Creeping Utopianism
'Wanting something to be does not make it so,' he murmured. Calliphone nodded. 'You are weak. Badly forged iron looks strong but is brittle as a dried reed. You never understood. People cannot be forced to live to an ideal, they must be led. People are messy, and more complicated than your most profound calculations. You would build a perfect world, realising at the final moment that its greatest mar were the people living within it. Now you would destroy them to save your creation. You are a marmoreal god, 'Bo, a tomb lord.
Calliphone, from "Perturabo, Hammer of Olympia", by Guy Hayley
Let's start with some quotes from the man itself:
Ever notice that critics are the only people who refer to The Venus Project as a "utopia"? They sure do use that word a lot, but maybe not as often as Jacque Fresco...
(1) "Any assumption of finality or utopia is really stupid because there's never been any evidence to show that a person could design the best laptop. You can design the best laptop that you're familiar with at that time but they'll always get smaller, faster, more appropriate, lighter in weight. There are no final frontiers, there are no utopias, no best way of doing things. There's always a more appropriate way of doing things." ~ Jacque Fresco, Teamspeak seminar, June 12 2011
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkqJC2bgQrw
(2) "There's no such thing as designing the perfect utopian city. Everything is subject to change. There are no final frontiers." ~ Jacque Fresco, teamspeak seminar, July 31 2011
Source: http://youtu.be/Xl7J853zTPw
(3) "Utopia, if ever established, will die, will stagnate. Whereas what I'm talking about, an evolving culture, or an emergent culture -- I have no notions of a perfect society. I don't know what that means. I know we can do much better than what we've got. I'm no Utopian. I'm not a humanist who would like to see everybody living in warmth and harmony. I know that if we don't live that way, we'll kill each other and destroy the earth." - Jacque Fresco, "Future by Design"
Source: http://vimeo.com/15983814
(4) "There's no way to design a society that's optimal or utopian. It's better than the one that was. Systems always undergo change." ~ Jacque Fresco, TVP Teamspeak3 seminar, March 18 2012
Source: http://youtu.be/ReLj6fJfOVM
##########
"The future does not depend on our present-day beliefs or social customs, but will continue to evolve a set of values unique to its own time. The very notion of "Utopia" is static. The paths that we choose will ultimately determine whether or not there is intelligent life on earth." ~ Jacque Fresco
“I have no notions of a perfect society, I don’t know what that means. I know we can do much better than what we’ve got, I’m no utopian, I’m not a humanist that would like to see everybody living in warmth and harmony: I know that if we don’t live that way, we’ll kill each other and destroy the Earth.” ~ Jacque Fresco
"The Venus Project is neither Utopian nor Orwellian, nor does it reflect the dreams of impractical idealists. Instead, it presents attainable goals requiring only the intelligent application of what we already know. The only limitations are those which we impose upon ourselves." ~ Jacque Fresco
"We're not interested in an established culture, we're interested in an emerging culture," "It's not about creating a utopia, but about creating a culture and economy the best way that we know how at this point." ~ Jacque Fresco
So there you have it.
The Venus Project is not an Utopia, because it'd be in a constant state of flux and experimentation.
Except...
Let's go to our dear friends Mirriam-Webster.Definition of utopia
1
often capitalized
: a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions
2
: an impractical scheme for social improvement
3
: an imaginary and indefinitely remote place 1
Which makes the whole argumentation that the fact that it is not changeable disqualifies it from being an utopia baseless.
Accusation of utopianism were never about something being static, but about paradisiacal claims.
And by those claims, the Venus Project is a utopia.
There are no substantial drawbacks, no injustices, nothing that an RBE fan might think about that would be a disadvantage of the system, despite the fact that every social transition and social organization in the history of the world has involved a trade-off.
And for all the talk of constant change in community and emerging society, in speculative RBE materials, the underlying societal structure when analyzed closely is extremely static throughout the centuries.
Which makes the whole argumentation that the fact that it is not changeable disqualifies it from being an utopia baseless.
Accusation of utopianism were never about something being static, but about paradisiacal claims.
And by those claims, the Venus Project is a utopia.
There are no substantial drawbacks, no injustices, nothing that an RBE fan might think about that would be a disadvantage of the system, despite the fact that every social transition and social organization in the history of the world has involved a trade-off.
And for all the talk of constant change in community and emerging society, in speculative RBE materials, the underlying societal structure when analyzed closely is extremely static throughout the centuries.
Cybernetic anarcho-communism is the only acceptable dominant way(to the claim that it's not communism, that's a story for another article), and any future deviation would just result in the planet going to hell in a hand-basket again, in Fresco's view.
Both in "Looking forward", and in more recent articles, the only improvements within it are increasingly more centralization and more social engineering.
Sure, time-leaps involve better gadgets and more people with genetic and technological augmentations, but that's all.
Both in "Looking forward", and in more recent articles, the only improvements within it are increasingly more centralization and more social engineering.
Sure, time-leaps involve better gadgets and more people with genetic and technological augmentations, but that's all.
"But, of course, it didnt mention anything better. If Fresco would have known, he would have integrated these new discoveries into his project, and changed his stance on certain issues, as any true follower of the scientific method!"
Except he didn't, did he?
There is no mention that i know of, of him admitting to being wrong in any substatial way, or accepting a better solution or design that someone else made.
Or of allowing various groups to use designs and ideas from the Venus Project, despite the fact that peer-reviewed experimentation is a crucial part of the scientific method.
In fact, in dealings with other projects, both past and present, and within the TVP Activism network, there is an obvious tendency to silence alternative thought and ideas, and instead, blindly follow the direction set by Fresco and Meadows, and any alternative projects are either quickly sued into oblivion, or attempted to be absorbed and led directly by them.
This has caused the former TVP Magazine(now rebaptised into TROM) to cease partnership with the project(2, and for plenty of former TVP Activism members to resign from it, all of them coming out with allegations of a creepy, cult-like tendency of unquestioning obedience towards the leadership of the organization(see "Good Links" article).
While everything from the self to all social customs have been thrown into questioning by TVP, the central thesis, that planetary RBE+social engineering is the best system possible, is an axiom.
One can't remove any bit of that, without the entire system crashing down.
Such a system relies on Skinner-type behaviorism being true, and on humans existing in a tabula rasa type state, extremely susceptible to social engineering(on Skinner and changing humans, a story for another time)
And on closer inspection, despite claims that they will integrate "the latest and greatest technology and science", the Venus Project is still stuck in social and computer understanding from 60 years ago.
To substantiate my claim, i bring forth a diagram from his first book.
The only difference is the replacement of the main energy source from atomic power(back from when we believed we were gonna power our cars and vacuum cleaners with micro nuclear reactors) with renewable energy, and slight architectural changes in the central dome.
And given the resource distribution system(i don't know what they call it nowadays, but in "Looking Forward" it was called ConCern) is still based on master computer+terminal systems from half a century ago, despite the masses of new technologies that have come into play(cloud computing, edge computing, distributed operating systems, maybe blockchain in certain areas?), and which could reduce the Venus Project's wait time and costs for scaling out from years to now, while substantially lowering their vulnerability, decentralization, and increasing their engineering redundancy.
And it doesn't even require special technology.
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) has been in use for years now, with home users donating CPU cycles for everything from finding aliens(Seti@home) to fighting diseases(Malaria@home)3, the Army has made the fastest image analyzing supercomputers out of PlayStation 3 consoles4, while on the more criminal scale, people have exploited home internet of things appliances for everything from distributed denial of service attacks5, to cryptocurrency mining.6
Surely, with some cheap Raspberry Pi's, a couple of Arduinos, and a customized Linux distro, one could make a DYI Resource-Based micro-economy, to help families and communities, especially poor ones, manage atleast basic necessities, share ideas, build community, while the planned research city takes care of more substantial, high-level automations and research, and more importantly, help willing volunteers get used to it, stabilize these "beta testers" and society in general during the predicted planetary economic collapse, and immerse themselves in the culture of a resource-based economy.
Roxanne talked in an e-mail on how simply building the city, while the minds of the people are the same won't work, and "Looking forward" talks about how evil it is that people weren't trusted to make their own decisions after being given the facts and resources.
Even if these proto-communities fail, it would give new insights into the challenges transition entails, and result in advancements(just how past intentional communities gave us Loomio, for decentralised decision-making, Cobudget for managing finances within communities and groups, and "how universal and compulsory education, and town meetings, were pioneered by the Puritans. City planning and architecture, likewise, owes much to utopian dreamers. Early utopian communities also sought to incubate certain virtues that would later become part of a mainstream ethos. Concerns with inequality, for example, or the abolition of slavery, religious freedom, and a focus on universal education were all notions pioneered in failed utopias.")7
Surely, if living long-term in an RBE is a crucial step, to allow people to have a foretaste of the coming paradise, and to study how these new humans blossom when it is no longer a concern to bring bread on the table and clothes on their backs, even if they still need a 9-to-5 to pay for rent, consumables. and that new TV, would be a great experiment, and a way to silence detractors.
After all, we already have the technology and the resources, do we not?
And on closer inspection, despite claims that they will integrate "the latest and greatest technology and science", the Venus Project is still stuck in social and computer understanding from 60 years ago.
To substantiate my claim, i bring forth a diagram from his first book.
The only difference is the replacement of the main energy source from atomic power(back from when we believed we were gonna power our cars and vacuum cleaners with micro nuclear reactors) with renewable energy, and slight architectural changes in the central dome.
And given the resource distribution system(i don't know what they call it nowadays, but in "Looking Forward" it was called ConCern) is still based on master computer+terminal systems from half a century ago, despite the masses of new technologies that have come into play(cloud computing, edge computing, distributed operating systems, maybe blockchain in certain areas?), and which could reduce the Venus Project's wait time and costs for scaling out from years to now, while substantially lowering their vulnerability, decentralization, and increasing their engineering redundancy.
And it doesn't even require special technology.
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) has been in use for years now, with home users donating CPU cycles for everything from finding aliens(Seti@home) to fighting diseases(Malaria@home)3, the Army has made the fastest image analyzing supercomputers out of PlayStation 3 consoles4, while on the more criminal scale, people have exploited home internet of things appliances for everything from distributed denial of service attacks5, to cryptocurrency mining.6
Surely, with some cheap Raspberry Pi's, a couple of Arduinos, and a customized Linux distro, one could make a DYI Resource-Based micro-economy, to help families and communities, especially poor ones, manage atleast basic necessities, share ideas, build community, while the planned research city takes care of more substantial, high-level automations and research, and more importantly, help willing volunteers get used to it, stabilize these "beta testers" and society in general during the predicted planetary economic collapse, and immerse themselves in the culture of a resource-based economy.
Roxanne talked in an e-mail on how simply building the city, while the minds of the people are the same won't work, and "Looking forward" talks about how evil it is that people weren't trusted to make their own decisions after being given the facts and resources.
Even if these proto-communities fail, it would give new insights into the challenges transition entails, and result in advancements(just how past intentional communities gave us Loomio, for decentralised decision-making, Cobudget for managing finances within communities and groups, and "how universal and compulsory education, and town meetings, were pioneered by the Puritans. City planning and architecture, likewise, owes much to utopian dreamers. Early utopian communities also sought to incubate certain virtues that would later become part of a mainstream ethos. Concerns with inequality, for example, or the abolition of slavery, religious freedom, and a focus on universal education were all notions pioneered in failed utopias.")7
Surely, if living long-term in an RBE is a crucial step, to allow people to have a foretaste of the coming paradise, and to study how these new humans blossom when it is no longer a concern to bring bread on the table and clothes on their backs, even if they still need a 9-to-5 to pay for rent, consumables. and that new TV, would be a great experiment, and a way to silence detractors.
After all, we already have the technology and the resources, do we not?
1 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/utopia↩
2 https://www.tromsite.com/faq/↩
3 https://boinc.berkeley.edu/↩
4 https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html↩
5 https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ddos-attacks-increased-91-in-2017-thanks-to-iot/↩
6https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/thousands-of-iot-devices-can-be-hacked-to-mine-cryptocurrency-avast.html ↩
7 https://aeon.co/essays/like-start-ups-most-intentional-communities-fail-why↩
Comentarii
Trimiteți un comentariu