Whats your view on The Venus Project?

[EvilRedGuy]

They seem to be an Anarcho-Communist movement even if they themself deny it. I think. Their goals are the same as ours only the ways of achieving it is different

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

And here I was thinking that the Venus Project was a form of Technocracy with better PR.

In any case, I took a brief look at their website - very shiny.

Dogmatic and doctrinaire Marxists may pour scorn upon them, but I think such movements can be very important in alerting people to the fact that there can be an alternative to the capitalist price system. It helps immensely that they lack the huge amount of historical baggage that follows around Marxist, and to a lesser degree, anarchist movements and tendencies.

[EvilRedGuy]

They do allso resemble an Technocrat movement, yes.

They think that the capitalist system will fall down evolutionary, which may be right to some limits but its not enough to hope on that.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

They do allso resemble an Technocrat movement, yes.

They think that the capitalist system will fall down evolutionary, which may be right to some limits but its not enough to hope on that.

Indeed. Thankfully, the Venus Project have kept the Technocratic tradition of not getting involved in bourgeois politics, if their "what you can do" page is anything to go by. A refreshing lack of parliamentary cretinism.

[PilesOfDeadNazis]

I don't see anything wrong with the Venus Project, but isn't it closely related to the Zeitgeist film? If so, I don't know how well a movement can do when it has paranoid conspiracy theories in it's foundations.

However, the whole concept is very interesting to say the least. That is, if it's something to be take seriously and not just an old guy trying to be recognized for his model-building expertise.

And the movement probably does have some followers who are anti-Communist from ignorance. So it could be a way to get people to work for a classless society without using such scary terms as Communist and/or Anarchist.

I say all of this, but I haven't even looked at the website in over a year, so my views on it might have changed. I'm just going by vague memory.

[chegitz guevara]

They are nutjobs and very likely a cult. They are the folks behind the Zeitgeist movies.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I don't see anything wrong with the Venus Project, but isn't it closely related to the Zeitgeist film? If so, I don't know how well a movement can do when it has paranoid conspiracy theories in it's foundations.

I've seen Zeitgeist Addendum. To be perfectly honest the film would have been much better without the conspiracy bullshit. That's my one major gripe with the Venus Project so far; they need to choose better bedfellows than people who think the Bilderbergers or the Trilateral Commission control everything. It just felt completely tacked on and unnecessary.

However, the whole concept is very interesting to say the least. That is, if it's something to be take seriously and not just an old guy trying to be recognized for his model-building expertise.

They appear to be quite serious.

And the movement probably does have some followers who are anti-Communist from ignorance. So it could be a way to get people to work for a classless society without using such scary terms as Communist and/or Anarchist.

I say all of this, but I haven't even looked at the website in over a year, so my views on it might have changed. I'm just going by vague memory.

Well, check out the links I provided; they have a forum, which could serve as a gauge of the kind of people in the movement.

[iwwforever]

A lot needs to happen before a worldwide Venus Project can be reality. But they are definately proving that a better world is possible.

Even the racoons are happier in Venus, FL

[RadioRaheem84]

I am weary of many non-leftist (Marxist, Anarchist, socialist) groups. Not to say there aren't nut jobs on our end *cough* Bob Avakian, but it seems like philosophically the world has spiraled into a delusional stage where almost anything is the problem except for capitalism; which happens to be the big fucking elephant in the room. A lack of a Marxist/Leftist perspective has really made these groups think of anything and everything as the problem from environmentalism, religion, corporate control (in defense of smaller business), government, conspiracies, etc.

I just do not trust many outside groups. I will look into Venus but I am not holding my breath.

Heck, does it not scare you guys that it even affects those who run society? I think of Sam Huntington, The Neo Con group and the German press that blamed the Greek Crisis on the Greek Character. Avoiding capitalism as the main fault for systemic crisis has really made people bonkers!

[Dave B]

[FONT=Arial]I think the problem with Zeitgeist Movement is their attitude to democracy.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial]Their view is that society and production will be run in an 'objective scientific way', decided by a technocratic scientific "elite" for the good of the whole of society; a governance or administration that will not embrace the entire population or the ‘proletariat’ ;[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]There is a film on the link below where they discuss democracy starting about[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1;13[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial]Zeitgeist Movement Activist and Orientation Guide[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ngs-tOybJc[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]In that respect as regards the idea that only those with special knowledge can or should or whatever, make the ultimate decisions it does not in fact differ from Leninism, or probably what they mistakenly understand as ‘communism’.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial]In Leninism the justification is that the elite understand things in a kind of sociological way or as Lenin put it the ‘historical processes as a whole’, whilst for technocracy the scientists holds sway.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Burhman the ex Leninist and Trot theoretician commented on the subject at a time when the technocratic movement was beginning to find its voice and demanding its place in the brave new world. [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]However he considered that technocracy, Leninism and fascism where just different expressions of the same thing; self serving 'paternalistic' elitism; [/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]

[FONT=Arial]"Both communism (Leninism) and fascism claim, as do all the great social ideologies to speak for the people as a whole for the future of mankind. However it is interesting to notice that both provide even in their public words for an elite or vanguard. The elite is of course the managers and their political associates the rulers of the new society.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Naturally the ideologies do not put it this way. As they say it the elite represents, stands for, the people as a whole and their interests. Fascism is more blunt about the need for the elite, for `leadership'. Leninism worked out a more elaborate rationalisation. The masses according to Leninism are unable to become sufficiently educated and trained under capitalism to carry in their own immediate persons the burdens of socialism[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]The mases are unable to understand in full what their interests are. Consequently, the transition to socialism will have to be supervised by an enlightened vanguard which `understands the historic process as a whole' and can ably and correctly act for the interests of the masses as a whole; like as Lenin puts it, the general staff of an[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]army.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Through this notion of an elite or vanguard, these ideologies thus serve at once the two fold need of justifying the existence of a ruling class and at the same time providing the masses with anattitude making easy the acceptance of its rule.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]This device is similar to that used by the capitalist ideologies when they argued that capitalist were necessary in order to carry on business and that profits for capitalists were identical with prosperity for the people as a whole…………….The communist and fascist doctrine is a device, and an effective one, for enlisting the support of the masses for the interests of the new elite through an apparent identification of those interests with the interests of the masses themselves."[/FONT]

[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Managerial Revolution,Chapter 13.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]The idea goes back to Rousseau and I think the best summary of the idea of the social contract eg;[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]In the Ideal Household of the Wolmar's in `La Nouvelle Heloise';[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial][FONT=Arial]`There is never either sullenness or discontent in obedience because there is neither haughtiness nor capriciousness in the command (of the master). Because nothing is demanded which is not reasonable or expedient, and because the master and mistress sufficiently respect the dignity of man, even though he is a servant, so as to employ him[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]only with things that do not debase him."[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]"the servants know well that there most assured fortune is attached to that of their master and that they will never want for anything as long as the house is seen to prosper. In serving it, therefore, they are taking care of their own patrimony and increasing it by making their service agreeable; this is to their greatest self interest."[/FONT]


[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]

[/FONT][FONT=Arial]Letter X-to Lord Bomston[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial]Like we are going to fall for it one more time, trust us we are enlightened Rousseauerian’s, ‘Marxists’ or now technocrats![/FONT]

[Invincible Summer]

I thought the Venus Project to be quite promising until I read the forums... most people involved in TVP seem to also be into conspiracy and whatnot

[Os Cangaceiros]

utopian socialism for the new millenium.

[Ovi]

The Venus project always seemed to me what socialists should strive for, integration of all human activities in our living spaces, instead of the capitalist divide between working, shopping and leisure. I think that a society made by socialists would be completely different in and out from one made in capitalism (whether market capitalism and state capitalism) in that it would be designed to directly fulfill human needs rather than profits or bureaucratic plans. That's why I agree that modern society is inherently bourgeois because it was designed in a hierarchical society on hierarchical premises. However that doesn't mean we can't abolish capitalism by revolutionary means, but that we need to move away from these premises by rethinking everything we took as granted and build a new world, rather than try to reform the present society to something better. I don't know much about technocracy nor the zeitgeist movement though.

[Dimentio]

I don't see anything wrong with the Venus Project, but isn't it closely related to the Zeitgeist film? If so, I don't know how well a movement can do when it has paranoid conspiracy theories in it's foundations.

However, the whole concept is very interesting to say the least. That is, if it's something to be take seriously and not just an old guy trying to be recognized for his model-building expertise.

And the movement probably does have some followers who are anti-Communist from ignorance. So it could be a way to get people to work for a classless society without using such scary terms as Communist and/or Anarchist.

I say all of this, but I haven't even looked at the website in over a year, so my views on it might have changed. I'm just going by vague memory.

I have personally met both Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows, and believe me, they do not view themselves as a part of the Zeitgeist Movement and are very critical to some aspects of Zeitgeist, namely conspiratism. Jacque's philosophy is a bit akin to da Vinci's. He have amongst other things travelled to Haiti (in the 1970's) to try to get permission to help the communities there get better sanitation (but the then Haitian government wanted him to pay them for allowing him to do that).

He would talk to anyone willing to listen to him and help anyone willing to accept his help. Somewhat naïve.

I would say that their main problem is the "Phoenix theory" and their idealist theories about how human beings act. Otherwise, they are awesome human beings and have awesome ideas.

I have met lots and lots of zeitgeisters too. Very loving and hugging people, but generally quite inexperienced with organisation.

[chegitz guevara]

In Leninism the justification is that the elite understand things in a kind of sociological way or as Lenin put it the ‘historical processes as a whole’, whilst for technocracy the scientists holds sway.

No, that is not in Leninism. That is in caricatures of Leninism.

[L.A.P.]

I believe the Zeitgeist Movement (in regards to the movie not the film) is a more naive and optimistic version of Socialism/Communism/Marxism and Anarchism and I think they could pretty good friends when it come to Leftist causes.

[Leo]

They think that the capitalist system will fall down evolutionary, which may be right to some limits but its not enough to hope on that.

There is nothing new in this view - it is simply the old revisionism of social democracy sold in a new, technocratic bottle as it seems.

[Magón]

Does anyone else get a weird feeling/resemblance to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? I do, the pictures and images are nice, but reading their stuff gives me a strange Brave New World feeling.

[Amphictyonis]

Tolstoy meets engineering? These people are not really anything but naive and ignorant wack jobs who don't understand capitalism or socialism (the "leaders"). Peter Joseph and Jacque Fresco are idiots. Like most technocracy people they aren't even engineers.

All they've done is combined a bunch of right wing conspiracy theories with some early writings of socialists. I wouldn't criticize their intentions but, in my opinion, the Zeitgeist movement appeals to the less informed (but well meaning). I look forward to making fun of the new "film" coming out in October.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Does anyone else get a weird feeling/resemblance to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? I do, the pictures and images are nice, but reading their stuff gives me a strange Brave New World feeling.

Could you provide a link to the page which states that they intend to genetically diverge human society into various grades of intelligence? Because I must have missed that.

Statements like the above are why I suspect that most leftist/Marxist hostility to technocracy isn't based on reasonable objections, but is simply an uninformed response to something unfamiliar.

Tolstoy meets engineering? These people are not really anything but naive and ignorant wack jobs who don't understand capitalism or socialism (the "leaders"). Peter Joseph and Jacque Fresco are idiots. Like most technocracy people they aren't even engineers.

Ad hominem which doesn't actually criticise their ideas. Baldly stating "they don't understand capitalism or socialism" is a statement of opinion, not an argument.

All they've done is combined a bunch of right wing conspiracy theories with some early writings of socialists.

The conspiracy shit is all to do with the Zeitgeist Movement. The Venus Project doesn't need conspiracies, in fact Dimentio mentioned in this very thread that conspiracism is one of Fresco and Meadows' major criticisms of the movement.