7-01 Summary) Why do so many supporters of The Venus Project accept it while knowing its logical flaw? They think they have nothing to lose by believing in it. If The Venus Project were to become successful, we can gain a lot of things. The mankind will be forever freed from labor, crime and evilness. However, the penalty caused by failure The Venus Project is uncertain. They actually believe that the penalty of leaving the market economy intact will bring greater penalty.
7-02 Therefore, it is not surprising to see many people regard The Venus Project as a kind of gamble in which a success would be nice, but failure isn't going to make things any worse. They will probably argue we need to attempt The Venus Project even if probability of it being successful were only 1%. Nothing worse can happen than their worst-case scenario.
7-03 Yet in fact, the cost we need to take when The Venus Project turns out to be a failure is enormous. Supporters of The Venus Project do not recognize the fact that technology is a double-sided being. The very reason why Hitler and Stalin could be engaged in the most awful deeds than any other dictators in the history is not because they were more wicked compared to the tyrants of Roman Empire. If the technology we are trying to hand over to future dictators is used as a tool for suppression, their evil deeds are going to be incomparable to those of Hitler and Stalin.
7-04 When we chose collectivism in order to escape from the pain of reality, it always brought us a greater pain than what we were trying to eliminate. Tyranny of Stalin was more dreadful than Czar's state, and Hitler's seizure of power resulted in death of more people than the Great Depression. Even if the mankind chooses collectivism to overcome economic crisis, the effect can only get worse than its cause. In this case, it's permanent enslavement of the entire mankind.
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7-05 Jacque Fresco and supporters of The Venus Project do not talk about what the most ideal society is. They say resource-based economy is merely better than the current system and it is not the most ideal society. Though such claim solely exists for the purpose of refuting the criticism that The Venus Project is utopianism, it is still a relief to have them think in this way.
7-06 The problem lies in the fact that they are too quick to judge what is worst, while not being hasty about what is best. Such thought is supported by the argument that all malicious traits of our society today came from characteristics of market economy and all good traits were obtained through technological development. According to supporters of The Venus Project, market economy is the worse system of economy that human beings can adopt and there is nothing we can lose by radically destroying market economy.
7-07 Is this true? Are the freedom to criticize the system we enjoy today and freedom to be protected from violence of the government gifts of technological development? These are the most important questions that Jacque Fresco had to answer in order to claim law and democracy as being useless. However, he has never given an answer to these questions. [45]
7-08 People living in places with abundant water do not realize value of water. They take water as granted. [46] As such, we cannot realize how precious freedom of idea and personal freedom are because we are living in a place where they already exist. We regard them as being a matter of course. It's not a surprise that many people fail to even consider how we can maintain the rights guaranteed by the Constitution while arguing we should abolish laws.
7-09 Whether or not most people are brainwashed by the ideology of market economy, all supporters of The Venus Project must acknowledge that we can never make hasty conclusion about the worst if we cannot do so about the best. We need to understand that our choice may increase agony of the mankind to an intolerable level. We should be as careful as possible before making judgments and are obligated to use reason before emotion and passion.
7-10 We are probably not standing on top of the tower symbolizing advancement of the mankind. Perhaps we have not reached the first floor yet. But we must be aware that we have not seen the bottom of this tower. The tower continues forever underground. We should be looking underneath our feet instead of looking at the sky. Then we can realize our current position that we take as granted is not a safety zone but something very dangerous.
7-11 Supporters of The Venus Project constantly blame lack of imagination in opponents, but there is nothing easier than to imagine the best scenario. The worst scenario is difficult to imagine. Imagining something we do not want to believe requires painful intellectual effort. The majority of supporters of The Venus Project are not willing to endure such intellectual effort.
7-12 The scenario I am going to introduce from now on is about things that may occur, and probably will in my opinion, in the so-called resource-based economy during the transition period. The reason why this scenario should make us shudder is because it is consisted of consequences that can be inevitably inferred from vulnerabilities of resource-based economy we examined until now. It is far from heaven or much better future.
7-13 Revolutionary process requires a strong conviction that the alternative proposed by the revolution will be successful. Many early revolutionists will realize the need to use some exaggerations in order to lead the revolution to a success. Parts of early resource-based economy that demand our sacrifice are buried under the surface. Instead, the fantasy of bright future - which in my view is already exaggerated - that resource-based economy will bring forth is endlessly overstated.
7-14 The moment the revolution is accomplished, everyone is returned back to reality. They will learn that resource-based economy cannot immediately bring improvement in quality of life and that it requires our sacrifice, at least during its transition period. Construction of ideal city which once seemed so close suddenly becomes far off. Even worse, they have to witness with their own eyes many promises made by early revolutionists be turned down.
7-15 It is unclear as to whether early resource-based economy can stop the use of all fossil fuels. The planners probably know that it is better to rely on fossil fuel readily available for some time than to deteriorate lives of people by focusing too much on alternative energy. They probably cannot get rid of prisons. They know that at least during the transition period it is possible to eliminate crime in resource based economy by turning people good.
7-16 Despite the fact that such measures are the best means in terms of engineering perspective, they would not be seen as the best means to many supporters of The Venus Project who dreamed about bright future without the government, fossil fuel, prison and labor. They might think the planners are betraying the ideals of Jacque Fresco. They might belatedly realize that they have given too much power to the planners.
7-17 The planners will encounter problems that they have never handled in their lifetime. Determining priorities among things while harmonizing long-term goal and short-term demand is so difficult that the answer cannot be found using knowledge of the entire mankind. Too many decisions must be made within short period of time. Premature experience and knowledge will inevitably yield many mistakes. Some of these mistakes may turn out to be unbelievably pathetic.
7-18 The argument that we need to trust the provisional government composed of engineers who know how to resolve the problems would not last long, since engineers who are alienated in the economic planning process will denounce incompetence of the provisional government saying they are the only engineers who can actually find solutions to the problems. They can consider people's complaints as an opportunity to embody their technological ideal. Political instability is unavoidable.
7-19 Doubt about politicians today is very sound and regarded as being desirable. However, such sound doubt is only possible because we can easily grasp what is right and wrong. Since task of the planners is so difficult, we just can't determine whether it is best or not. We can merely choose one of many people claiming they can resolve the problem.
7-20 In general, great plans do not permit drop-outs. Long-term plans cannot be devised if a plan made today can be completely changed by other planners after 5 years. However, transition to resource-based economy requires such long-term plans. People will gradually realize that meaningless political quarrels are disrupting achievement of their ideal. What they want is a charismatic leader who can give them confidence that all of his decisions are correct.
7-21 From Lenin or Iosif Stalin of Soviet Union to Mao Zedong of China, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, and Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il of North Korea, it is a surprise that idolization of individuals occurred in communistic nations. Egalitarian ideal set forth by communism is unrelated to idolization of individuals, but we have to understand that this was an unavoidable choice for them to avoid political confusion.
7-22 It is always the person using the sneakiest method to eliminate political opponents by blaming one's own mistakes to opponents who finally seize power in the midst of struggle to take the position as planners. He is probably a person who acts according to desire for power instead of one's ideals and uses all possible means to accomplish his purpose. As Hayek forecasted, the wickedest people end up reaching the top.
7-23 Even the most virtuous planner will one day find out that opponents threatening his position must be removed in order to accomplish his noble ideal. He might realize that power must be maintained as long as possible to achieve his ideal, which requires settlement of people's discontent through ceaseless lies.
7-24 In other words, the virtuous planner operating planned economy will soon have to choose between utilizing every possible means to strengthen his power and giving up on economic planning. He needs to accept the fact that the end justifies the means. If not, he will end up allowing immoral people who can openly do the same thing to take his place.
7-25 However, social instability brought forth by the revolution is more dangerous than political instability. As mentioned earlier, those who work for non-productive occupations will be freed from labor, but it is difficult to expect the same for people who have jobs demanding high level knowledge. If high quality laborers were given a privilege to resolve this problem, it would be criticized as being discriminatory.
7-26 What about properties? It seems natural to confiscate properties of capitalists and use them for laborers. The problem is our society also has significant size of middle class. Their social statuses were mostly gained through harsh labor, and their properties were built up by controlling waste. Even if the revolution does not confiscate their properties, all of their savings in the form of money or equity will disappear.
7-27 It is naïve to hope that ideologies will disappear or at least diminish with the revolution. Once the initial expectation about The Venus Project is betrayed, people giving up on the experiment of resource-based economy and arguing for return to market economy will grow around libertarians and free-marketeers. More than anything, their argument is going to be most compelling to the entire middle class and high quality laborers who become neglected during the revolutionary process.
7-28 But they can only be seen as turncoats and internal enemies trying to turn all hardships of the mankind into nothing to those who firmly believe that resource-based economy is the only way to rescue the mankind. People who spread libertarian idea will be condemned as government-patronized intellectuals cooperating with former capitalists or counter-revolutionists - despite the fact that libertarians are concerned as much about future of the mankind as supporters of The Venus Project - by supporters of The Venus Project.
7-29 Ideological unification is not only important to start with resource-based economy but also to maintain resource-based economy. It is easy to predict that some kind of ideology education will take place as soon as resource-based economy is implemented. The entire mankind will always hear Jacque Fresco's idea that we can learn the meaning of unconditional love by feeling interconnection between all things.
7-30 As conflict and disruption that impose threat on the system become serious, such ideological education will be expanded to an unprecedented scale. The most faithful supporters of The Venus Project, not the planners, are the first people to agree with this. They will believe that such education is the most ideal path without side effects to protect resource-based economy from the threat of counter-revolutionists and 'people still brainwashed by market economy.' As Jacque Fresco acknowledged, the purpose of ideological education is to remove disruption.
7-31 However, it is uncertain as to how effective it will be in persuading libertarians and free-marketeers. They would consider it as a symptom that we are becoming a nation dominated by system-protective ideology like North Korea. To them, unprecedented expansion of ideological education will be seen as forecast on the most dreadful outcome of The Venus Project instead of showing the most hopeful image.
7-32 Ideological education works most effectively to faithful supporters of The Venus Project themselves who want such ideological education. Critical thinking is completely gone. Some of them might say that people who long for market economy should be isolated for treatment. Some of them might sincerely believe that such measure is the best for the mankind and for those brainwashed by market economy.
7-33 We can easily think that collectivism will cultivate the noblest values since the desire for collectivist system was born from high moral motivation. However, a system has no reason to uplift behaviors serving its intended purpose. The question we need to throw out is about what kinds of moral opinions are formed by collectivistic organization of the society or which opinion will dominate the society. Our interest is in moral outcome, not in moral foundation.
7-34 People's natural ability to empathize is extremely inefficient. We sometimes grieve for death of a fiction character instead of thousands of children starving to death in Africa. This is probably because we feel more attached to the character we know well than anonymous children of Africa. Virtuous attribute of human beings originates from this inefficient and sometimes even irrational ability to empathize.
7-35 Today, we have wide range of empathy from trivial story of mountain climbers to the story of Laika sent to outer space on Sputnik 2. Such emotional weakness being moved by trivial matters is a privilege granted to modern people. However, there are many proofs demonstrating that this is not simply a modern characteristic but characteristic of individualistic society.
7-36 Many people say that slavery system is a limitation of Athenian democracy. However, the fact that slavery abolition movement already existed in Athens during 5th century BC is not well known. Alcidamas wrote, "Gods created human beings as free, and nobody is born as a slave." Euripides wrote more directly, "Name is the only thing that gives shame to slaves who can be excellent in every aspect and truly equivalent to free people."
7-37 According to Karl Popper, the movement of Athenians opposing slavery in the 5th century BC is not limited to small number of intellectuals like Euripides, Alcidamas, Lycophron, Antiphon and Hippias. There are many significant evidences showing its success. The strongest of them are writings of Plato and Aristotle who supported slavery system and therefore had to oppose slavery abolition movement. [47]
7-38 Nowadays we have high level of ethical requirements that cannot be reached by Athenians. For instance, we know we should not hunt animals for entertainment. However, is anyone surprised by the fact that we hardly learned any of these ethical requirements from collectivistic societies and that most of them spontaneously grew up in individualistic society? What made this possible of course was the virtuous property of human beings, or the ability to empathize with other people's pain.
7-39 There is no doubt about the fact that collectivism mostly appeals to human ability to empathize. Collectivists will claim legitimacy of collectivistic revolution by showing specific cases of children suffering starvation in Africa and people dying in wars. Since collectivism always appeals to the most humane empathy, the argument that it will create an environment to completely destroy human empathy may seem very odd.
7-40 But instead of clinging on to moral basis of collectivism, we need to think about what kind of moral environment it would bring. In resource-based society during the transition period, there is no motivation for us to work hard on tedious labor. More importantly, we do not have specific individuals to rescue by working hard. If we had motivation for our efforts, it would be the moral belief to serve the abstract whole called earth.
7-41 This difference becomes clear when compared with individualistic society. Even in individualistic society, we don't work only for our benefit. We have precious family members we need to support. In other words, we can exercise the good while maximizing the use of ability to empathize with the most important people. Of course, we can use leftover money for personal charity. In this case, we can give more specific virtue to specific individuals using our ability to empathize.
7-42 Such choice is not available in collectivistic society. Realization of virtue on specific individuals is the task of planners who distribute resources and goods. Individuals can merely serve for the abstract whole. You won't put anyone to death or discontent by quitting labor. However, you have to do the labor since it slightly improves life quality of the entire group. Such behavior cannot be drawn from natural ability to empathize.
7-43 It would be a lie to call people in collectivistic society immoral. Collectivistic society requires a strong moral belief that individual desires can be sacrificed to benefit the whole. Important part is that this is separate from the natural ability to empathize. It is similar to obedience to religious doctrine.
7-44 On the contrary, we often have to suppress natural feelings in collectivistic society. Our natural feeling may be to spend a little more time with family than contribute to slight benefit of the whole by voluntarily participating in labor needed in resource-based economy during the transition period. Most of our natural feelings actually become disruptions in realizing the good instead of being helpful.
7-45 In an environment where the principle of 'one for all, all for one' is applied - this principle more accurately summarizes the nature of collectivism than what collectivists think -, individual's natural ability to empathize is not just useless but becomes an obstacle in accomplishing the good. This is because natural human ability to empathize is so diverse and inefficient, and can only function properly when each of us act for one as one.
7-46 As unused body organs get weaker, unused ability to empathize also degenerates. Assume that the only way to stop a train with broken brake is to push a fat person off, and doing so would save 5 workers standing on the track. [48] What should we do? The only reason why we seriously consider this problem is because we are living in an individualistic society. If you grew up in a collectivistic society, you would push one person off of the train without any hesitation.
7-47 The outcome of such environment is beyond imagination. When the Red Guards of China draw university professors, artists and scholars out to the streets during the Cultural Revolution to perform public execution and argue it is a noble moral action, they really mean it. The argument that removing impure ideas that threaten billions of people by executing few people leads people to prosperity is very logical.
7-48 Even if resource-based economy has noble ideology differentiated from other collectivistic nations, how can we ascertain that supporters of The Venus Project would not regard treatment of people brainwashed by market economy using somewhat violent methods as being perfectly moral for the society and patients?
7-49 A dictator operating provisional government in transition period might need a victim to blame when his policy fails. Libertarians who always make clamor and disturb things are most suited for such victim. Even if they do not impose serious threat on their system, the threat must be exaggerated. Unfortunately in many cases, they become a great threat to the system. This is especially so when a policy turns out to be a failure.
7-50 Fresco tried to get rid of division by removing all ideologies. Therefore, the new generation that grows up under such ideological education might be enraged by the fact that division still exists. They might believe that life quality of the mankind is not being immediately improved because of the counter-revolutionary force that creates division. At the moment we lose the naïve anticipation that ideologies will naturally disappear shortly, it is so natural to presume that they will be eliminated through compulsive means.
7-51 In collectivistic society, a lie necessary for maintaining the society is accepted as truth. Think about the false statistics on productivity of communist society and pseudo-science of the Nazi Germany. People who think that such lies were made because the Nazis and communists were evil and they cannot exist in properly formed collectivistic society do not understand the nature of collectivism.
7-52 The planners have many good reasons to lie. If you ever read an ancient Chinese literature called Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you probably would remember the scene where Cao Cao tells a lie to his thirsty soldiers that a plum garden is nearby. Soldiers were able to overcome the thirst and safely cross over the hill. Leaving alone the story of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there are many cases in which white lies told by wise leaders save their groups and are told as tales.
7-53 The planners of collectivistic society have the right and obligation to make use of their psychological knowledge - remember that the planners of resource-based economy are engineers - to make up lies for the best outcome. Blaming of responsibility for policy failure on liberalists and opponents can be justified, as long as it is the method of achieving 'maximum happiness for the majority' and 'construction of utopia.'
7-54 Further, they might argue that failed policies are successful in order to prevent confusion. They might even make up pseudo-science to justify the system. [49] This is better than moving away from construction of the optimal society by neglecting confusion to take place in the society. In fact, such lies are not different from the lie told by Cao Cao.
7-55 But whether or not it is the best means for the planners, it always results in death of the truth. Truth is no longer truth but falls into something we need to trust for maintaining and unifying the system. The planners will be forced to suppress scholars trying to tell the truth. Uncontrolled fields of study disappear. All theories must be examined by the authorities to verify their appropriateness, or more accurately, social benefits.
7-56 A field of study loses its creativity when all views are controlled by the authorities. Moderate description that the speed of academic development will be slowed down is not enough to correctly describe the enormous consequence. Academic development, even including natural sciences, practically stops. Science cannot persist without critical thinking. Also, technological development will also stop as a natural consequence.
7-57 Even the technology on automation cannot develop faster than it does in market economy. Soviet Union was unable to self-sufficiently secure CNC technology until it collapsed. Market economy - which is often criticized by collectivists including Jacque Fresco for requiring labor to maintain the system - was the first to secure this technology. This happened because planned economy is so inferior, not because market economy is superior.
7-58 The city that Jacque Fresco dreamed of may actually be constructed one day, whether it be 500 years from now or 2,000 years. However, the image of people living in that city will be completely different from what Jacque Fresco imagined. It may be similar to the future described in 1984 by George Orwell. It may be similar to the future described in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
7-59 Jacque Fresco said that our descendants will blame us for making a wrong choice. But I cannot say the same. I can't think they will have enough intelligence to even blame us. Once existing cities are excavated and destroyed, there is no way they can learn about the past. They might thank us for creating an environment which will be much interior than today's environment, believing that today's conditions would have been worse.
7-60 Someone might realize the social contradiction or encounter traces of the past civilization uncontrolled and undistorted by the planners through some kind of miraculous luck - whether or not it is an intentional remain left by the last generation of liberalism - and begin an anti-establishment movement. However, he will soon recognize how hard it is to start a revolution in an environment where distribution of all goods is controlled and monitored. He needs to risk his life to gain the principle of freedom discarded by ancestors.
7-61 However, our story ends here.
7-62 One thing that supporters of The Venus Project do not realize is that advanced technology of today can not only be used to improve quality of life but to suppress and monitor us. Jacque Fresco says that we must be able to grant the right to use all technological capacities to small number of engineers who claim they can resolve the problem. Few people think serious about the threat imposed by this idea.
7-63 They will decide what we wear and eat. They will decide where we live. In these fields, the range of our choice will be limited to the range they offer. Along with this, there are numerous fields for which we have no right of choice. They will decide what we produce. They will decide what we can freely possess and what to share. They will decide what to educate us.
7-64 We are seriously deceiving ourselves if we were to believe that we are simply returning to the constraints and restrictions that governed economic activities in the past and that the power we are going to face is not as extreme as that of the Middle Age. Means of control used at that time were not sufficient enough to be compelling. At the time, there was wide range of activities in which individuals could be self-sufficient. Individuals could freely behave according to their choice within the scope.
7-65 The situation has now become completely different. The planning body today has to give incomparably many commands. Hitler and Stalin were not the most terrible dictators in the history because they were more wicked compared to Roman tyrants. It was because their power was stronger. Today's technology is much better. Imagine what would happen if it were to be used by a tyrant.
7-66 Some people say we should try out resource-based economy despite the possibility of failure. The old-fashioned attack saying 'how do we know it's going to fail without trying' is based on the thought that we should experiment on all social systems with slight chance of success. [50] Such thought is more dangerous than they think. It can be compared to human body experiment. Failure of an experiment means loss of ability to conduct another experiment.
7-67 More importantly, we have no way of precisely determining whether resource-based economy is being successful or not. Jacque Fresco once said that resource-based economy can be accomplished in 10 years. This means it takes at least 10 years to accomplish. We cannot judge whether his alternative will be a success or failure in 3~5 years.
7-68 If nothing is improved despite the troubles you went through for 10 years, are you willing to give up on the expectation that supported your efforts for 10 years, the expectation that everything will be better one day, return back to where you were? If this is too short, are you determined to make that choice after 15 years? Are you ready to undo 15 years of history? I don't know a single supporter of The Venus Project with such resolution.
7-69 The new generation won't even know what market economy is, because ceaseless ideological education will only infuse the idea that market economy is far worse than resource-based economy. If we lose the chance, we won't even be able to go back. We must disregard the belief that helped us break through various hardships in 15 years. We have to give up on the belief that resource-based economy will be successful. We have no idea whether we can do so.
7-70 Mistakes that occur in resource-based economy during the transition period cannot demonstrate that resource-based economy is destined to fail. We have to wait until resource-based economy is completed or at least until we can ascertain that Jacque Fresco's plan in the transition period cannot complete resource-based economy. In substance, it can only mean the following statement: We will learn that our experiment was a failure after we mess up everything to irrevocable state.
7-71 Even if many people quickly give up on the possibility of resource-based economy and start the anti-establishment movement to return back to market economy, still more people who believe resource-based economy to be the only way to save mankind won't leave their opponents alone. They are going to argue that various problems have to occur in transition period and nothing can be said about resource-based economy yet.
7-72 As the possibility of anti-establishment movement destroying the system increases, the belief to stop such dangerous act using strong means will also grow. It is needless to say which among protecting the mankind from counter-revolution by executing or imprisoning 100 libertarians and neglecting such libertarians from destroying resource-based economy accomplished through revolution will be chosen by faithful supporters of The Venus Project.
7-73 Such measure will always be taken before anti-establishment movement grows to become an actual threat to the system. The provisional government will turn into a more oppressive and suppressive dictatorship as it eliminates anti-establishment activists. Unless everyone miraculously becomes anti-establishment activist together, there is no possibility for the experiment on planned economy to stop in its early stage. We cannot leave our destiny up to such miracle.
7-74 We should worry more about the worst outcome than best outcome, and we need to approach alternatives that and over the right to use all of our technologies with the most critical mind. However, supporters of The Venus Project don't do so. They might worry about the worst result of neglecting market economy, but they are not worried about the worst result of their experiment.
7-75 It is generally not true to think that opponents of The Venus Project are not concerned about the worst outcome of the current system. In fact, the main reason why they oppose Jacque Fresco's plan is because its consequence is even worse than the worst outcome of rejecting his plan. We should not accept it if we were to truly avoid the worst.
7-76 Furthermore, as this is forgotten by many supporters of The Venus Project, radical experiment like resource-based economy can only be accepted when social chaos becomes unbelievably gigantic. Deepening of economic crisis is not an unfortunate event to Jacque Fresco. In fact, he says the best way to completely collapse the current system is to leave it as is. [51]
7-77 Great social chaos will lead many people to starvation. It might give birth to desire for fascism instead of resource-based economy. Even if the revolution turns out to be a success, people who threw away logical thinking in despair might follow the planners of provisional government as religious leaders. This will make it easier for the planners to betray Jacque Fresco's expectation. There are much more risks we need to endure in following his plan.
7-78 Frankly speaking, the fact that Nazi used to stand for Nationalsozialistische or National Socialist is not widely known. Hitler despised communists because communism included the idea of internationalism. When we focus on economic system, we would have to classify Nazism and communism together as planned economy though their background ideologies are different. There was an undeniable similarity between the two ideologies: They were both collectivistic.
7-79 Differing ideologies beneath two collectivistic planned economies failed to create as large of a difference. There is no doubt that communist idea is much more ethical than Nazism. This is incomparable. However, such a huge difference was not enough to yield much more ethical things to happen in Soviet Union that went through communist revolution compared with Nazi Germany.
7-80 What economic crisis generally arouses is the desire for collectivism. Fascism, communism and resource-based economy commonly share the trait that they are collectivistic planned economies. Nobody would believe that Germans in 1920s had to choose communism in order to avoid fascism. Similarly, we don't have to choose resource-based economy to avoid fascism. As a religion cannot be an alternative of another religion, collectivism cannot substitute another.
7-81 When we chose collectivism in order to escape from the pain of reality, it always brought us a greater pain than what we were trying to eliminate. Tyranny of Stalin was more dreadful than Czar's state, and Hitler's seizure of power resulted in death of more people than the Great Depression. Even when the mankind chooses collectivism to overcome economic crisis, the effect can only get worse than its cause. In this case, the entire mankind will be permanently enslaved.
7-82 Someone might ask. Isn't there a way for the mankind to be freed from economic crisis, warfare, destruction of resources and labor? Do we need to accept them as destiny? It may be so, but I don't believe so. The fact that collectivism cannot resolve a problem does not necessarily mean we cannot resolve the problem. Collectivism is the most immature and primitive among methods we can use.
7-83 Many people believe that market economy inevitably results in economic crisis, warfare and resource destruction. They believe that as long as market economy exists, the mankind cannot be liberated from labor. None of these is true. We have many alternatives we can implement without educating the entire mankind or consciously control production and distribution of all goods. We will discuss about such alternatives in Chapter 10.
7-84 However, what's more important is the experimental program we would use to test such alternatives. There is no way to scientifically justify the inefficient method of completely destroying existing social system and experimenting on a social system fundamentally different in every aspect. This primitive experiment in which failure results in loss of ability to start another experiment cannot be scientifically justified.
7-85 The experiment of changing social system is special in that the subject of experiment is our own environment. However, it does not mean there is no method of applying the principle of scientific experimentation to the society. Once we understand what scientific experiment means, we can automatically find out how to apply it to the society. We will learn about it in Chapter 8. The gamble demanded by Fresco on us is far away from scientific experiment.
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[45] Properly speaking, he seems to regard these freedoms as being unimportant. The ground often used by Jacque Fresco to emphasize uselessness of the rule of law and democracy is that only technology can give electric vehicles and desalination plants. Unless he thinks that freedom of expression and personal freedom are not important and that only electric vehicles and desalination plants are important, there is no way such argument can be justified.
[46] The reason why such prejudices are interesting is because they tear down Jacque Fresco's claim that prejudice always serves to perpetuate the system. Is there anyone willing to raise an objection to the fact that people living in places with abundant water do not realize preciousness of water? If so, how can we exclude the possibility that we are not realizing preciousness of the rule of law because we are living in a society governed by the rule of law?
[47] Plato wrote, "But the height of all this abundance of freedom... is reached when slaves, males as well as female, who have been bought on the market, are every whit as free as those whose property they are... And what is the cumulative effect of all this? That all the citizens' hearts become so very tender that they get irritated at the mere sight of anything like slavery and do not suffer anybody to submit to its presence." Plato is saying exactly what I would like to say.
[48] Though for the purpose of accomplishing a good deed, most people hesitate using evil means when they encounter such type of choice. Refer to Michael Sandel's book named Justice. Refer to cognitive psychologist Marc Hauser's Moral Minds for strong evidence that this tendency is a moral instinct unrelated to our moral beliefs and ideologies.
[49] The most obvious case of this is the absurd goal of Strong and Prosperous Country by 2012 announced in 1998 by North Korea. However, I mainly think about the windmill plan presented in George Orwell's Animal Farm. Napoleon's sweet talk that they should work hard because everyone will live well once the windmill is completed reminds me of Jacque Fresco's grand urban plan. It may be used by future planners as a means to make us accept tyranny as temporary and natural course of event
[50] Surprisingly, Jacque Fresco has similar view. He says in Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, "I think that every system that can be put to test should be put to test." This sounds specious, but it completely distorts the method of scientific experimentation. He is trying to use an experimental program which is scientifically wrong. Refer to Chapter 8 for the truly experimental program we must apply to our society.
[51] Refer to the FAQ page of The Venus Project website. Jacque Fresco writes on question #36, "I see the 'the turning point' of the future as resulting from a social and economic breakdown of existing social designs as older values become less effective." He repeats the same thing more directly in his film Paradise or Oblivion.
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