Personal Research:
As it was recommended that I research the Venus Project in relation to utopias, below are my thoughts on this.
The Venus Project, in a nutshell is based on the idea that people no matter what their background, race or status can live together in harmony in sustainable cities using the most logical materials and methods in order to sustain their growing population. As it is referred to as a 'resource-based economy' money wouldn't be a factor as food, information, goods and medical care would be free to everyone.
The idea came from artist Roxanne Meadows (left) and engineer, designer and futurist Jacque Fresco (right).
In the interview I watched it certainly seemed an interesting idea and you can tell that the 94 year old Jacque Fresco is very passionate about the project although he accepts this would not be a utopia as he believes a true utopia can never exist. I also felt he spoke very well considering he was clearly trying to voice his opinion on how to help people live whilst the interviewer came across as rather aggressive and negative towards his ideas.
Fresco backed up his idea of living with one another by using a good example. He said that we have submarines in our world armed with nuclear weapons, however it is pointless to use them as even if you won a war the planet would be completely radiated and unable to be lived on.
Granted nations need to sometimes show force in order to deter other nations from attacking them, a scare tactic if you will. However, I agree with Fresco's example as quite rightly it is no use winning something if you are only going to destroy your prize/goal.
Fresco also spoke of how opinions are always changing. For example, in the past people never thought man would be able to fly in the air. Therefore whose to say that planes won't fly without wings in the future? We can't imagine planes without wings as how would the plane take off without them? However, future technology is always changing and therefore nothing is certain.
In fact Fresco's idea for a world in which people would live alongside one another would always need to be changed and updated as he admitted quite rightly that his designs would go out of style in the future due to better and more efficient ways of building architecture.
Fresco also impressed me as he understood he had no significant power or influence over nations which he said were all corrupt. Therefore he was saying that the idea for the Venus Project was one that couldn't happen without the voice of the people speaking up. In fact, just sharing the idea and talking about it would help it to be recongised and it is only when everyone wants it that some semblance of peace can be obtained.
Another thing I found interesting was that he said you had to "learn different people's values and speak in their terms, not your terms. If you speak ahead of the terms of people, they don't know what you're talking about". Thus he deliberately joined racist groups such as the KKK in the past in order to try and stop them. He was successful as he talked at their level in order to make them understand that its a person's nature over nurture that affects how they act and what they become. For example, taking a child of any race and raising them in England would give them a British accent and like wise raising a child in Italy would result in them using their hands more in order to communicate. This is because you reflect what you see and hear. Therefore if you are told that a certain race is bad in some way or form then it is likely that you will become racist. Thus this is how he approached the KKK.
It was interesting to hear him say that people in the Venus Project could live how they wanted without being told how to live by an authority as one wouldn't exist. Machines would look after them throughout their lives by providing the goods they needed for free, but most importantly, the machines wouldn't control them. The reason why I found this so interesting was because it sounded very similar to my own 'Sim Project' in which I imagined the only way for a utopia to work was for machines to control people like Sims and have them do what they needed to do in order to survive both physically and mentally.
Whereas Fresco's idea isn't a utopia as such as those can't be accomplished, as seen in previous failed attempts such as 1948's Levittown. Instead Fresco belives it is a system that people would want to live in and therefore become the new way of living. After all, people are so used to paying for things that they don't know any better.
Harvard Referencing:
- Unknown. (2005) Fresco with Meadows [Online image]. Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jacque_Fresco_with_Roxanne_Meadows.jpg (Accessed: 17/5/2013).
- Unknown. (2011) Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3t0kCyHeO70 (Accessed: 17/5/2013).
- Unknown. (2011) Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrSABU3_IIo (Accessed: 17/5/2013).
- Unknown. (Unknown) The Venus Project Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Venus_Project (Accessed: 17/5/2013).
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