http://www.pointbite.com/2008....ct-hoax

http://pccapitalist.wordpress.com/2009....ovement

"I'll watch the documentary and give you my thoughts on it tomorrow "

So I could really think about it. But whenever I tried thinking about it I couldn't help but notice the similarities it has with socialism and communism. And it has been proven numerous times these systems fail.

And I know just what you'll say. You'll say, "there is no existing "pure" free-markets because governments always get involved and help create corruption." -Am I right? But you have to realize that even if this is true, "pure" free-market capitalism remains only theoretical and therefore vulnerable to overlooked complexities that will disrupt the system if it were to actually finally be implemented. This is what Marx suffered from. His system only works theoretically because once it is put into play it fails due to overlooked complexities (human behavior, emergent factors, changing times, fluctuating social consciousness, resources, education, and hundreds more) to which he was oblivious. So what's this mean? This means that the success of "pure" free-market capitalism is simply an illusion based on theory, flawed by human folly, and a romanticized fantasy of an optimistic individualist. It's a theoretical system that is supposed to justify human embracive selfishness. These selfish advocates of the system cling to a visionary fantasy (and might I add illusionary delusion) that the system will work because it is somehow the perfect or best system that we can EVER think of. How arrogant and ignorant is that? There is always something better, more effective, more efficient, and more sophisticated. How foolish we are to assume we have stumbled upon the best system. The Venus Project and other systems like it, understands all this and has taken steps FAR beyond current systems. Current systems are primitive and irrational in comparison.

That's why I said before that we have to take away things that give humans the ability to cause the system to fail. Human behavior is simply to hard to control. You control it by taking away the levers and buttons that human behavior can't resist to touch. That is how you design a system. You don't design a system with candy flavored self destruct buttons and expect people not to fuck it up.

And did you even read the links?

http://www.pointbite.com/2008....ct-hoax

http://pccapitalist.wordpress.com/2009....ovement

Your system would fail and it's amazing how good they got you with their propaganda. I gotta admit, the production quality was pretty high.

The problem here though is that I'm pretty certain that you are google searching criticisms. You must form your own criticism and think for yourself. That is how you reach honest conclusions.

2. Your second link, "It is utopian to believe that you can get rid of scarcity." So no matter how amazing technology gets, we will never overcome scarcity. It is fucking idiotic to assume that our past troubles will ALWAYS be our future troubles.

Yet again, another biased article of simple minded rhetoric.

Let's observe what the venus project proposes: All goods and services will be available to anybody who wishes to use them. But who will provide these things? It is impossible for there to be enough goods and services available to everyone. Limited resources are not as abundant as the air we breathe. Everything can't be as freely available to everyone who wishes to use them. So how will resources be used and who will benefit from them? Now you guys do not provide an answer to that question because you believe it will be made irrelevant. But it can be done in two ways: private property (have individuals choose how to use their resources), or determined by force. A totalitarian authority would arise, because it would take much to time to have decisions made for a one world society democratically. Even then, though, there is the tyranny of the majority.

Money is essential to complex structures of production. Prices generated by voluntary exchanges provide a common unit of account. If a production line uses amounts of resources A and B to produce product 1 is this logical to continue? Is society benefiting from the quantities of product 1 rather than the original amount of resources A and B before the quantities of product 1 were made? The venus project provides no alternative answer, but with monetary system there is an answer.

(This is a MUCH more simple way of looking at things btw. Production is really much more complex because you also have to manufacture resources a certain way so then they can help make ur final product) Take the example of cars. Companies use different technologies (production lines) using resources like the metal, plastic, oil, electricity, etc. etc. to produce each car. We can't direct the use of the raw materials, goods and machines, tools and buildings sustainably without the knowledge of prices that tell us whether a particular stage of production is producing more than it is costing. Under the Venus Projects society there would be no way to tell whether individual stages of production need to be increased or decreased. There would be no way to determine which of multiple production technologies would produce the most benefit over cost.

For example, there is Car Company A and Car Company B. Car Company A produces more cars using less resources (oil, metal, etc.) than Car Company B. In a capitalist society, we know Car Company A is more efficient and benefits society more because it costs less for them to make cars so they are able to sell their products at a much cheaper price. This is rewarded, and Car Company B is either made obsolete or improves their production plans so they are more efficient.

Secondly, there is no incentive to work hard in this society which is actually an anarchist-communist society. Let me give you a scenario:

There is a truck driver that delivers salt water from its source to a desalinization plant. Now if there is no reward given for the productiveness of the truck driver than it is logical that he will take his time with his job and be lazy with it.

So really a collective society like one proposed in the venus project wouldn't work. We would have a huge waste of resources because we wouldn't be able to determine efficient processes and cooperatives would have no incentive to improve efficiency.

the idea that greed, violence, jealousy, are learned behaviors is nonsense--they are part of human nature, and they're unavoidable. Leaders of fascist regimes dont crave currency, they crave power. Eliminating money does not eliminate power. This society is trying to create the perfect person, "a robot" if you will. If that's the case good luck in trying to rehabilitate everybody in the world.

This is just one MINOR aspect of the system by the means of a holistic approach. There are countless aspects like this that play a much deeper complexity through the use of current exlorative knowledge that the current system does not utilize. Instead, the current system works off of limited outdated knowledge that no longer works (if it ever worked). The result produces a society that we now have, that creates all the problems we have, because the outdated knowledge used in our current system is fundementally mistaken, or incomplete.

It is also important to keep in mind that there would have to be a transitional phase in which people are educated. People of today in this system would not be able to handle it due to the disease of this system.

Is this a joke? have you not read The Giver?

Even in a resource-based economy there will be an form of money. This is something that has been brought up before, let's see if I can explain it even better so more people are able to understand. observe:

Resource 1; Resource 2; Resource 3

there is a value ratio of resource 1 to resource 2, and between resource 2 and resource 3. The value ratio of Resource 1 to 3 is determined by saying "Swap resource 1 to Resource 2 and exchange it with Resource 3" 1:3 = 1:2 * 2:3. If the resource 3 becomes more scarce then the trading ratio goes up between 1:3 and 2:3. This is supply and demand, and even when in your utopian society there will be a form of currency. For this model, I'll use resource 1:

If I have 1 unit of resource 1 then I can trade this into 1 unit of resource 1 .
Value of resource A = 1 Ms

If I have 1 unit of resource B then I can trade this into 2:1 = 1/(1:2) units of resource1
Value of resource B = 1 / (1:2) Ms

For example: 1 pound of fresh water would be equal to 4 pounds of fruit because fresh clean water is more scarce then fruit.

If I have 1 unit of resource 3 then I can trade this into 2:1 units of resource 2, and I can trade this into 3:2 units of resource 1
Value of resource C = 1 / (1:3) Ms

For example: 1 pound of fresh water plus 4 pounds of fruit would equal the exchange of a pound of wood because there is less wood than water and fruit in the world, therefore making the value greater.

The amount of each resource will change which will affect the value of each resource (the price). Even if there was no currency and the economy would be based on trading just resources, economics would still come into play and an abstract form of currency would arise. There are two ways to avoid this:

One is make everything equal the same. it would be impossible to do that, but let's say we could. Resources would be wasted because there would be no way to tell whether or not certain processes are efficient.

Two is a a committee or public voting system to determine fixed prices. But again, that would take far too long with the thousands of resources involved.

The most common natural resources would be water, food, and maybe metals. Once again you have to be aware of the current state of technology (not to mention the state of future technology).

Additionally, why would fruit or water have to be scarce?