The Venus Project

Surfing the web this evening, as we Harrisons are prone to do, I came across a web site called thevenusproject.com

The site is about the futurist ideas of one Jacque Fresco. Fresco insists that the world is full of resources which, if handled "scientifically" would be ample to ensure a high standard of living for every human. The need for money would be eliminated. Here's a quote from the site:

Consider the following examples: At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was no, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.


Fresco's vision reminds me of Gene Roddenberry's famous vision of the future of humanity in the Star Trek universe. In Roddenberry's future there is no need for money, there is no emnity between various factions of humans. In a way, the discovery of powerful enemies out in the galaxy (romulans, borg, cardassian, whatever) provides the same incentive to work together that the threat of world war 2 provided for America.

Personally, I tend to agree with Fresco's basic argument. I remember hearing that one in nine homes in the U.S. was vacant. Those homes represent a vast amount of resources that simply aren't being used because of the inadequacies of the current monetary system. If Fresco's vision of a resource-based economy could actually be implemented, 20 million poor people from other countries could easily come to this land of opportunity. But in the actual monetary economy we have, the resources must simply go to waste.

The strength of Fresco's argument is that he points out the obvious inefficiencys of the money-based economy. The weakness is that it is very hard to visualize the intermediate phases that we would have to pass through in order to transition into the resource-based economy he envisions. Therefore, Fresco has done a great deal of research to discover how to accomodate that transition, and the books and videos on the site apparently go over his findings in detail.

Here are just a few more jams from Pandora:

Biggest Part Of Me by Ambrosia
How Sweet It Is by Michael Buble
It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones
Just The Way You Are by Billy Joel
Limbo Rock by Chubby Checker
Lonesome Loser by Little River Band
Papa Loves Mambo by Nat King Cole
Plant You Now, Dig You Later by Pal Joey (Broadway Cast)
She's A Lady by Tom Jones
Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours [Alternate Mix] by Stevie Wonder
Stayin' Alive by The Bee Gees
Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel
You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates

Yes, those are the types of jams we Harrisons have been listening to. Until the next time!

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