Technology can make many things abundant and the film discusses energy in great detail, but that is hardly everything. Human demand is limitless, it’s simply not possible for 6 billion people to each live in a 5000 square foot mansion with attached private beach on the Florida coast. We live in a finite world and I am simply not convinced that even the base assumption proselytized by this film is realistic. In fact, it appears to be terribly flawed and reminiscent of discredited communist rhetoric.

The creator of this film doesn’t seem to understand the difference between money and currency. Money is not the paper bills we use as a medium to exchange goods and services, money is a store of purchasing power that is represented by currency. Eliminating currency will not eliminate crime and corruption because the purpose of greed in a free market capitalist system was never to get more money but to get the stuff money can buy. As long as there is stuff there will always be ways to acquire it, and thus, money. In the absence of currency perhaps power and influence become the new money, isn’t that much worse? If the intent is to achieve a more equitable distribution of stuff, and you believe that is desirable, it’s ironically much easier for that to be accomplished with currency. In reality when resources become abundant, money does not lose value, it gains value as it allows you to consume much more. Everybody who has money would LOVE to see an abundance of resources for all humanity. The problem is not the money, it’s the debt. If people could afford everything they wanted they would stop borrowing to consume and put the banks out of business.

The reason capitalism discourages the selling of products until abundance is not because of a hatred of humanity, it’s because the capital required to fund those businesses could be better used to increase the supply of something else that is more in need of investment. How do we know that? By looking at prices! Take away the price system and you will have no way to know what the people want. You would need yet another corruptible “democratic” election process or a dictator to make decisions on your behalf. Here again the problem is not capitalism or profit, it’s debt. When money is cheap people no longer compete for scarce savings to maximize the efficiency of the money supply, they just build whatever the hell they want without regard for sustainability through profit because debt by inflation is always available from the banks. That creates inequality and poverty. In the new proposed system, if resources were cheap or freely available to everyone just as currency is today, competing projects would also have no incentive to maximize the efficient use of those resources. Everyone with influence (money) would support whichever pet projects provide maximum benefit to themselves. What’s the difference? When currency runs out, more is printed. When money runs out, prices adjust. When resources run out, what then?

The biggest corrupting pyramid scheme of them all is not even the creation of currency through debt, it’s how the newly created currency is distributed. With the Venus Project, as the first 100 units of some new technology become available, how will it be distributed? Who gets it first? The delivery of technology necessitates the creation of some sort of order or class system just as it does with currency. There will still be a hierarchy of people making the decisions and a hierarchy of people benefiting from them. Today the people who use the newly created debt currency first benefit the most, in the new proposed system the people who get the newly created technology first benefit the most. They could even trade their privileges like a commodity for other stuff, like that prime Florida real estate that’s still scarce. Please don’t pretend real estate as currency is some novel idea.

Who will design and build the machines and how will they be compensated? Pretending people will continue to work without compensation by blaming capitalist propaganda is a cop-out. Will you just give them even more of the stuff that is already in abundance, or perhaps some exclusive stuff that only the contributors enjoy? Would they not just trade those things like any other currency? Who will make sure the machines are not used for the benefit of one person or another, if there is no state or law? Who will prevent organized crime from cornering the market of still scarce primary materials?

The problem with our current system, as with any other, is not one of money. The people “behind the curtain” as they are often called do not need more money — they already have control over the printing press — what motivates them is power. A resource based system does not eliminate that desire, if anything it enhances the power elite by making it difficult for ordinary people to protect themselves with savings. In our current system, power is achieved by the manipulation of currency people believe is money. It is possible to take away the currency and the power yet maintain an honest money free market capitalist system. The people in control have already had everything in abundance for generations and this utopia has never been their experience, what makes you think this project will be any different with the masses? The cry of “this time it will be different” is as shallow as ever, it’s not different, it’s never different. It has never been different and it never will be. People would find other things to fight about: sex, gossip, art, fashion, music, etc. There is no way I will ever buy into this experiment on a global scale without at least a trace of plausibility. The only way for this system to be functional is to abandon its principles from the outset since without some new religion to indoctrinate the people with its new philosophy the idea is pure fantasy.

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Zeitgeist: Addendum