… When do we want it

 

… When do we want it

Building a Better Tomorrow

Introduction

This is the third in a series of three articles about building a future society. The first outlined our choices. The second article was about the type of society that I envision. And this last article is about how we could get there.

There are basically two main approaches to building a better future. We can either plan for the future and so we are ready for when the current system collapses or we can be pro-active and start building today.

Foundation

In the Foundation series, Asimov wrote about a post collapsed galactic civilisation. Before the collapse a mathematician by the name of Hari Seldon was able to predict the collapse using a method he called psychohistory. He also predicted that the coming dark age could be shortened if two foundation were established to preserve knowledge.

Today we face, I would argue, a situation of potential collapse as our current socioeconomic system is fundamentally unsustainable. But even so, there are forces at work that will try and preserve this current socioeconomic system. As a result, any attempt to move to an alternative substantial system will be thwarted, so the argument goes. Thus, all we can do today is set up “foundations” to preserve knowledge, prepare for a collapse, and then wait to the system collapses.

The “foundation” approach is basically the approach taken by Technocracy Inc. and The Venus Project (TVP). The idea goes, at least, back to Thorstein Veblen in his book “Engineers and the Price System”. In his book, Veblen proposed a Soviet of Technicians to take over the means of production in the US, but not by force, as he says :

“… and what will of necessity be the manner of organization which alone can hope to take over the industrial system, following the eventual abdication or dispossession of the Vested Interests and their absentee owners. And, by way of parenthesis, it is always the self-made though reluctant abdication of the Vested Interests and their absentee owners, rather than their forcible dispossession, that is to be looked for as a reasonably probable event in the calculable future. It should, in effect, cause no surprise to find that they will, in a sense, eliminate themselves, by letting go quite involuntarily after the industrial situation gets quite beyond their control.”

Jacques Fresco follows the same idea as he said :

“The transition to a resource-based economy will not happen through violence or revolution. It will happen when the old system collapses under its own weight, and those who are prepared can offer a viable alternative.”

He also pointed out the need for being prepared for the collapse on other occasions :

“The future is not something we wait for—it’s something we design. The question is: Will we be ready when the old system fails?”

and

“The only way to create real change is to make the old system irrelevant. Build the new world in the shell of the old, and when the collapse comes, people will naturally gravitate toward what works.”

“The Venus Project is not about predicting collapse—it’s about preparing for it. When the old system fails, we must be ready with a viable alternative.”

and then he also warned :

“The people who control the world today—bankers, politicians, corporate leaders—do not want change. They profit from scarcity, war, and debt. A resource-based economy would eliminate their power, so they will fight it with everything they have.”

The idea of collapse first and the need to be ready for it can also be seen in some of Technocracy Inc. publications such as :

“We are not waiting for the system to collapse—we are preparing the blueprints for what comes next. When the old system fails, those with a viable alternative will lead the way.”

“The first step is education. People must understand that another system is possible—one that is not based on money, politics, or scarcity.”

The problem I have with this approach is what kind of world will be left after a collapse and would that world be a good bases to build a future sustainable, moneyless, world from? I doubt it. Even if we were to prepare, a collapsed society will be a desperate place and we could see the rise of more irrational ideologies instead.

Evolution

Jacques Fresco makes an interesting point :

“We are not trying to overthrow the system—we are trying to make it irrelevant. The Venus Project is about building a new world in the shell of the old. When the old system collapses, we will be ready with an alternative.”

There is a tendency, I think, to dislike revolution among groups that propose a technocratic like socioeconomic system. You can see that in Technocracy Inc. as well :

“We don’t need revolution—we need engineering. The solution is not to overthrow the system, but to make it obsolete by designing a better one.”

I would also go down the “no revolution” route. I would also agree, we need to actually build an alternative and demonstrate that it can and actually does work. We also need to test the ideas out. The ideas for a better society, whether from me, from Technocracy Inc, or from TVP have never been tested. It would be seriously unwise to overthrow a government and install such an untested alternative. That could lead to an even worse disaster than trying to preserve our current unsustainable system.

The “MillennialProject” is a book written by Marshall T. Savage. It is not really about building an alternative, sustainable, moneyless, socioeconomic system. However, it does argue that our current system is unsustainable and the solution lies off world in colonising the galaxy. To achieve that, Savage proposes a number of steps. The early ones, like forming a Foundation and then sea colonies, relies on working within our current system and then moving in to space. A sort of evolution and it is this idea of evolving to a desired state that I would propose for moving towards a better socioeconomic system.

Basically the idea is similar to TVP and Technocracy Inc. educate, build, and prepare but instead of just waiting for a collapse start linking together, forming networks and gradually move society to an alternative without having to go through the pain of collapse. An example of this is EOS in Sweden. In the Design, they propose a process called stepping stones, where they work within the current system but towards a better system. For example, they have a project centred around a biodome and an urban garden where they are building a sustainable solution and testing it out. They are also forming a network with other EOS groups.

 

Umeå biodome

The argument against this approach goes back to the idea that those with a vested interest in the current system will stop any move to an alternative. As Jacques Fresco says about TVP :

“Any movement that threatens the status quo will be infiltrated, discredited, or destroyed. Look at what happened to the Occupy Movement—it was crushed because it challenged the financial elite. The Venus Project is a bigger threat, so they will ignore it, ridicule it, or try to co-opt it.”

And that maybe true and what will happen but I still think we should try to evolve society to a sustainable solution regardless. We still need to build something and test it out even if we are waiting for a collapse. We are still educating and preparing so even if the evolution fails we fall back to the waiting for collapse idea anyway. But if we try to evolve society to a sustainable socioeconomic system it might just work, especially if we can point to something and show that a moneyless system does actually work.

One more quote from Technocracy Inc. :

"The future will be built by those who prepare for it. The question is: Will you be part of the solution?".

The Future We Deserve

 

Introduction

We have the world we have today because of the actions and inactions of people in the past. Similarly, the future will be the future it will be because of the actions and inactions of people today.

The world we live in today isn't really the world that I, and others, envisioned 30 - 50 years ago. It seems to me that our imagines of the future was much brighter than it turned out to be. This article is one of three that aims to look at what we have, what we could have, and how we could still achieve a better future.

A Future So Dark

There are many actors in the past and active today that are or have been pro-active in building, what I would consider, a dystopia. From religious fanatics to techno-fascists [tf]. And they have had success. Take religious fanatic groups such as the Taliban [tali] in Afghanistan, who came to power for the second time in 2021. Since then there has been a worsening situation for many Afghans. Human rights abuses are up. Religionous fanatics are not just limited to Afghanistan. They are pro-active from Iran to West Africa and onwards, including Europe and the US [xright, xtrump], where the religious right has been pro-active in implementing their idea of the future [2025].

But it is not just religious groups that are proactive in creating a dystopia. Dark enlightenment [dark] has appeared to have influenced American politics [darkp] with its dystopian, anti-egalitarian, “Snow Crash” [snow], vision of the future. Dark enlightenment can be seen as a type of fascism. And it appears, at least to me, that neo-fascism [neof] is on the rise with right wing popular parties gaining, or partly gained, power [rise] in many democracies such as in Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Finland, and France to name but a few. The Republican party under Trump, in the US, could be seen as having some anti-democratic and neo-fascists ideological elements [trumpf, soul].

Neo-liberalism could be seen as another ideology that is creating a dystopia. It could be argued that neo-liberalism has resulted in unsustainable damage to the environment and decrease in individual freedoms, and an increase in authoritarianism, exploitation, and inequality as it put profit above all else and making billionaires richer [scidir, scipsy, work, profit].

Techno-fascism [musknazi] is something that a number of influential individuals and organisations seem to promote such as Musk and J. D. Vance in the US [boar, kyle]. Some of the actions of the Trump government could be seen in terms of techno-fascism and Musk’s support of right wing parties would fit as well [afd].

A Future So Bright

On the other side, there are visions for a brighter “Star Trek” like future that people have been working on. We can start with the Technocracy movement [techn] in the US. This reached its peak in 1933 with people like Howard Scott, Thorstein Veblen, and Harold Loeb in the US and Peter Palchinsky in Europe. Of all the early technocracy organisations from that time, the only one to survive into the 21^st century is technocracy Inc. Technocracy envisioned a moneyless society of extreme equality. There are a number of offshoots of technocracy that offer a similar vision of the the future. One of the most well known is The Venus Project (TVP) [tvp]. TVP was started by Jacque Fresco, who was a former member of Technocracy Inc. TVP promotes a future, technological, moneyless society and a resource based economy.

Another technocratic organisation that actively works toward building a better future is the Earth Organisation for Sustainability (EOS) [eos]. Based in Sweden, EOS promotes a moneyless, sustainable, socioeconomic system based on the application of science to society where our needs are balanced with the needs of the planet.

Another vision of the future is the Millennial Project proposed by Marshall T. Savage, which is, today, represented by the Living Universe Foundation. The vision of the future sees humans expanding into the Universe, colonising planets. [luf]

Going the Wrong Way

It maybe a bit of a subjective opinion (and, perhaps, even a false dichotomy), but allow me anyway; given the choice we have between the dark future or the bright future, we appear to be choosing the dark future. At least, those who want to build a dark future, as it seems to me, are more proactive and more successful in their aims than those who wish to promote a brighter future. Why? What went wrong with the bright future that was envisioned in the 70s? In his video, “Why doesn’t 2025 feel like “the future”” [why], struthless puts forward three possibilities:

1. Extremists with political power and wealth that doesn’t promote or act in ways to benefit people as whole.

2. Negative media bias.

3. Unfettered capitalism.

Techno-fascism, pointed out earlier, would fit into point 1. When struthless mentions point 1, he also points out that the people who want to build a brighter future are also the sort of people that doesn’t want political power. This, I think, is another reason why. Technocracy Inc., for example, didn’t want politicians to become members. Politics is about people’s opinions and there manipulation where as people who want a brighter future are often focused on technical, practical solutions not people’s opinions. I think there is also a sense that politics will water down or distort the ideas.

The second point is about media’s tendency to sell the negative but are not interested in presenting solutions or ideas as that makes money (perhaps they don’t have solutions?), which leads into the third point.

The current socioeconomic system is all about making profit at whatever cost. Not about developing the best society for all or building a better future (if we get anything better then that is as a side effect not as a goal). I would argue that we are unlikely to get the bright future that we want within the current socioeconomic systems. We have to think of another system. The current system is too focused on profit making and is fundamentally unsustainable given its need for infinite growth with finite resources.

I would add another reason; in my experience, there was an expectation that the future was going to be as it was envisioned in the 70s without having to do anything to create it. It was inevitable, so we didn’t act. But others did and they build the future they wanted. So, we ended up with supermarkets instead of colonies on Mars. In the end we got the future we deserved through our own inaction. But I don’t think it is too late to build a better future. But what future? In the next article I aim to layout a vision for a brighter, sustainable, future, for all.

References

[tf] https://liberality.net/what-is-technofascism-part-one.html

[tali] https://www.nytimes.com/article/who-are-the-taliban.html

[xright] https://theconversation.com/the-christian-right-is-taking-over-america-according-to-talia-lavin-but-what-is-the-best-response-253232

[xtrump] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-energizes-conservative-christians-with-religious-policies-and-assaults-on-cultural-targets

[2025] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do

[musknazi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw

[snow] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash

[neof] https://www.cadtm.org/The-Age-of-Neofascism-and-Its-Distinctive-Features

[trumpf] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/24/trump-fascism-what-to-do

[dark] https://time.com/7269166/dark-enlightenment-history-essay/

[rise] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66056375

[soul] https://peri.umass.edu/wp-content/uploads/joomla/images/publication/Palley-June-2021b.pdf

[tvp] https://www.thevenusproject.com/

[techn] https://technocracynow.com/about-technocracy

[eos] https://eosprojects.com/

[darkp] https://cascadeinstitute.org/dark-enlightenment/

[scidir] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352154620300905

[scipsy] https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12438

[work] https://www.workers.org/2023/01/68835/

[profit] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_over_People

[boar] https://theboar.org/2025/03/founders-funders-fuhrers-is-techno-fascism-on-the-rise/

[kyle] https://kylechayka.substack.com/p/the-history-of-techno-fascism

[afd] https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-why-elon-musk-is-promoting-the-far-right-afd/a-71186763

[luf] https://luf.org/

[why] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zZ3uWQyx5w

Technocracy : What is it and why would we want it?

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.” - Winston Churchill, UK parliamentary speech, 1947 – 11 – 11

Introduction

In this article I want to give a quick introduction to technocracy as an alternative form of government. It could be interesting to look at this form of government given the complexity of the world we live in and the apparent difficulty we are having with dealing with serious problems such as global warming as well as our failure to build a sustainable society. Perhaps we are unable to fix the problems our current system has created within the same system? Perhaps we need to look to an alternative if we really want solutions?

What is technocracy?

To put it simply; technocracy is the rule of the skilled. That is, a government formed of people who know what they are doing. The word “technocracy” comes from combining two Greek words. The first is “tekhne”, which means “skill”, and it can be found in other “tech” words such as “technique”. The second word is “kratos”, which means “power”, and can be found in words like “democracy”.

Why would we want it?

The why we might be interested in exploring technocracy can be summed up in one word; “complexity”. Modern society is complex. Many of the other forms of governance were developed in less complex, pre-industrial, pre-scientific, times. They were not developed to handle the modern complex world. It could be argued that that is why we have been failing to deal with complex problems such as global warming, just to take one example. Global warming is a complex technical problem and it could be argued that we haven't even started to solve that problem (we have even done the opposite like muddle the waters and call it “climate change”). And there are many other such problems. There is nothing in other forms of government that actually guarantees technically competent people will be in a position to make the necessary complex decisions. Authoritarian regimes reward loyalty and democracies reward popularity. No technical skills, qualifications, or even understanding of society are required.

So, why would we want technocracy? Because it is the only form of government that guarantees technically competent people will be making the technically complex decisions in our modern technically complex world.

So, what is technocracy?

I’m coming back to the first question again. I gave a simple answer above and then a brief explanation as to why we might want to look at technocracy. So, now I want to given a better answer to the first question. I’m going to look at technocracy in a little bit more detail with the idea that we live in a complex society in mind.

The Rule of Scientists

One of the most common views of technocracy that I have come across is the view that the government would be made up of scientists. A good view of that type of government was presented in an old children’s programme from 1970 called Timeslip. In the episode called “The Year of the Burn Up”, two children travel forward in time to a future world of the Technocracy, where a government of scientist are remaking the world according to the “master plan”. Things go wrong and the planet starts to warm up to the point where all life on Earth was threatened with extinction.

Personally, I’m not surprised a “rule by scientists” would end in disaster. If you ever meet a real scientist you would understand why they may not be suitable to run a country. Just because a person is skilled in one area doesn’t mean they are skilled in another area. A physicists may be brilliant with physic but it doesn't follow that they would know the first thing about ruling a country.

The Rule of the Computer

Another type of technocracy could be seen in The Venus Project (TVP). TVP originates with Jacques Fresco, who was at one time a member of the Technocracy movement in the US. TVP envisions a society run by computers. Computers would monitor all the variables that are vital for running society such as crop production, the water supply, energy supply, and so on. The computer would then make what ever decision is needed to run society. Jacques Fresco didn’t go into details of how all this would work but I would imagine it would be a distributed system with many computers inter-connected. It would also need teams of experts to manage the system but this is another detail that isn’t clear to my mind. The system is a moneyless system but, again, how it would work isn’t fully explored in Jacques’ works but there are a nice set of ideas for future buildings and cities. 

Jacques Fresco

 

The Design

“The Design” is another form of technocracy, this one has been put forward by the Swedish based group called EOS. The Design see society divided into two; the people side and the technology side. The people side deals with cultural issues and communities and is ruled by direct democracy. The technological side then deals with the technical aspects of society such as production, transport, computers, and so on. It is the technical side that is more of interest so I’ll focus on that. The technical side is run by teams of experts. The aim is to apply science to society but the experts are not all scientists. They are teams composed of experts from a variety of domains. Food production, for example, could be managed by teams composed of biologists, ecologists, agro-engineers, and farmers. The teams work towards a goal;

Highest standard of living for the longest time possible

This goal originates with Technocracy Inc. in the US. The goal puts people first so we see rights such as the freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, etc., as an integrated part of the over all goal. Also part of the overall goal is the idea of sustainability; the need to balance our needs with those of the planet.

To achieve the goal, the Design calls for a moneyless system based on the idea of energy accountancy. This idea originates with Technocracy Inc., but the Design extends the idea. Instead of energy, the Design uses exergy as exergy is the usable energy and that is more of interest when managing a complex system.

The Design also advocates the use of technology to minimise work. That would give people more time to be human. This is achieved through the technical management of resources, automation, and robotics.

Of all the designs for a technocracy, The Design is probably the most comprehensive. However, it is not complete. The Design calls for testing and verification in order to develop the ideas to a complete system (taking a scientific approach).

Technocracy Inc.

The ideas of technocracy go back to the 19^th century but the oldest technocracy organisation still in existence is Technocracy Inc. in the US. They date back to the 1930s. They have a plan that includes forming urbanates (cities of the future), how to manage food production, and energy production but they have a more American focus.

Further reading

This was only a very quick look at technocracy but if you want to know more there are various publications / sites to read to go into this subject in more detail.

One good starting point is Technocracy Inc. site and their plan. The Venus Project has a book called the “Best That Money Can’t Buy” by Jacques Fresco and that can be found at their web site. Kenneth S. Keyes, Jr. and Jacques Fresco also wrote a book called “Looking Forward”, which also explore the ideas of TVP. That book is free. The Swedish EOS group has published their ideas in a book called the Design.

What Have We Done?

 

 

The World on Fire

Introduction

Apparently scientists are “shocked” or “scared” at the ever increasing rate of climate change. This year alone we have seen huge forest fires, like in California or in Siberia, flash floods, like those in Germany, China, or in Tennessee. We have even seen powerful tornadoes in the Czech Republic. But I don’t see any reason to be “shocked” by all this. Perhaps “scared” but not “shocked”. It is not as if this hasn’t been predicted. Scientists have been warning that this would happen for decades. Even if things are happening faster than expected that should have been given as a possibility. The climate is, after all, a non-linear, chaotic system and such systems can suddenly flip from one state to another state. Such a change is called a phase shift.

Despite all the warnings and all the evidence we haven't actually done anything to prevent the current changes have we? I’m sure we are all buying “environmentally friendly” stuff. We are all using some kind of “bio fuel” and our government has made all kinds of environmental agreements and introduced schemes like carbon tax. Yet, all that hasn’t really done much has it? It’s like throwing a bucket of water of the fires in California or Siberia; pissing in the ocean. And just to add to the problem, we have been busy with climate change denial and other activities to counter any advance we might make.

What’s the Problem?

Is the problem too little carbon tax or what stuff we buy? I would say no. And if that is so, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we are not having much effect on preventing climate change. I would argue that the problem is to do with the way we do things in general; with our whole socioeconomic system.

Our socioeconomic system is a debt based money system that aims to grow exponentially with finite resources. This leads to an amazing advancement in human civilisation but it is also fundamentally unsustainable. We produce more and more stuff and in doing so produce more and more waste as goods are not made to last. We end up over exploiting the planets resources and creating the conditions for climate change as well as many other problems. So, if we really want to do something about climate change then we need to change our current socioeconomic system to something sustainable.

An Alternative?

There are probably many alternative socioeconomic systems to our current one. But I would propose one where we can maintain a high standard of living but one where we also balance our needs with those of the planet. We could do this given the huge waste we have in our current system. Think about cars, just as an example. Cars spend most of their time standing still in a car park or garage or just by the side of the road. Most of them are not actually doing something useful most of the time. Now imagine a system where cars are used for 80% of the time. We could do that if we shared cars. If I was to take my car to work in the morning I wouldn't just park it and leave it for the day until I need to drive home again. Instead, the car could be used by someone else to drive them to work or for other tasks. At the end of the the car would be ready and waiting to take me home again. So long as the car is there when I need it, does it matter if others also use it? If we had such a system we would need far less cars. If we had a system that minimised transport needs (by, for example, work from home) we could cut down the amount of cars even more. If we also made cars to last, we would not have to make so many new ones each year. If we did this for as many products as possible then we could drastically reduce our impact on the planet yet still maintain a high standard of living.

We can’t have such a system in our money based world, so I would propose a system without money. To do that we would still need some way to account for all the materials and energy we have in the system. We could do that by using exergy. Exergy is a measure of how useful the energy we have is (we can’t always use all the energy we have) but it can also be used to measure materials. If we use exergy we would have, what I would call, an energy accounting system. We could then allocate production capacity to people so they decide what gets produced or what services they can use. As the capacity to produce or consume a service will take energy and materials we can use exergy as a way to allocate these to the people.

But for such a system like that to work it will need experts to run it. The whole system is complex and is made of systems within systems. Just to understand how one part of it works can take many years of study or experience. So, we would need teams of experts from different disciplines to run the system, calculate out the exergy, allocate production capacity, and keep things running.

Such a system would also need to balance our needs with those of nature; it will be sustainable by design from the beginning. Again, we will need experts to design the system and the systems within the systems. Cars are just one example of that but cars are part of a transport system. If we think about how a transport system works and what it aims to do, we can start thinking about how to build such a system so it has minimum impact on nature. We wont have to worry about profit or cost, we just need to know if we have the energy and the resources to achieve the goal. But a transport system are part of cities as well, so we would have to think of transport within the context of cities and the other systems that make a city.

The system I propose is really about engineering society. It takes a scientific approach to what we do. Scientific because we need a good understanding of how nature works in order to balance our needs with those of the planet and still maintain a high standard of living. Science is demonstrably the best system for understanding the world. What I propose is engineering society as it is about applying science to society.

A Way Forward

The Bio Dome that EOS built

I say “I propose” but this is not just my proposal. There are a number of groups around the world working on similar ideas. One of the more well known groups is the Venus Project in the US but the proposal I have just introduced here is put forward by a group called EOS, which is based in Sweden. The full proposal can be found here. But a summery is also presented here and here.

If we want a sustainable future, a future that balances our needs with those of the planet, a sustainable future, then we need to act ourselves. It is not going to build it self. We also ready have people acting. EOS has not only worked on a proposal but has started to test some of the ideas out. From simple projects like building a bio dome, EOS is now working on building a test community. But more needs to be done. More people and more finances (irritatingly for an organisation that wants a moneyless world).

Second Life Sci-Fi Convention 5

I did a talk on Saturday on the Venus Project called "The Venus Project and Beyond". The talk cover the Venus Project (TVP) and then looked at how we can transition from today's money based socioeconomic system to a future moneyless system. I talked about the Venus Project architecture that covered the city design, going out into space and cities in the sea as well as looking at the transport systems and the idea of a computer controlled civilisation. The architecture part of TVP probably comes over as the main part of TVP as it makes such a visual impression. However, I think the Resource Based Economy forms the real core of TVP and I talked about that as well. I also include in that part the idea of intelligent management of resources.

For the second part of the talk I went over EOS's idea for a transition called Stepping Stones. The ideas involves phasing from today's socioeconomic system to tomorrows moneyless system through building a network of communities, step by step, rather than just jumping into a moneyless system. Stepping stones would also give us an opportunity to experiment and test out much of the ideas. I then presented what we have done so far, especially regarding the bio-dome project in Umeå and building the technate.

I had a small audience at the talk but they took a strong interest in the subject and we had a good talk afterwards on some of the technical details of TVP.

You can find out more about TVP here. TVP and EOS has a lot of overlaps with our ideas but we also have some differences. You can find out more about EOS's design for a future moneyless socioeconomic system here. Read more about Stepping Stones here. The bio-dome project has a blog here. And the technate has a homepage here.

Me at SLSFC 5. Other speakers included  
Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica) 
Garrett Wang (Star Trek: Voyager) 
Gabriel Koerner (Trekkies) 
Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation) 
"Rod" Roddenberry (Trek Nation).

Me at the start of the talk. Behind my av you can see a RL
picture of Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows with the RL me.

The first few people started to arrive.

Me talking to the audience.

Most of the audience

Me with a friend of mine; Khannea Suntzu.

Thanks to the people at SLSFC5 and those who invited me.

Seeing Like a State - EOS and TVP

I had an interesting article show to me regarding the problems with TVP and Zeitgeist ideology. I think it summed up a basic problem that I’m aware of with any ideology; what looks good on paper does not always translate well into reality.

The article also pointed out some of the problems that I have seen with TVP and I hope that we in EOS do not make the same mistakes. I’ll quote from the article:

“The most important element is what Scott refers to as “high modernist ideology,” which he defines thusly:
“[High modernism] is best conceived as a strong, one might even say muscle-bound, version of the self-confidence about scientific and technical progress, the expansion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the mastery of nature (including human nature), and, above all, the rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws.  It originated, of course, in the West, as a by-product of unprecedented progress in science and technology.”

This definition describes the Zeitgeist Movement/Venus Project perfectly.”

It also highlights a major difference between EOS and TVP. EOS, like TVP, also aims to place science at the core of our ideology and build rational social order. However, we differ from the above in that we make a distinction between people and technology. People, of course, form part of any society but EOS does not aim to reorganise society on rational grounds all the way. Instead we make a distinction between the “people” side of society and the “technological” side. We then have little to say on the people side, preferring instead to allow people to organise themselves (within certain bounds) and then we concentrate on the technological side, where we have expert management of the means of production.
 
“Scott’s analysis, however, does not bode well for high modernist projects.  The thesis of Seeing Like a State is that high modernist ideology ignores the complexity, expansiveness, and functional chaos of systems and social structures that develop organically”

The separation between “people” and “technology” and allowing people to organise themselves takes into account the organic nature but we also take into consideration the organic nature of social structures in another way; holons.

The concept of holons comes from observation of how nature works and allows groups to form and disband as needed. It also allows the system to grow in a very organic way rather than having a centralised authority impose the system from above. It also allows us to have a great deal of variety within the system so …

“What does this all have to do with the Zeitgeist Movement?  Just this: Zeitgeist wants the entire human race to adopt a high modernist ideology regarding the production and distribution of resources.”

EOS does not expect the whole human race to adopt the same ideology. We concentrate on the management of resources without money but communities within the system can run as they wish so long as they allow others to do the same. We can have from very religious communities to atheist to primitives to transhumanist. We see strength within the diversity. It also allows us to preserve history, languages and cultures. Power becomes distributed and localised with people controlling their own fate. We don’t need everyone to change to fit into our vision of the future.

The distributed holonic approach also allows us a different way to implement the system.

“If the Zeitgeisters ever got their way, this would be the inevitable result.  The change they envision for society is so massive, so sweeping and so total that the only way it could ever be implemented would be by force—probably by the force of a large authoritarian government or perhaps multi-national coalition.”

Instead of imposing the system from top down, the holonic approach allows us to build up communities and add to them so the system grows in a very organic and natural way.   I think this highlights another difference, which the article didn’t bring out; we aim to test things. So we build module by module and as we do so we test so we build on working foundations.

Oddly for an ideology that says it has its roots in the application of science to society, TVP does appear to lack any testing; no experimental communities or test cities. Yet testing and experimentation forms the core of science.

Testing and experimentation forms the only realistic way of knowing if what EOS or TVP or any other ideology proposes actually works. If we just implement TVP without any verification we have the potential to cause more suffering than we find in the world already.

Zeitgeist in Umeå

Last night NET conducted a showing of the second Zeitgeist film, Zeitgeist Addendum, at Umeå University in Sweden. The event went really well, despite some technical problems at the start. We had 15 people there and most where really interested in the film and stayed for a discussion afterwards.

Although NET doesn't form part of the Zeitgeist movement we do have a lot in common. We share a common evaluation of the money system and the unsuitability of such a system. We aim to move away from today's destructive money based system towards a sustainable moneyless system that balances our needs with the eco-system. We also share common ground with the Venus Project, although we do have our differences and we tend to concentrate more on scientific verification and implemnetaion ideas. NET has had involvement with TVP for a number of years and we have regualrly shown "Futuer by Design" at Umeå University.