Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
especially, when there are facts to back up the questions.
If somebody has control over the radio frequencies and television,
then he ultimately has control over what is said on radio and TV.
The Internet has made it much easier
to have the abitlity to broadcast.
To set up a blog or a wiki is much easier technically,
than printing of books or doing a TV broadcast, plus it is cheaper.
Everyone is allowed and able to publish on the internet.
This has brought up the idea, that when media becomes open for everyone
consequently, all totalitarian systems become impossible,
because they typically rely on controlling information.
For example, certain institutions and powers are troubled by the existence of the internet in its current state,
because some central functions of the modern society
simply can not bear that kind of visibility and openness of information,
that the internet makes possible.
Technology almost forces a spark of optimism.
The internet is at the same time essential to the current system,
but also structurally anarchistic, so that it can not be completely tamed.
However, it can be regulated up to a point,
slowed down, as it were, and delayed.
When speaking, for example, about these dictatorships of intellectuals, where certain
concepts and ideas are forcefully pushed aside somewhere
and a certain consensus based on lies is kept up.
For example, about economical actions or the war on terror, big things,
then we're moving in a very dangerous territory.
The media doesn't interfere in things like it should.
The media is keeping busy with different kinds of things, which sell well,
which they think people are interested in.
If the media considers itself to be an source of information, whose job it is
to keep people up to date on what's going on in the world, and what is important,
the media would be talking about totally different things.
That would be responsibe media.
Now the media is, in a way, only a money making machine for itself.
Apparently, also in the case of media, it's primary function, spreading information,
has been overshadowed by the profit motive.
But what kind of things should the media present?
What's going on in the world that we should all be aware of?
THIS HUMAN WORLD
We have these great experts, like Albert Einstein.
He said:
In 1945,
when the first nuclear bombs were detonated, first at test sites,
then in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with horrible consequences.
Everything on this planet has changed.
Nothing is the same, exept
the thoughts and values held by people.
Unless there is an equally radical change
in people's thought patterns,
we will surely go towards a total destruction.
Planetary destruction.
Nothing changed.
The old thought and value patterns ruled
and for the most part, still do.
I'd like to say that they still rule decisively.
The state of the earth is critical. This is the basic issue.
We have two catasthrophies, which are advancing side by side.
One could be called an ecological disaster and the other one a social disaster.
And they are dependent on each other in that they feed off each other.
This is a so-called labile state.
It means that the earth is in a similrar state,
as a tipping stick.
The life ground on earth is a fragile whole. If it loses its balance,
it won't revert back, instead it goes further from the original state.
The change is slow at first, but it accelerates and gets stronger, the further it goes.
The most remarkable feature is, that it goes unnoticed until it's too late.
ECOLOGICAL DISASTER
The ecological disaster includes many things, which are connected to nature.
Fresh water shortage, changes in the atmosphere, deforestation, desertification.
As a result of this, the most irreverseable thing,
is the extinction of animal species.
This is a type of mass destruction, where we see that when rainforests are cut down,
a specific number of species go extinct each day,
which is a terrifying amount, compared to how many species
died out before these actions by humanity.
SOCIAL DISASTER
Simultaneously there is a social disaster going forth,
which is connected to urbanization everywhere in the world,
famine, disease, crime, terrorism, massive immigration.
This can bee seen as poverty
and as different kinds of dysfunctions all around the world.
Monsanto, which is a mafia when it comes to food in the world,
creates genetically modified products
claiming it is making more food for the poor.
It's a perfect lie!
Because the problem with food is not the types crop species,
it's the imbalance of land ownership.
These are political issues. If they were solved the right way,
everyone would have a balanced food supply.
It's a political issue, not biological. There is enough food.
150 years ago, 1 out of 6 Finns died from famine and famine-related diseases.
During the last great famine years. There just wasn't enough food.
Today people die of hunger basically because it's good budget discipline.
It's cheaper to kill citizens through starvation, than it is to send soldiers to kill them.
That's the issue regarding the hunger in Sudan, Ethiopia and other famine countries.
If you buy genetically modified seeds, you pay a percentage to the mafia,
and if you use glyphosates to keep them alive,
you will end up in a cycle of expences, which will destroy you.
In India, thousands of farmers have committed suicide,
because they have been ruined financially.
We condemn the historical slavery. Still, we keep slaves now,
but they are in some sweatshop far away, where we can't see them.
It's not called slavery, because they get just enough money for it
to keep themselves alive,
where as before, they got no money and were still kept alive.
We consider ourselves so much more civilized than before.
PEAK OIL
In short, peak oil means the moment of maximum oil production,
when the highest amount of oil is produced, adding together all fields from all
oil producing countries, and after which point the oil production declines.
It seems that the global peak of oil production was around 2005,
and it has been slightly declining ever since, for 5 years.
The fact alone that oil production is not increasing,
not to mention it's declining, has an effect on almost everything.
Oil is such a unique raw material. One can make almost anything out of oil,
it is easy to transport, you can burn it, you can eat it,
and while it has been readily available, it has been used for almost everything
in our economy and in transportation especially, electricity is in many places produced through oil.
If the production of oil would flatline, that would already be a problem,
and the fact that production is declining, is another matter entirely.
The third point is net energy, also discussed as EROEI (energy return on energy invested),
or how much society gets in terms of freely usable energy.
Even though there is still oil,
the utility of the available oil is declining.
One has to work more and more, in order to get freely available energy.
The amount of work performed by fossil fuels
is tens of times more than the work performed by human muscle.
In practice, all western individuals have tens of so-called energy-slaves at their disposal.
These three phenomena,
that oil production is not growing, that it's even declining,
and that net energy or EROEI is going down, especially this third one, have a dramatic effect
on how much work society can perform and what happens to the economy.
This effect has been visible since the 70's,
that real wages have not gone up anymore in places like the US
and many European countries, so that debt has been the only solution.
Both individuals and nations get deeper into debt,
since there is less free energy available to the economy,
as EROEI goes down.
This process accelerates, which is one of the causes of the financial crisis.
There are other causes as well, but one of the triggers that set off the financial crisis was peak oil,
since peak oil increases the pressure to increase debts
and also makes the repayment of debts increasingly hard.
Paul Krugman, who got the so-called "Nobel" in economics,
calculated that the price of oil that directly causes friction, slowing down world economy
is 80 USD per barrel and above.
This friction is created by the cost of things like hauling a container from China
and the cost of taking it back.
Krugman estimated, that at around 85 dollars per barrel, the price of oil
has a dampening effect on world trade.
RESOURCE WARS
Resources play an essential role in many conflicts.
I wouldn't say, that any conflict would be purely over resources,
but, for example, the Iraq war had political economy factors in the background,
of course oil was the most important one, but also the value of the dollar in the world economy.
We do have situations where water plays a really imoportant role.
Conflicts in Israel and Palestine were always also conflicts about the control over water.
As I see it, this will come to a head,
as a result of economic growth, this is quite a small planet after all,
so many resources are becoming more scarce
and the limits to growth will be met in that sense, too.
The economical crisis and peak oil are already clearly visible, if you just look.
For instance, there are several resource wars going on in many countries at the moment.
Afghanistan and Iraq are the most obvious examples.
This is often forgotten, when people say
"No, in Afghanistan we are fighting terrorism and the al Qaida."
but why does al Qaida even exist in the first place?
One main message from Bin Laden has been
that American troops have to leave Saudi Arabia.
So, why are there US troops in Saudi Arabia?
Because there is oil.
So the war in Afghanistan is 100% a war over resources,
like the war in Iraq.
In Sudan and Nigeria there are resource wars, likewise in the Congo.
Mexico is falling apart as we speak,
as the revenues from the Cantarell oil field have collapsed.
Also what China is doing, buying agricultural land
all over the world, especially in Africa.
They buy tangible resources, land, minerals,
oil fields, oil companies.
This big power play is already going on
and should be recognized.
If the production of oil continues to decline at the same rate
as it has declined from 2005 to 2010,
and if the oil imports to China and India continue to increase at the same rate
as they have increased from 2005 to 2010
then all of the oil from the five biggest oil producing countries
will go to China and India alone in 2018.
Not a drop will be available to other countries,
which gives us some sort of a time limit.
Before 2018, something has got to give
in the global order of things.
There is no other way out,
since a situation where all the oil from the five biggest oil producing countries
would go to China and India, is simply unsustainable.
In any case, there is a clear tendency
to go towards a world in which we are fighting over resources,
a little like during the 19th century,
including with the use of military force.
THE FUTURE?
If we talk about the worst case scenario,
we are in the same boat with the whole world.
Quite many anticipate a planet-wide disaster in some form
during the next decades.
Two of my favourites are:
W. Warren Wagar - A Short History of the Future
"This era will end in a nuclear war in 2040",
and it's essentially connected to the capitalistic logic in the world economy.
A crisis, which will end in conflict escalation, begins as an economic crisis,
world-wide depression and collapse, leading to all kinds of consequences.
Jacques Attali anticipated, that the tyranny of markets will be followed by planet-wide conflict,
which could mean a total, widespread war.
If we look at the facts in a cold, empirical manner
we see that there is not one single example
of a sustainable Western lifestyle.
No example of a way of life that would not have destroyed the environment,
and that would have been capable of exsisting in that environment
for let us say, 100 or 200 years,
so that the environment would maintain its usability.
Such an example does not exist, pure and simple.
To turn the viewpoint around, if we would get visitors from, e.g., Siberia,
or from a jungle, members of an indigenous tribe that would tell us
"We accidentally killed all the animals and
poured poison in the waters and now we can't live there any more,
what should we do?"
Would we really have something to say,
could we, the Western culture, impart them knowledge
and say "live like this and this and everything is going to be ok."
No, we have no such knowledge, we couldn't tell them anything.
I would like to look a little bit further into the future.
I am in favor of a definition of civilization,
where civilization is a collective whole,
capable of thinking and outlining it's future at least
over a timespan of 200 years.
This is quite far from our current reality.
The West sees itself as somehow superior, or most likely to survive,
but we don't know that for a fact, because this hasn't ended yet.
It is possible, in principle, that the western civilization disappears
and the other civilizations remain.
Then we have to state, empirically,
that it wasn't the most likely to survive after all.
In these social structures and economic models which we have,
unfortunately, it's really hard to shift
to other solutions without having some horrible disaster.
The ones in power don't want to give up their power.
Everything must be turned upside down and start from the beginning,
for humanity to no longer see the world in terms of us and them,
but instead in terms of being one.
We are so screwed that we really need to start thinking,
about which is the best option.
We tend to evaluate the past in a way
that we are very critical about what past generations have done.
But if you think about the views ahead of us,
let's say in 30 or 60 years,
unless a radical change happens in the world.
And we do see all the misery and disasters ahead of us.
Let's think about how many of those things are discussed today,
how people are most certainly aware of these things,
even those, who want to cover their eyes with their hands,
and don't want to see them.
You can only imagine, the judgement in 30 or 60 years
of today's humanity by our children and grandchildren.
The fact, that we have clearly seen where we are going and still kept arguing about small things
at the climate conferences in Copenhagen and elsewhere
without ever doing anything radical.
We cannot defend our actions by saying we didn't know,
because surely the people in the world with influence do know.
We are talking about a certain era and a generation
of unmeasurable greed and selfishness.
The decision-makers either don't think about it,
or they think, that in a few thousand years
someone will have invented a way to save this globe.
We can screw around here limitlessly until then.
Our generation is *** in the cereal bowl of their own offspring.
It's pretty much in the hands of our generation
and this era, to determine how things will happen in the future.
If we make things better,
I'll be proud of this whole generation.
If not, I'll be really ashamed.
The term most in need for updating is "hippies",
and the image it produces:
dirty, unwashed treehuggers.
It's a term, which is used
with the intention, that if you get that label slapped on you,
no-one needs to listen to you and they can just return to the old model,
that's where the reality is.
However, the reality seems to be,
that a tree takes a certain time to grow,
and sea currents go in certain directions.
Now we have 120 or by the wildest estimates 200 animal species,
that are going extinct each day.
In America, 3% of the original forests are left,
In Finland only about 5%.
Every life supporting system is expiring and being destroyed,
the food is poisoned and there are carcinogens in the water, there is a sea of plastic,
floating around the Pacific Ocean.
Hippies were a marginal group.
If this same term still applies to all these people,
who are worried about this, that these structures are breaking down,
structures which literally keep us alive,
then we must up the ante
and start to give some labels to those
who do not care about these things.
Let's say a "market-sleepwalker."
If your real value is the growth curve,
you are stuck big time
in a construction, which has nothing to do with reality.
We already have the technology to build
these small local energy powerplants all across Finland.
We would have the resources for all of it.
We would have the people, the skills, the technology, everything.
And we have the will.
But we cannot do so, because we don't have the money for it.
We need to understand, that the durability of our ecosystem depends on,
if we do what we have to, now,
or if are we going to continue like this.
To think, that there is no money to fix these problems,
because money is just our creation.
There is as much money as we agree there is.
Don't take this as an apocalyptic prophecy,
take it as a warning statement of facts by scientists.
Like said, we are talking about the protection of our enviroment,
fighting against pollution of water and the atmosphere.
It's not an apocalyptic prophecy.
It's coming from the mouths of scientists and with their authority, so that we would wake up,
and not head towards intentional suicide.
"Why do my eyes hurt?" "You've never used them." - Matrix 1999
One of the easiest ways to make the world a better place
would be, for all of us to try to see the world with more open eyes.
Everyone has their own religions, ideologies, -isms.
Now we have Ajan Henki, The Zeitgeist Movement, etc.
There have been all kinds of utopistic movements, communities, ideologies and such.
Some of them have done good, some bad,
most a bit of good and a bit of bad.
It's hard to count a budget.
The thing, that everyone can do in their everyday lives,
is to try not to collect only those things from the world,
which support what we thought we knew before
and try to see the opposite alternative views,
things, as for example, when
we talk with others without trying to convert them
to our own thoughts, instead trying to understand why others think differently.
Even though their ideas and thoughts may seem stupid and witless,
we should still try to doubt ourselves,
not so much the other people around us,
who don´t agree with us.
The system is built in a way, that once you are born,
everything is pretty much laid out ready in front of you.
There is such a political system, such religions,
such cultures and you are expected to take everything for granted.
I do understand very well,
that if your world view is intertwined with the official one,
questioning it can be quite a scary thing to do
and one's ego will hold on to that worldview tooth and nail.
It can feel really rough,
when you start to weed through your conception of reality,
but I definitely see it as a rewarding experience,
because then the responsibility lies with us
and looking at it from that perspective, there is nothing to fear.
I see humans as spiritual beings,
who go through different phases in their lives.
You go through these transformations
from child to adult and from adult to mature.
In these transformations, the past reality loses its meaning
and new ones start to grow in it's place.
This growth is usually introverted.
From a medical point of view, this change is often very painful.
It makes you anxious and can be depressing,
it can make you feel ill and so on.
This is my philosophy of pain: most of our pain
is caused by something inside of us trying to say;
"listen to me" or "move forward" or "let go".
The me that's accustomed to the previous concept fights back
and the pain is created by the tension between these two elements.
Our body reacts to them.
But there is a huge potential for change, when a person sees,
that this is the case.
He'll see the world from an entirely different perspective.
HUMAN BEING
"History and anthropology teaches us, that a human community does not survive long
unless its members take part psychologically in it's central living myth.
Such a myth provides members with a reason for existence." -Edward Edinger
There is a major contradiction in humanity's development.
We have achieved many great things with science and technology.
At the same time, we have caused severe problems,
that endanger the future of the whole planet.
How is this possible?
Is there a design flaw within us?
Perhaps it is bad genes or the original sin, that drive us towards disasters.
One central reason for our problems can be found in our culture
or more precisely in its rapid change.
As the science and technology has progressed, we have
for the most part, given up so called indigenous cultures.
In what kind of harmony have people been able to live with nature
and simultaneously be scientifically advanced,
is something we can only guess.
It would seem, that some a little more honorable, yet equally civilized
operations have existed here before our current civilization.
Many pieces of Finnish culture and the life of Finns
fall into place, when we start thinking that the Finns are actually an indigenous people.
You hear a whole series of clicking sounds, when the pieces go together.
Many of the phenomena in Finnish culture, that often seem to be odd,
are normal things that happen to the Navajos, to the Aborigines, etc.
We can clearly see phenomena, that are not at all strange,
that are on the contrary familiar from all the cases, where a dominant culture
takes over a smaller culture:
alcoholism, suicides, mutism,
escape and going back to the forests, etc.
What is different in our case, of course,
is that here our elite speaks the same language as the common people.
In other words, we do have our Finnish-speaking mainstream culture,
a layer of Europeanized culture, that was born in the few centuries
that we have been a part of Europe.
In this way, our situation is in some sense actually harder,
because in Africa or Latin America people are at least aware of the fact,
that they are under occupation
and that the mainstream culture is colonialist.
Therefore they are also aware, that some kind of battle over independence
or liberation is needed.
Unfortunately, we are not very aware of this
and therefore, things are somewhat more difficult for us.
We have really been made to feel
as if
we are the same as the occupier.
"Women's tales and children's wisdom. Tell the story of creation, tell me of the world's beginning."
- Wäinämöinen, Finnish folk lore
One great thing in the Kalevala is the
notion and poems about so-called "synnyt" ("the births of things"), it speaks about a knowledge of births or origins,
and Väinämöinen is the singer of the "deep births",
for instance, in the competition between Väinämöinen and Joukahainen,
Joukahainen keeps on giving lists of facts, like
when is the time for the pike and the perch to spawn,
which are the biggest and the longest rivers,
and other lists of facts, items of knowledge much like the Western kind.
After a while, Väinämöinen gets angry, and says
"Women's knowledge and children's memory! Sing us deeply into births!"
But that Joukahainen can not do.
And, as is well known, Väinämöinen proceeds to sing
Joukahainen into the mire.
I have been trying to think about this knowledge of births,
what are these "births of things"?
They are a field of knowledge of their own.
It is a kind of knowledge,
that ties together the meaningfulness of a way of living.
When it is said, that Väinämöinen knows
these profound births, or that he sings them,
it means, that Väinämöinen knows
how to conduct that way of life,
so that
life has a purpose, life is meaningful, life is felt
or experienced as meaningful, with a direction,
and so that the way of life is kept coherent, so that it does not destroy
it's environment and can continue over generations.
This is a kind of knowledge that is not individual,
but rather collective or social,
and also spans over several generations.
It is transmitted through the generations
and can not basically even be possessed by a single individual.
This, to me, is what the Kalevala calls "knowledge of the birth of things".
And this is precisely the kind of knowledge
that, for example, we as Westerns lack.
North Amercican Indians
have, for example, based their
big decisions
on how the decisions are going to effect
the next seven generations.
We do not really know,
how many people with our living standard this earth is capable of carrying.
We may have some knowledge, some facts, we can calculate,
but that has no effect on our lives,
we do not change our conduct based on that calculation.
But knowledge of the births of things
in the sense, that Väinämöinen gets it,
is knowledge, that directly transforms life,
if you know it, if you have the skill, then you live according to it,
which means things like
treating some things as sacred, some things as taboo,
some things are always done in a specific way,
which all together forms a cultural whole,
that can stay in balance with its environment,
does not overfish, or hunt too much, does not overpopulate, or do any such things.
We do not truly know these "wholes".
Even if we do know them, we know them in a superficial,
factual level, not on a level that would have an effect on our behaviour
and the way of life.
A sustainable way of life is symbiotic with nature.
We have to know nature's carrying capacity
and adjust our actions accordingly.
The interaction between people is also important,
in order for us to be able to form communities.
Such a society is ecologically and socially
on solid ground.
However, our connection to the nature has been distorted,
since a long production chain has come between us.
We consume food and things,
but do not see the impact our actions have on nature.
Our connection to community has also been lost.
Constant rush and competition has driven us apart.
We strive for our own success
and forget, that we are dependent on our community.
Mass media, saturated with entertainment and advertizing has replaced the community.
It gives life substance and keeps us in it's grip.
Thus we have become prisoners of our own unsustainable culture.
Would it be possible for us to rediscover our connection to nature
and other people?
What is needed
for this kind of transformation?
That is a tricky question.
We have lost precisely what is needed, because
knowledge of the births of things
spans over generations and over individuals.
It can not be done by anyone alone.
It is impossible
to alone in your own head, as it were,
decide over it. Rather, it has to be changed collectively,
and moreover, in a collective including grandmothers and small babies.
That is the only possibility. The smallest scale or unit.
that can give rise to knowledge of the birth of things is a collective,
that is multi-generational and includes a lot of different individuals.
So, we have to device ways of living that support such collectives.
There knowledge of the births can grow and live.
These can be families, or they can be
something, that in English is called "intentional communities."
A kind of collective,
that is gathererd together by
an ecological or a religious
or some similar ideology.
In cultural evolution, it is not necessary for individuals to die or species to go extinct,
for harmful information to be purged. It is possible to learn not to act in ways
that are no longer beneficial, or new ideas can be learned that replace the old ones.
- Pekka Kuusi
Our culture is an inheritance layered over thousands of years.
Each generation passes information and know-how to its descendants.
As time goes by, this information increases and develops.
This process is called cultural evolution.
These old
systems and ideologies just do not work anymore.
Not one of these earlier
ideologies, that have existed,
that have been executed in some form,
none of them include the idea,
that we might just live on a planet with finite resources.
Or that we might poison our water systems
or anything like that.
We are undergoing a historical period of phase transition.
Like water turning into ice or ice into water.
Many long-lived beliefs or presumptions,
that we have taken to be true,
are no longer valid.
And this is becoming more evident.
That is why the old ways of running things no longer function,
or do not produce the effects,
that we suppose them to produce.
Unlike other species,
us humans can consciously affect the way
our culture develops.
We can study, which parts of our culture are beneficial
and pass them on to the generations to come.
The same applies vice versa.
Once we have figured out, which things are harmful and bad,
we can decide to give them up and not behave in accordance with them.
School plays an important role,
when we grow up to become a part of our culture.
All the education we get, starting from kindergarten,
how we are taught to relate to other people.
Are we encouraged to be fair,
equal, just
or are we encouraged perhaps indirectly, perhaps unnoticed,
to be greedy and self-centered?
Our group takes care of its own, those others out there will just have to cope
the best they can.
Learning the Western world-view
is not at all easy.
You have to go to school for at least 12 years,
several hours a day, in order to be trained in it.
It does not come naturally.
It is not an innate
or self-evident way of participating in the world,
but rather is produced through a long period of training.
If you think about the tradition, in which
now for 2000 years generations of Europeans have gone to school
and every new generation is processed through the same machine,
it is clear that
a certain shared or common world-view is being produced.
"What we have done for ourselves alone, dies with us; what we have done for others
and the world remains and is immortal." - Albert Pike
It is obvious, that people are also motivated by other things besides money and competition.
Perhaps a human being can achieve more,
when working driven by different motives.
Maybe co-operation, sharing and creativity are the things,
that best lead people and societies towards success.
Some say that competition is natural for humans.
That may be true, maybe people want to compete with each other.
But it is ridiculous to think, that
the only thing to compete about is
who has the most money.
People could compete over
who is the sharpest philosopher,
whose song is the most beautiful, who dances the best,
who paints the best picture,
who gives the most to others.
We should absolutely get different values.
Actually, we do not have any quality values at all,
there is only one quantitative value, the value of money, the amount of it.
People are, in fact, not very motivated by
a system, that forces them to act as
*** Oeconomicus, only maximizing their own benefit.
People act much better, when
they share a common moral basis in the organisation they are a part of.
And they follow a logic of respect.
They have a moral ground, that mediates things,
including the struggles inside the organisation,
making it possible to refer to a shared background,
that motivates them all.
And people also receive recognition through that common ground.
That motivates people much better.
People function much better co-operatively,
and based on a common moral ground,
than when they are competing against each other
for monetary rewards.
It is very difficult to imagine, that anyone
would start doing research, because of money or fame.
I don't think I have ever met such a person.
Everybody is driven by curiosity,
by the need to find things out,
and often also by the will to make the world a better place
one way or another, directly or indirectly.
The idea, that nobody would write music,
software or books, if there were no copyright laws,
is, first of all, empirically incorrect,
since books, music and other intellectual products
have been made centuries before copyright
ever existed.
In addition, even today many people produce them
and give up their copyright, or do not think about
copyright at all.
Moreover, it is still true, that
most of the people in the world have nothing to do with copyright
or the internet and copyrights
in their entire lives.
Most of the people in the world
live outside the reach of copyright,
which means, that copyright is in no way essential
to human culture, to music,
literature and so on.
There is nothing in human nature,
that would force us to live the way we do today.
Greed, selfishness, and competition may be part of the view of humans that we hold,
but there are also other, better sides.
We can consciously strive towards a way of life,
that brings out the best in us.
RESOURCE BASED ECONOMY
Removing all the problems facing our world
will become the first priority for mankind. -Jacque Fresco
How many terrorist would there be?
Or how many exceedingly angry people,
if the basic needs of everyone were
more or less fulfilled. And that is more than possible.
People tend to take their own culture for granted.
We have the Western culture,
with it's endless needs, materialistic wants.
It is only a part of cultural conditioning.
THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
One of the biggest pleas for capitalism is, that our current standard of living
is in some way due to capitalism, that competition and selfishness have brought it about.
In reality, we see quite clearly that it is
based on scientific progress, the industrial revolution, technological progress,
and especially the harnessing of hydrocarbon energy, that has made it possible
to have so many people on earth as we have today.
And with the current standard of living.
We may say that science is a neutral way, and it is in a way our only hope.
But it is another matter, what parts of science we are using.
Once we realize the complexity of it all,
we become more humble with regard to how much
nature, humans or environments can be transformed.
We should start learning to live
in symbiosis with it.
Jacque Fresco, born in 1916, is a
social engineer and industrial designer.
He started to think about solutions for the problems in the world:
That people have needs, and how to fulfill them
in a way, that we will never face problems, such as war, violence and poverty.
And also, how to live in equilibrium
with planet earth, and to find an equilibrium.
During the 70's, Fresco developed an organisation called The Venus Project,
which also launched the idea of a Resource Based Economy, RBE.
The basic idea of a resource based economy is
using the scientific method
in solving social problems.
All the big desicions are thought through scientifically,
when it comes to human needs and the carrying capacity of the earth in a relevant way.
The biggest difference between a RBE and a monetary market economy is,
that monetary market economy is focused only on circulation of money,
where a RBE is more focused on circulation of life.
So there human needs are taken into account,
such as the circle of life, and the carrying capacity of our planet.
PRODUCTION
In principle, it would be possible to apply the technology today
to transition into a so-called cyclical economy,
or a cradle-to-cradle economy,
where we would know in advance with regad to every product
already, while they are being designed and produced,
what is going to happen to them after use.
The product never ends up at the dump, but rather re-enters circulation,
preferably somehow upgraded, upshifted,
not downgraded, not as something of lesser quality but as something of better quality.
This would be possible, in principle, with today's information technology.
In a Resource Based Economy, production is concretely based on
how much energy is needed
and how scarce the original resource is.
Does the production process pollute?
Is the product itself durable? Recyclable?
All of this is taken into account.
The ruling concept of financial profitability in producing things
for consumerism will be useless,
as a RBE focuses on resources, not money.
Energy efficiency, not money.
That is what sustainable production is all about.
A remarkable technical achievement, that has been changing our ways
during the recent decades, is the revolution of information.
We have almost unlimited capacity for calculation at our disposal
to do the work for us.
This enables a new kind of economical system, that is
mainly based on computerization.
A RBE is all about maximising the use of our common resources
by researching the global possibilities locally
to be able to calculate exactly, what should be built where,
on what scale, and which materials should be used.
To achieve this, we need computers as tools.
That is the future we are heading towards, and in my opinion this should be taken into account,
whatever our economical or social system will be.
We really do possess the needed tools now,
to optimize production
more efficiently than ever before.
DESICION MAKING
The basic decision making process is
that if for example an engineer or a designer
or anybody has an idea
a plan, or some kind of solution to a problem
or a new model for building a house
or a new traffic system he has come up with.
He inputs the model into the computer.
Then the scientific method is used
which is the basis of this system
and the model is simulated and tested.
We'll find out whether it will work.
If we see that the new solution or idea is resource efficient
it will be put into practice right away.
There is no cost efficiency process involved
like we have today.
You need to have money, it needs to be cheap enough or something similar.
I don't think that having leaders is the way forward anymore.
I don't think any rational person believes anymore
that through actions of one person whether a religious savior
financial leader, anyone.
It doesn't come from a single person
or by lifting him up to some kind of
a miraculous status.
I think of it as a Wikipedia type of system.
All information is completely open.
In principle anyone can take part in the system, maintain it.
It is easy to see
if there is some kind of misuse
if there is corrupt behaviour
if someone is trying to cheat.
It is very easy to see and correct.
If there is a Wikipedia article which somebody messes up
that is very quickly noticed and the article gets locked
and a consensus is sought
through a discussion over the correctness of the article.
And by referring to scientific sources a result is reached.
Regarding controversial subjects
it was the Smash ASEM demonstrations that
taught me that the Wikipedia article on Smash ASEM
was much more reliable than the reports in any of the papers
or on national TV or any such source.
Precisely because all the interested parties write their own point of view
and nobody can monopolize it.
That's why full openness in a way guarantees reliability
when it comes to something like the Venus Project
instead of diminishing it.
FUTURE CITIES
We will change the whole structure of our technology.
This question relates to, for instance, what I've being done in China
for the past few years.
Meaning these ecological cities.
They are places where technologies of different sectors are combined
and their interactions are taken into account.
An ecological city is an area that doesn't pollute the environment
air, water or soil
and uses natural resources in the most economical way.
Third factor here is the point of view presented by Richard Register.
He said that in an ecological city, nature
and the man made environment coexist in harmony.
Ecological cities have a different kind of traffic,
energy production, production in general, waste disposal,
water supply, land use and construction.
All of these are different from today's cities.
Paloheimo and Fresco have many kinds of city models,
which are really interesting. They are examples of how to
create a city systematically so that everything is taken into account.
The basic starting point is that all details and
their interactions are examined scientifically.
And everything is made the in most ecological, energy efficient
and resource efficient way.
That's the idea of the ecological city!
OWNERSHIP
In a Resource Based Economy there is an attempt to move away from
owning and hoarding stuff and an attempt to move towards sharing things.
Consider that we have 7 billion people and at the moment we consume
way more than earth's carrying capacity allows.
One good solution for that would be thinking about sharing of resources.
In Finland we have a good example of this, the summer cottages.
We have over 500 000 summer cottages.
I think it's funny that they are unused for most of the year.
And we have about 6 000 000 people in Finland.
500 000 cottages would be more than enough
for everyone's summer cottage needs.
For a society it's more resource efficient, in a way
to ensure access to everything people need
when they need it. Not like now when people have some private object,
which just lays around unused.
That's a waste of resources!
And to think that we have 7 billion people and this is happening in an ever wider
scale the waste just keeps on piling up.
In reality our production needs are a lot smaller
than we think.
THE ROLE OF JOBS IN THE FUTURE
The nature of work has already changed.
Less and less people work because it's absolutely necessary.
Especially as much as many do.
It's done because of the extra benefit gained.
You are a decent man or a woman if you work hard.
Doing overtime, getting more money being able to buy more.
Fancier car, more trips to Thailand a year.
Or the work is just fun to do.
It's social, you see friends, it passes the time.
We are quite far from the concept of work as it was during our grandparent's time.
Then a job was a must. You either worked or you starved.
Or you were forced to work.
Work is changing to be an option for spending time.
And likewise the type of work needed is changing.
You don't have to go cut lumber at the age of 13
Lumberjacks have mostly disappeared from Finland.
They are replaced by machines.
The Social Democratic party is thinking about what to do after realizing
that wait a minute! The working class has disappeared!
What is the working class party supposed to do now?
The world is changing dear Esko!
The service sector employs most of the people today,
if it became heavily automated the unemployment rates
would skyrocket.
The monetary economy has not prepared for this at all.
In a Resource Based Economy this is turned upside down.
It's seen as a good thing!
Currently it is a bad thing when people lose their jobs
and their standard of living is decreased, but in a RBE
the standard of living is provided without people having to work.
We see it as an important goal for society to automate
all the jobs people don't want to do voluntarily.
So we try to get rid of the concept of paid jobs.
Slowly moving away from the need to have a job.
This frees people completely
to do the things they want to do based on internal incentives.
Education plays a big role in what people are encouraged to do.
In a RBE when work becomes more voluntary,
people's imagination wakes up to see what they can do.
You can do a lot of things. You can be an artist, practice science, be a teacher
you can help people,
or start building space rockets if space is your passion!
The possibilities are endless!
People live in a box. That there's only this one option.
Now we live to be almost 100 years old.
If there was an educational system that lasted throughout your whole life,
like in a RBE where you can develop yourself all the time
for as long as you live
the possibilities for what you can do during the 100 years
are much broader than what we think today!
Now when you graduate from a school, you have a profession, you do that
for 40-50 years and that's it...
EDUCATION AND INCENTIVES
Today's education methods are
based on textbooks, authorities and teachers.
You read certain things in a book.
Then you cram, copy them into your head.
And then you copy them to an exam paper.
After doing this process you get a grade and you have supposedly
completed and undestood the thing.
But if we take a closer look, does the person understand
anything about the subject in reality?
Does it develop a person's understanding?
Or is it just copying things onto an exam paper?
And in a few weeks the "learned" things are totally forgotten.
Education should be interactive and develop understanding.
Starting from elementary school.
HOW CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD
It feels boring to listen to all of these accusations of beng a cult and such.
It's true that people are passionate about this thing,
because they see how important it is that life supporting structures
are fixed. And if you're not passionate about that...
Then something is a bit wrong.
It's a wholesome change of attitude.
It's not like: OK bring me The Venus Project
and give me a ready-made package to jump into
and then everything is free and fun!
No. Of course not!
It's about a certain basis and a structure being made.
Like an infrastructure diagram.
And then we can see logically: "Whoa! That might work,
but there are challenges such as this and that."
To really change the world
we need an internal change in people.
That's why this has to start at the grassroots level.
People need to start thinking about what is important in life.
The richer we get the less money matters.
In my opinion it's a key to a better society
because power symbolized by money is rarely anything good or positive.
The only chance is to develop science and technology in a way
that we can get a better life for more people
and simultaneously decrease the stress on the environment,
nature and other forms of life.
This is where science and technology provide the means.
But the wisdom and the will to use them must come from the people.
The amount of resources we waste fighting each other...
If we had built upward for the last 50 years,
this would be an awesome place already!
ACTION
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment
before starting to improve the world." -Anne Frank
We have an unique opportunity to build such a reality
or steer it in a direction, where these unsustainable structures
are fading slowly, forcibly, because the greatest utopia is
that things could continue as they have for a long time
and to the distant future.
It will not happen like that! And that's just pure math.
Now we could steer this in a better direction.
Real life is not a movie!
In the real life we need to do something.
We need to confront issues and deal with them.
As far as I know, that's how it works in any healing process.
Even on an individual level. First you need to confront the problems
and let the cat out of the bag. Then we can start looking for solutions.
A somewhat encouraging thing is that in the end
many people are not very committed to this system.
Even though seemingly people go to work, watch TV,
go shopping and live so-called "normal lives".
In the end not too many have an internal commitment to that.
It feels more like you are sort of a visitor in your own life.
And so, the push needed doesn't necessarily have to be
so dramatic for all of us.
This 2008-2009 crisis though it didn't lead
to any significant change in paradigms,
it was so big and pointed out so many things,
that it almost did it.
We don't need so much more to change things.
And now we can systematically analyze different scenarios,
where this dialect of change and crisis leads to peaceful
improvements on a global level.
People, and every individual, should start taking positions.
Change comes from individuals. No-one will make the change for us.
Responsibility for yourself. If your conciousness changes, it has a radical
influence on the world.
Think about historical figures, whose conciousness has changed,
individuals, who have accomplished remarkably great things.
Can de done right now (days or weeks). INDIVIDUAL Examine your values.
Reject greed and competition. Love life, people and nature.
Be a responsible part of humankind.
Educate yourself. Learn new skills. Know what is happening around you.
Keep a critical eye on the media. Enjoy realizing new things.
Take care of yourself. Eat pure food. Excercise. Avoid stress.
Know yourself. Find your balance. Search for happiness, spirituality and creativity.
Conquer your fears.
Get along. Know what is enough. Have savings rather than debt.
Recycle, repair, lend instead of owning.
Be independent from things like; mass media, banks, the pharmaceutical industry.
Anyone can take concrete actions
and start to make the change.
Whether it is to become politically active,
to grow your own potatoes, to give up brand name clothing
or to take your money out of the bank.
You can surely think of something, that you could do right now.
After all, it is not that hard.
You can start with whatever feels easy, and keep on moving forward from there.
We need to change our values completely.
We need to understand better, what happiness is all about.
How we should respect each other,
and why we should respect each other.
Most of this modern waste of precious resources
is not about making our lives more comfortable, but wanting others to
respect us for what we have.
Rich people are respected,
but this is a false principle.
Everybody should stop to think about how much money we actually need
to live a life that is satisfying.
I ask my patients with all kinds of anxieties, what if you won a super lottery,
and could by new cars and stuff you want. What would you want after that?
In the end what we really need are very basic and simple things,
that are practically almost free of charge.
Then I ask why can't you do that today, since there is
no need to win a lottery for that.
Our time provides us with huge amounts of information.
The Internet. Anyone can find information on the net,
you can get any information you need.
You can contact people around the world.
A new awareness if forming around the things happening in the world.
That is good in our time.
Sometimes people talk about personal learning environments, PLEs.
The idea is that you have the net, the libraries, you have friends, folk high schools,
associations and organizations offering a wide variety of events.
So you use all of these tools.
You use blogs and wikis, you adopt as mentors or teachers
some of the people you already interact with.
And so you device a network, in which you learn.
Regardless of whether what you are learning corresponds to a curriculum.
We don't need a church, all the elements are within us.
Our modern congregations are all about connecting people.
Who interact genuinely, because they have common interests and
want to learn from each other.
And want to share their knowledge with others.
It is largely thanks to the internet and such,
that we don't have to do things alone.
One can find like-minded people to help in almost any activity.
And it really is rewarding too.
Don't start going at it alone, instead check who else is doing to same thing,
see how they do it, and start collaborating.
COMMUNITY. Can be done in weeks/months. TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE CLOSE TO YOU.
Enjoy spending time with each other. Lend, share, help, give... Create a network.
SEE THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU. Meet new people. See the people on the streets.
Talk to your neighbor. Search for similarities instead of differences.
SPREAD INFORMATION ON IMPORTANT TOPICS. Make use of the internet.
Discuss things. Teach others and learn from them. Encourage, inspire and support others.
Tell people about this movie.
Get organized. Study groups, exchange groups, time banks, knowledge banks. Communes, eco-villages.
Self-sustainability. Clean local food.
PARTICIPATE. Movements, unions, organizations, political parties.
Petitions, boycots, marches, demonstrations.
The monetary system needs to be changed. That's the number one priority.
It has to be changed. If some political party wants to change it, vote for that party.
Help them. If there is some local currency, an exchange group or a time bank
in your community - join them.
If none exist, start one.
In any case, this current money paradigm has to be broken.
It is quite a radical revolution, which should be done.
But the intriguing thing about this revolution is,
that in the end you wouldn't have to do anything else,
but to change the world into a place,
most people think it already is.
A lot of people think that money is created by sovereign states.
A lot of people think that when a bank loans out money,
it loans other people's savings or their own money.
If we were to change the world into a place people already think it is,
I'd say about 90 % of the problems we have today could suddenly be resolved.
Thinking about a revolution, I don't think it is enough just to oppose
or fight against something.
It is important and it has to be done too, but you also need some kind of
a positive side, saying what should be done instead.
Let's say; let's not do that, but it is more important to say
and do, what the preferable option suggests.
It is up to all of us. This can not be emphasized enough. It is up to each of us,
what happens in the world.
Therefore, there are possibilities in the world if we decide so!
I decide, you decide, they decide, we all decide!
That now we do things like this and not like that.
People think the nature of these problems and processes is such,
that they can not be answered by operating for example in Finland alone,
or any other single country for that matter.
When you look at the global economy and follow production chains,
or ways of labor distribution and exchange relations and how
organizations are arranged, all of a sudden you realize, that everything
is so profoundly intertwined with everything,
that it is by no means controllable in Finland or by the state of Finland.
What comes to mind then is, if we think about it from a holistic
perspective, maybe that is the level we have to operate on to make a change.
And from that comes the basic idea, that we have to get organized.
Create open public spaces, global political spaces
and enable democratic participation in them.
There are many grassroot groups.
It would be desirable for them to start being more co-operative,
because somehow we'll have to start to unite.
But perhaps the situation isn't as hopeless as the media suggests.
A great thing would be, if the media actually tried to help us
build this world into a better place and talk about all the good stuff
that is going on and who is doing what and where
and help us assemble these pieces together.
In the end, when there are enough aware people and groups,
even the biggest problems aren't too big to solve.
SOCIETY. Can be done in months/years
CO-OPERATION ACROSS THE BORDERS. Movements, organizations, associations
Parties, ideologies, religions. Skin colour, language, citizenship.
MAKE TRUE PARTICIPATION POSSIBLE.
In Finland and other countries. Global people's front.
FREE SCIENCE AND CULTURE
Secure freedom of information. Remove harmful patents.
CHANGE THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ECONOMY
Free ourselves from the power of money. Create debtless money. Abandon destructive economic growth.
CREATE A SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE
Know the carrying capacity of the earth. Use technology rationally.
Move into a resource based economy. Decisions have to take into account
the future of the whole planet and humankind.
This is the point, where this kind of rough democracy and sustainable development
actually unite.
And precisely, because we cannot know in advance,
what it should include it has to be
ultra, turbo-democratic.
And evolutionary. And everyone has to take part in it.
Different people and different areas of expertise are needed.
Developing it evolutionarily in small bits and assembling them together
and this way it can progress.
So when it comes to progress, sustainability and democracy
are in fact intertwined.
That's why it has to be democratic.
I said ultra democratic, so people wouldn't think
of it as the representative democracy we have in
the west and in Finland.
It seems like people are increasingly becoming aware or interested in these issues.
Well "these issues" - Human issues!
Human issues are our issues.
Issues of nature are our issues.
Nobody has messed this planet up, except us.
There's no point in blaming it on the starlings or salmon.
When I got acquainted with peak oil and other similar matters in 2010,
I started to get this funny hope, that in fact in my lifetime,
this thing might change.
I believe, that in 21st century humankind may end up in an extensive catastrophy.
It is possible and plausible, although not the most likely
option in any way.
It can happen.
It is up to our actions, whether it will happen or not.
But even that won't necessarily mean the end of the story for humankind.
In any case this technological progress and industrial revolution
have led to a situation, where we have to
learn completely new ways of responding anyway.
I am pretty convinced, that people have the capability to do this.
In the long run.
Where people live among each other,
provided, that awakening and liberation occurs, a notion of
voluntary, planned co-operation for the common good
can be applied.
It is something completely different, than the ape culture we have embraced so far!
This mad rat race.
This greed. This slavery. Exploitation!
There is a possibility in man. A natural possibility that is
kind of pre-charged and when woken up
a person is able to be systematic, rational
and humane in his actions for the common good.
This has been proven and I believe it is possible.
The question is, can we get enough people to wake up
for the tide of history to change?
So what is the spirit of the times?
It is actually change.
Personal and collective healing.
Seeking of authentic experiences and vibes.
Casting aside bad things.
Moving forward.
Letting go of old burdens.
And expanding one's conciousness.
...Cheers!
This movie was done out of love for the people of Finland,
in hope of a better future.
No politicians or bankers were harmed during the production of this movie.
PRODUCTION TEAM
FILMING
EDITING
NARRATOR
INTERVIEWS
INTERVIEWEES
GRAPHICS
MUSIC
END TITLE MUSIC
SOUND EDITING
TRANSLATIONS
ILLUSTRATION
THANK YOU
THANK YOU ALL WHO PARTICIPATED IN COPYRIGHT PAYMENTS
BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD
- MAHATMA GANDHI