World of the Future Jacques Fresco

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Once the great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote: “… man has shown miracles of ingenuity, inventing ways to kill, enslave, enslave and poison the life of his own kind. Man is a malicious mockery of himself. It is difficult to disagree with these words … But there are people on Earth who understand that this cannot continue this way. This article is the story of Jacques Fresco's great dream and struggle.

Untimely projects

Jacques Fresco was born on March 13, 1916 in New York. Already in his early years, he showed an unusual craving for knowledge and contempt for authority. At the age of 14, he finally became disillusioned with the general education system. Fresco always said that schools do not turn children into free-thinking people, but only into gears and parts of a huge mechanism.

He also had a special attitude towards religion. He admitted that he reads the Bible instead of a book of anecdotes and sincerely does not understand how people do not notice all the inaccuracies and contradictions. The turning point in his life was the Great Depression. Fresco could not understand why millions of people suffer from unemployment, lack of money and hunger, while all factories, factories, machine tools, equipment and resources have not gone anywhere. In the future, he devoted his life to the development of alternative paths of development for humanity. In the late 1930s, he took a job with the Douglas Aircraft Company, where he worked in design and engineering. One of his projects was a disk-shaped flying machine, but this and other projects of Jacques were considered impractical and untimely. He eventually left the company, earning a reputation for being "twenty years ahead of his time." Fresco was hired by American entrepreneur Earl Muntz, aka Mad. The employer wanted Jacques Fresco to create a "passive house". The idea was in a new approach to construction, because such a house made of aluminum and glass could be erected in a matter of hours. This was proven when ten people finished building a house within eight hours. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Fresco directed his research laboratory in Los Angeles. There he lectured and taught courses in technical design, while at the same time he worked as a freelance consultant to pay for his research and inventions. He soon ran into financial difficulties and moved to Florida, after the municipality ordered his laboratory to be demolished, since this was the section that was supposed to pass the new highway.

In Florida, Fresco continued his consulting work for various organizations. Then he joined the Ku Klux Klan and the Council of White Citizens of America. It is interesting that each cell of the above-named organizations, which he joined, very soon fell apart. Much later, he admitted that he deliberately entered them in order to convince the people who were there that their views were wrong. Essentially, Fresco was destroying organizations from within. In the 1960s, Jacques began work on ring cities. He designed in detail their structure, transport system, residential complexes … However, the question arose of how to organize the most rational management of such cities in order to minimize the human factor. And then the idea of sociocybernetics appeared, the foundations of which were presented in the book Fresco "Looking Ahead", written by him in collaboration with Ken Case. This publication described the cybernetic society of the future, where routine work was transferred to automated systems that freed people for creative self-knowledge. In the future, this concept formed the basis of the "Venus Project".

For all mankind

In 1980, Fresco bought 21.5 acres of land in Venus (Venus), Florida. There he established his research center and began construction of self-designed buildings.

In 1994, Fresco, together with his colleague Roxanne Meadows, officially registered the Venus Project as a public organization. The scheme of the circular city became the symbol of the project. Fresco offered an alternative path of development for all of humanity. It was a whole range of practical solutions for different tasks. It can be divided into the main areas: resource-based economy, energy, cities and cybernetization.

Resource-based economy

Today, all resources on Earth are allocated by the monetary system. It is inherently unfair, since the amount of items available is determined by the size of your wallet. Hence the paradox: almost half of humanity is malnourished, and a billion are starving. At the same time, almost 50% of all food produced on the planet is rotting in warehouses and supermarket shelves in developed countries. There is also such a thing as "programmed obsolescence" - the disgusting policy of most manufacturers, when products are deliberately made of low quality. In most cases, immediately after the warranty period, it breaks down or becomes unusable. Consumers have to repair it or buy a new one. This is not surprising in a society where profit is the yardstick.

That is why even in the most developed countries there is corruption, fraud, robbery and other crimes. In addition, it is precisely because of resources that endless wars occur. Thousands of young men and women die not for the freedom of their homeland, but for someone's greedy interests. The Venus Project proposes to conduct a global inventory of all available resources and infrastructure and declare them the property of all mankind, and not a handful of banks and corporations. As Fresco reiterates, people do not need money, but access to resources and services. In this economy, everyone will be able to get whatever they need without being paid. There will be enough resources for everyone if they are properly allocated.

Energy

To ensure uninterrupted power supply, the project provides for the development of environmentally friendly and highly efficient technologies. Geothermal energy could be one such option. It can provide 500 times more energy than all hydrocarbons combined. When it is mined, no pollutants are emitted - everything that comes out of the geothermal stations is steam.

Thermonuclear fusion seems to be very interesting, in which hydrogen atoms combine and turn into helium. This is a process similar to what happens in the bowels of the stars. In modern nuclear power plants, radioactive waste remains after operation, and during thermonuclear fusion, only harmless helium is formed. The project of a bridge across the Bering Strait was also developed. It was supposed to equip it with turbines to obtain energy from ocean currents. You can also use the energy of wind, sun, ebb and flow, ocean currents, temperature difference, bacteria, biomass, electrostatics, etc.

Cities

It’s much easier to build new cities than it’s to keep supporting old ones, Fresco said. The cities of the future must have a multi-level ring system. Each such city is an autonomous system with minimal environmental impact. They will include research centers and laboratories, sports facilities, schools, hospitals, workshops, music and arts studios, and distribution sites. All waste will be processed inside the city in special zones, and not dumped in a heap in landfills, as it is today.

Each city will have an individual design, depending on the goals, location, population. In arctic or desert zones, it is possible to build underground cities. All houses and buildings will be erected from prefabricated blocks using mega-machines. Materials for all buildings - ceramic and carbon, are not afraid of the elements and earthquakes, since they can bend without deformation. Houses will store energy from the sun and regulate indoor temperatures. All electronics so necessary for a modern person are built into the walls and make up a single integrated system with the house.

The creation of maritime cities can significantly relieve the land and provide food for humanity. These cities will clean up and support the ecology of the oceans. With them, fish farms will appear for breeding commercial fish species. Thanks to the latest technologies, it will be possible to receive electricity directly from the ocean currents.

Cybernation

In the future, everything will undergo automation. Artificial intelligence systems integrated with infrastructure will allow for unprecedented levels of production. All data will be collected in control centers to coordinate all processes and plan future work. Supercomputers will be able to monitor the transport system, the redistribution of energy flows, improve and develop medical and educational programs. Much of this does not require human intervention.

Millions of people will finally breathe a sigh of relief as they no longer have to fight for existence every day. Instead of doing daily repetitions, every earthling will receive opportunities for self-improvement, travel, learning new scientific disciplines. This will reveal the true potential of everyone.

Utopia is a perfect world

Jacques Fresco and his project are criticized by many people. He is accused of idealism and utopianism. In response, he says that utopia is an ideal world, and any ideal world is doomed to collapse, since it has nowhere to develop further. Fresco proposes to found a new, constantly developing and evolving world, in which there is no place for political regimes, senseless wars, terror, poverty and hunger. The world that thousands of generations of people have dreamed of, but never got it.