The Zeitgeist Movement Annual Report

"Everything donated and allocated will be explained in a report that's issued annually by the NPO at the end of the year."

-Peter Joseph

Form 990-EZ for period ending December

6th Zeitgeist Media Festival

 

Peter Joseph presents Malikan Soyenka

On the set of Interreflections, Nov. 21st 2016 from r/TZM

 

The Venus Project Museum

Douglas Mallette needs a car

Douglas Mallette's new occupation after working for NASA is NOW a TAXI DRIVER!

CFS & Aquaponics with Doug (Part 4)https://t.co/z8cdP3wD16

— Alt-Universe (@TVPMovieTracker) January 2, 2015

Tio from Trom resigns from the Venus Project

TVP and ME

Niels Böge Nothdurft reflects on leaving TZM

It’s around two years ago I left The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM), so why not celebrate it with a blogpost about my time in TZM?

I first joined TZM around mid-2013. I was another person back then. I was utterly frustrated with society and I had a serious lack of critical thinking skills, which meant that I believed in almost any kind of woo you can name. If some claim had a YouTube documentary to support it, it had definitely met its burden of proof for me back then.

My frustration with society led me into Facebook groups for other frustrated people and of course the comment sections on news articles. It was on a comment section that I encountered the third Zeitgeist movie. When watching it I had an epiphany. What the movie said made sense to me, so I watched the other movies as well and got into contact with the Danish branch of TZM.

I got into a regional chapter, which mainly consisted of me and two other guys. We met once in a while, had a good time, and talked about a Resource Based Economy (RBE), which is a societal model promoted by TZM. I won’t go into any details in this blogpost about what a RBE is, since it requires a blogpost of its own.

We of course talked about what we can do to spread awareness about RBEs. The awareness was mostly Facebook-based, which means that we posted in comment sections and made posts on our Facebook page about anything from societal issues to science. There was one exception to this in our awareness spreading, which was a speech one of us gave at a political party and grassroots movement meeting in the city of Århus.

In the spring of 2014 I began to get more interested in science and skepticism, mainly because I wrote a lot of Facebook posts about science. New technology, science, and the scientific method for social concern was officially promoted by TZM, but the reality was another, which I found out later. I began to read books like The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. It quickly purged my mind of any belief in the supernatural and woo I had held until then. I had been a firm believer in all kinds of woo and supernatural claims most of my life. I now began to see the world in a different way; I questioned things and demanded a more rigorous burden of proof before I accepted a claim as true.

Soon after this I began to question TZM. In the beginning it was the small things, like why the first movie was promoted by some TZM chapters when it clearly was shite. After a while I stopped promoting the second movie, since it had some things in it that were clearly dubious, like a conspiracy theory about economic hitmen, backed by nothing but the testimony of one man. It was during that time I encountered other likeminded, skeptical TZM members, like Matt Berkowitz who came to play a big role later that year.

I continued to be a member of TZM and promote RBEs, in some way, until the fall season that year. I kind of rationalized my involvement with TZM with the thoughts that the goal was noble, so it didn’t matter if what we were promoting and selling wasn’t all true, and that our official TZM information material, like the second movie, had serious flaws.

There was trouble in TZM in 2014. Matt Berkowitz, who was a prominent coordinator in a Canadian chapter (a chapter that for once did something serious in TZM), had posted a video in which he promoted critical thinking and scientific skepticism. All hell broke loose because of that video. TZM had at that time (and probably still has) a lot of members who are into conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and other unsupported claims, so the video got rough reception by a lot of TZM members. To make a long story short, Peter Joseph (PJ), who is the leader of the supposedly leaderless TZM, got involved and erased Matt and his video about critical thinking. I find it a bit funny since some people call PJ “Peter Joseph Stalin” due to the similarities between communism and RBEs, the joke being that Joseph Stalin erased his former friend Trotsky and PJ basically did the same thing.

Shortly after that I left TZM, as did many other skeptics who were once a part of the movement. We were basically fed up with all the pseudoscience in the movement, and now when it was clear that the “leaderless” movement had a leader who was against critical thinking, we had had enough.

So was my time in TZM wasted? Besides the obvious waste of time promoting a RBE, I would say that I had a great time. I met some nice and cool people and it led me down the road of skepticism. My time in TZM also made me interested in society and politics, which eventually led me to learn more about them and gain some understanding, so that I don’t feel as frustrated anymore.

Learning critical thinking skills has definitely been a good thing for me. Critical thinking is a tool you can apply to all aspects of life and it helps you understand the world, so I really appreciate getting that tool. And I appreciate the people who helped me get it, like Carl Sagan, one of my biggest heroes, and of course Matt Berkowitz and Philip Blair (both ex-TZM members), who introduced me to a lot of great YouTubers. And I appreciate these YouTubers, people like Matt Dillahunty, C0nc0rdance, Potholer54, Martymer81, and of course The League of Nerds, a podcast starring James Gurney and his co-host/friend Myles Power, who besides doing that podcast also makes his own YouTube videos.

The Zeitgeist Movement feels threatened by Copiosis

Coincidentally, Perry Gruber wrote a proposal on how we can approach food insecurity with a 21st century solution.https://t.co/TYu8CvbROn

— Joe Park (@joepark_online) August 3, 2020

Ten years after TZM documentaries were released we still have "more of the same". Handing out flyers and DVDs, more z-events obviously has little to no effect. Meanwhile, Copiosis successfully completed two demonstration projects.

— Joe Park (@joepark_online) August 5, 2020

Then what was the point of starting TZM? Maybe if it had a clearly defined direction instead of "NLRBE, yeah!" then it could have been what Z-People signed up for, and Copiosis has that base covered. ps - I'm looking forward to Interreflections, because you're a great producer.

— Joe Park (@joepark_online) August 5, 2020

No offense, but saying that "it won't amount to much" is the ego predicting the future. The two demo projects weren't meant to change the world, they were just beta. The point is that Copiosis is on track. Has TZM done anyting close to what you mentioned, twelve years later?

— Joe Park (@joepark_online) August 6, 2020

if you believe in it, others may as well. And no, TZM never gave birth to the kind of academic research and speaker power required.

I tried my best. Too few followed suit.

— Peter Joseph (@ZeitgeistFilm) August 6, 2020

And here is the way to accomplish all of it: https://t.co/pgzG1fgkLS

— KJ McElrath (@KjMcelrath) August 30, 2020

if you say so.

— Peter Joseph (@ZeitgeistFilm) August 31, 2020

Peter Joseph goes after Bill Gates

"The Gates Foundation’s Ceres2030 Plan Pushes Agenda of Agribusiness" #Money is a cultural cancer that invades our #educational institutions to promote #monetary agendas. #Money propagates itself thru targeted investments to grow #profits. https://t.co/BEWllUzLu1 via @truthout

— Zeitgeist Movement (@tzmglobal) November 25, 2018

Gates decides to spend .09% of his wealth on this crisis.

What a hero.

You can just see the stunning level of full-of-shitness in their faces. His wife is even worse than he is when defending their poverty-creating wealth. https://t.co/jkjQQx96K3

— Peter Joseph (@ZeitgeistFilm) February 6, 2020

Better than nothing, honestly.

— Randy Curry (@rcurry95) February 6, 2020

It’s not his first donation to a charity you know

— Joseph Timlin (@JoeyTimlin) February 6, 2020

Today I learnt Peter Joseph can’t admit when rich people do good things with their money.

— The Narrator (@notMrDurden) February 6, 2020

How much have you given Peter? Just curious..

— Sdisme (@SCDisme) February 6, 2020

Then he blocks me... 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ lol

— Sdisme (@SCDisme) February 6, 2020

And you did what to help now? Just checking...

— the-revolution-is-at-hand (@poliakoff73) February 6, 2020

The techno-capitalist apologists continue their propaganda.

Go back to sleep. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep... https://t.co/H57EykmrwN

— Peter Joseph (@ZeitgeistFilm) February 16, 2020

Roberto Simonovich resigns from the Venus Project

Letter of Resignation

2016.08.29

My name is Roberto Simonovich. I joined TVPA (The Venus Project Activism) in September 2014. I went through the TVPA Orientation Process and became a POC for Slovenia alongside the already existing POC, Sašo Luznar. As a POC, I organized multiple events to promote TVP locally and in addition, I helped the TVPA admins with their work. Eventually, due to my contributions, I was appointed an admin in October 2015. I also went through the TVPA Study Group (which is now renamed as “Discussion Group”) multiple times and eventually became a host for it. From September 2015 to July 2016 (11 months) I hosted weekly Study Group sessions for POCs and helped prepare the “bullet points” (summaries) of the lectures.

With this letter I am resigning from all my current positions and I am leaving TVPA.

The specific reasons that lead to my resignation would take too much time to write in a document, therefore I will only provide a short list of the most frustrating problems which I encountered when working with the administration of TVPA and wasn’t successful in solving, in spite of my best efforts. The following list contains statements which are purposefully generalized and void of examples for the sake of brevity and simplicity. They apply in different degrees to some of the current admins, but here I want to focus on the problems which need to be solved rather than on the individuals who are the source of them. I will therefore simply refer to the admins (as a group) as “they”.

1. They are unable or unwilling to state clearly what the problems are in TVPA, which makes proposed solutions seem unnecessary or unimportant.
2. Those who see and point out the problems with the organization, in order to be able to search for solutions, are treated as an obstacle to be removed.
3. They confuse symptoms with problems.
4. They are unwilling to resolve conflicts or learn conflict-resolution methods. The best way they know of to resolve conflicts is by removing from the organization those who have a lower rank in TVPA. And they don’t realize they are creating their own enemies in this way.
5. They only see problems with other people and not themselves.
6. They are reluctant to collaborate with candidates or POCs in order to solve problems which they don’t know how to solve.
7. They don't understand the importance of creating and using procedures (procedural systems) in order to streamline their work and provide clarity to everyone in the organization. And when they do create procedures, they don’t always follow them.
8. They prefer keeping their methods of work secret and they discourage enquiring and healthy skepticism. Instead, they reinforce and expect unquestioning obedience.
9. They are more interested in maintaining the status quo and deceiving POCs and Roxanne into believing that everything works fine, rather than admitting that there are problems which need to be solved.
10. They are unable to conduct rational discussions where logic and evidence are used to evaluate situations and help make decisions. Instead they rely on opinions and feelings.
11. They are unable to distinguish their own projections and emotions from observations of behaviors. They don’t understand the following quote from Jacque: "Whatever happens in the world is real, what one thinks should have happened is projection. We suffer more from our fictitious illusion and expectations of reality."
12. They are unfair and use double standards. Depending on how much they like someone, they will treat them differently. They will however deny it vigorously when confronted with evidence.
13. In spite of their endorsement for science and the scientific method, they are not scientifically literate and they don’t consider scientific studies to be useful when making decisions.
14. They are unwilling to learn about general semantics, which is a topic Jacque himself emphasized as having immense importance in understanding the RBE.
15. They deny that they are in a leadership position and they therefore don’t see the importance of learning and improving their own management and leadership skills, which are indispensable to run an organization.
16. They are unwilling to admit that there is a hierarchy in TVPA, where different roles have different amounts of power and authority over their subordinates. The hierarchy looks something like this:

17. They are unclear and confused about the role of Roxanne in TVPA. Different admins on different occasions will give different conflicting answers.
18. They are unable to recognize the real reasons for which so many productive volunteers (some former admins) like Risto Kantonen, Steven Black, Riitta Veijalainen, Lucy Li, Simon Šandor and Arnaut Maat left TVPA.
19. Before Arnaut left TVPA in April 2015, in order to explain to me what was the problem that most frustrated him in TVP/TVPA, he shared with me the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronyism. I found it presents an accurate description of how the admins appoint people to certain roles.
20. Lastly, as corroborated by the documents below, most of the problems listed here have been persisting at least since 2014, which means that very little progress has been made in solving them, despite great efforts made by many volunteers who came with great hope and enthusiasm, and left demoralized and disillusioned.

TVP & TVPA - food for thought for the supporters & volunteers (by Riitta)

Letter of resignation - Steven Black

Letter of resignation - Riitta Veijalainen

What is wrong with the Venus Project (by Lucy Li)

Response to resignations (by Sašo)

Analysis of Restructing Process. POCs & TVP Activism. (criticism by Risto)

In conclusion, all things considered, I have learned a lot and had many positive experiences while in TVPA. The problems mentioned above, however, seem deeply ingrained and resistant to change, which unfortunately leaves me with no other option than leaving. I am sorry for all the new unsuspecting volunteers who will have to watch their own passion slowly turn into disappointment because of them.

I hope to see all my fellow POCs some day in a much more professional and productive environment, which will unequivocally lead the world closer to a RBE :)

Live Long and Prosper

Roberto Simonovich

Skype ID: rob.sim.rs

Peter Joseph blames InterReflections delay on...

Travis Grant experience with the Venus Project

Conflict Resolution

We have not generated this page to create conflict, but to draw attention to the conflict that has been created. As contributors to human fulfillment, ecological sustainability, and integrated city design, we are here to work diligently toward the creation of a unified socio-economic network of integrated city systems that function for our fulfillment and ecological stability (we call this system, Community). We do not particularly like drawing attention to conflict, but it is necessary if we are to learn from conflict, and reduce its occurrence in the future. Hence, it is important to shed light on points of conflict so that we can learn from them and move forward together in some sort of closer and more fulfilling alignment. If we ignore conflict, then the conflict is likely to spread (or even, just continue).

This page exists as both a record of conflict, and platform for learning, so that we may minimize conflict in the future and maintain more open channels of communication. The design specifications published on http://auravana.com/specs shed light on the harm that conflict brings to our fulfillment and the expression of our highest potential selves. They also discuss the topic of "negativity", because it easy to view this webpage (a page on conflict resolution) from the perspective of "negativity", and forget that from a space of dissonance can come resonance and positive change. Please do a search within the specifications for the term "negativity" if you would like a complete definition of the term, and a discussion of why and how the term is used therein.

The idea that any project or organization owns the idea of a network of socio-economically integrated circular city systems structured to facilitate human fulfillment and ecological sustainability (the evolution of the idea of community), or should have complete control over these ideas, is both dangerous and nonsensical.

Conflict initiation (10 August 2016):

On 10 August 2016, The Venus Project Inc. filed a DMCA takedown request with Youtube to have our video entitled "Circular cities in Community" removed from the website (there were 86 views when it was taken down). It was the images in the video that The Venus Project Inc. claimed were in violation of its copyright. This video was entirely our work and it was not the direct work of The Venus Project. The city took us 8 months to create, and it was screenshotted from within a game engine. There were also two non-real-time rendered images in the video. Of note, we had no significant 3d modeling or simulation design experience prior to this project. You can still hear the audio and view the transcript for the video. We feel this content is an evolution of the idea of community, and one of the best direct explanations for why cities are so constructed in community. In fact, if you look at the development of the specifications for community, we started with the Social System, worked our way forward to the Decision System, then the Lifestyle System, and only after we had all this as a foundation did we arrive at the material layout of cities in community (i.e., a network of socio-economically integrated, primarily circular, city systems). And only then, did we post this video describing cities in community at great length. Technically, our work could in fact fall under fair use (fair dealing) because we created it for education, research, and private study.

Of note, we are a project of contributors, so there is always the possibility we may accidentally post something of someone else's. We would not do so intentionally, however. Of course, we would immediately remove any such content if the owner just let us know. A simple email or message linking or explaining the issue would suffice. It is unfortunate that instead of engaging us in constructive communication, they used the State to immediately silence the work we produced.

Conflict Resolved (2016):

The video has been taken down through direct DMCA action. As a sign of good faith we deleted the video from YouTube. Several of the images associated with the work of contributors to the video have also been censored from the Internet. We compromised our values: The Auravana Project deleted many more images from the Internet as a show of good faith to The Venus Project Inc. The Auravana Project will not re-upload the video; instead, at some time in the future we will create a new city and upload that instead.

What have we learned:

< please read through this entire section, as we make clear at the end that we shall continue to support The Venus Project >

We have learned that The Venus Project Corporation’s management will take action to censor work from the internet that it believes violates its enforceable copyrights. The Venus Project’s management, and the volunteers that management has surrounded itself with, are adamantly against open sourcing any of its claimed works. Of note, the direct and indirect work of The Venus Project is all over the internet with all sorts of different copyright associations; and we don’t know whether or not it was our lack of promoting The Venus Project that brought on this issue, or that our objects in the city have some claimed resemblance to objects that their project has produced, or both. The fact is that when we produced this video we were in a catch-22: we considered promoting The Venus Project, but thought that if we did so while also promoting our project that they might dislike that, and seek to take down the video. The Venus Project has told us in the past that our two projects are entirely separate, and they don’t want the public to have any confusion over that. Our website once had a “Collaborative Organizations” webpage, and The Venus Project asked us to either change the name of the webpage, or remove the link on that page to their website. Also, on or around 2014-10-06, Roxanne Meadows as the director of The Venus Project stated the following about our public domain community project: “I stated that if people want to get together and do a project within this system to support themselves, that might be good. It [The Auravana Project] has nothing to do with The Venus Project, that project.” – Roxanne Meadows

Essentially, The Venus Project is a closed source project and promotes the work/vision of one man, Jacque Fresco, as a better way of living for everyone. Of course, many of his claimed ideas and designs do actually represent a better way of living than the way we live now.

"The society I am talking about is global cooperation." -Jacque Fresco

Unfortunately, when the right words and visuals are owned, and you can't use that language, then global cooperation is not possible. Of course, we can only presume that what Fresco is saying in the above quote is that we should all be releasing our work as open source, for open source is unequivocally “global cooperation” (in every sense of the term).

It is not logical to try and create an open source society through a fully closed source effort. The effort of many people working together to develop a better society for everyone does not fit in the category of closed source (the opposite of open source).

Here, it is important to note that Jacque Fresco was born in 1916 and is over 100 years old. He created The Venus Project Inc. (and previously Socio-cyberengineering Inc.) when the idea of open source didn't even exist in the public's mind. It didn't become a "thing", really, in the public's mind until the 2000s. By that time Jacque would likely have been entirely fixed in his ways. If he was young now, and in his prime, we think the organization would be open source. But, as people age, change becomes hard and if they don’t remain substantially open, then they tend to become more and more rigid, which can be damaging to themselves and those around them. Further, it is our opinion that the nasty split The Venus Project initiated against The Zeitgeist Movement did more to harm this direction than anyone else has or could ever do. Further, what is continuing to harm this direction is the dead-zone of innovation being created by organizations that claim to support global cooperation, but are not open sourcing their work, not allowing others to remix and modify, and censoring the work of others.

A contributor to The Auravana Project has posted a video on the topic of open source and the productivity that could be gained by integrating our visions and following our claimed values, Cooperation and sharing among organizations with the appearance of a similar aim (youtube).

It is, one must admit, strange to be busy all one’s life working on solutions to human problems, and then, restrict the sharing of those solutions. As contributors to this direction ourselves, we know that when our egos become too involved in our work, which can easily happen when working on a project for a long-duration of time, then it becomes hard for us to hear feedback and modify existing methods. Our ego can get its feelings hurt and feel scorn or scolded, and could start to reject other people and/or useful ideas/data. The involvement of our ego represents the blurring of boundaries between individual personalities and useful contribution [toward a system that is designed to facilitate the fulfillment of all]. The involvement of our ego could easily sabotage our work and relationships.

As contributors to The Auravana Project and other similarly open source and free shared projects, we cannot go another 10 or 20 years not knowing where we are going. We can't live as followers and disciples. We can’t wait forevermore to be told where we are going. We are creative and constructive human beings, and we want to participate in the evolution and development of a new way of living.  We have to know, and understand why, this socio-economic structure is so constructed, and how a better life for all could be constructed. Those who live as followers have ideas about the world that those who think for themselves know to not necessarily be true. The question is, “Do you want to experience and construct community (i.e., are you really interested in community)? Or, do you just like listening to others talk about community, like watching videos about community, and like having city configurations of community as your desktop wallpaper and screensaver?” We should be questioning the powers that be that restrict sharing among humanity. Just capturing the eyes of followers to feed a following is a disastrous situation. It is terribly dangerous because it encourages groupthink. And, groupthink leads to hurtful decisions because the group tends to ignore possible problems with the group's decisions, while discounting logic and facts.

Fundamentally, those who say, "Get in line with the leaders who are directing the message or be quiet", are doing a disservice to humanity. Those who claim that we (as contributors to the evolution of community) are diluting a message or doctrine by seeking to evolve the idea of community are simply wrong. We can come to know someone and their values by examining their behavior. What type of values does an organization hold when it has no open standards and uses silencing tactics against those who are attempting to contribute to and evolve the idea of community?

When people suppress or oppress or repress those forces of creative design and evolution (in themselves or their organization), then they are just going to bubble up in other places. They are going to bubble up with other organizations, and they are going to bubble up for yourself in how you feel about, and behave in, the world. Thereafter, when you see another organization expressing a proposal for community, you see it as perverse, something negative, something to be taken down and hidden, something dark, shady or shadowy.  In actual fact, it is something being made conscious. And between two or more conscientious characters who have a love for the Earth and understand the potential of humankind, who trust one another, this can be very constructively played out and a lot of beneficial content can be derived for all from the relationship. What sort of dynamic do you want to play out here [on earth at the present], one of aggression and destruction, or one of constructive fulfillment, which by its very nature necessitates that we share and work together (i.e., collaborate)?

The problem, of course, with many market-based organizations is that people with a particular value-standard (for instance, those who value open source) get marginalized and then eventually leave the organization, so you get an accumulation of people with non-constructive value orientations at the top of the organization, which turns into something of a self-congratulatory echo chamber.

We have also learned something about copyright.

Did you know that prior to 1990 (globally, in general) “architectural works” were not copyrightable? In the UK, architectural schematics, only, were previously copyrightable. In 1990, the United States Government made every expression of an “architectural work” copyrightable, and then developed international accords and laws to ensure that they became copyrightable globally. Note that the population of the planet is over 7 billion, and all 7 billion people are, now, supposed to fall in line with this coercive order. In other words, architectural works, such as buildings and structures, were not protected under U.S. copyright law until 1990, when Congress passed the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act (AWCPA). Ironically, as humankinds’ technological ability to share became greater, the market forces against sharing decided to lobby the State to further restrict the public’s ability to share. Here, it is important to remember that copyright laws are mostly about money, and ensuring continued financial gain. Copyright monopoly was, and always will be, intended to prevent freedom of expression, and is an interference with fundamental human rights.

Hence, the copyright of all forms of architectural expression did not become a tool for silencing the 7 other billion humans on the planet until 1990.

From 1 December 1990 onward the following buildings can be considered eligible for copyright (United States Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act):

• •Designs created on or after December 1, 1990.
• •Designs that were created in unpublished plans or drawings but not constructed as of December 1, 1990, but were constructed before January 1, 2003

The following building designs cannot be registered:

• •Designs that were constructed, or whose plans or drawings were published, before December 1, 1990.
• •Designs that were unconstructed and created in unpublished plans or drawings on December 1, 1990, and were not constructed on or before December 31, 2002.
• •Structures other than buildings, such as bridges, cloverleafs, dams, walkways, tents, recreational vehicles, mobile homes, and boats.

• •Standard configurations of spaces and individual standard features, such as windows, doors, and other staple building components, as well as functional elements whose design or placement is dictated by utilitarian concerns. [Our comment: it could be said that most architecture within an optimized economic network of functionally integrated cities is dictated by utilitarian concerns]

Additionally, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which The Venus Project Inc. used to take down our video is a vast, complex, and interpretable 1998 copyright law that expands the reach of government and corporations to further restrict sharing and freedom beyond the 1990 AWCPA.

Copyright law has been expanding over the centuries. A very condensed version of copyright history could look like this: texts (1800), works (1900), tools (2000). This is an encroachment of capitalism on the free expression of humankind, equivalent to the encroachment of capitalism on the land rights of peasants in the 16th (and other) centuries. Fundamentally, we don’t think it is possible to build “global cooperation” based on these rules. These rules are a true nightmare for those of us working on the direction of human fulfillment, ecological sustainability, and integrated city design.

Of note, we discuss the topic of copyright, and intellectual property in general, in the Decision System specification. In the table of contents, you will find a section on copyright (or do a keyword search for the word).

How exactly do we label the very qualities of life that copyright restricts according to our shared experience? Things are like other things, which are themselves like other things, unless they are more like those other things, which are themselves like other things. Where is the line between inspiration and copying? And, should we use force and coercion to determine that line? The boundaries which divide two or more persons' effort to reflect natural aesthetic symmetry and function are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the effort of one ends and where another begins? When structure is reflective of nature, is it moral to restrict the sharing of that structure? Is it ethical to copyright a structure (that in the world of today so saturated with form) has so many similes, and has been thought up, or could have been thought up, by so many others? If you wanted to create a system to make people poor [in fulfillment], and keep then poor, this the system you would create.

This is the kind of unconditional fear that you live in while working on this direction. Today, the world is saturated with architectural designs. And, the copyright of architecture is one of the reasons there is very little architectural aesthetic cohesion to cities today (and starchitects, of course).

There is a pejorative expression in the English language that says, “You are living in the past”. However, one can’t even say that those who release architectural works under restrictive copyrights are living in the past, because in the past architectural works and tools couldn’t be copyrighted.

The encroachment of copyright carries with it the idea that humanity should be in debt to someone who worked on an idea or design. Yet, as contributors to this direction, we thought we were trying to overcome, both physically and cognitively, the idea of debt.

The odd irony of this precise situation is that we are more in line with free market capitalists, than we are with The Venus Project, because free market capitalists don't agree with or believe in copyright and intellectual property.

Fundamentally, our inspiration and creative ability is limited by the context and physical world we find ourselves in. It is hard to create things when the world is already so full of stuff, and that which is created, is so similar to so many other things out there. And, it is so sad that those who once inspired you turn on you aggressively when you express yourself creatively. Often, they think they are protecting something, yet in truth they don’t realize the harm they bring to themselves and others by their destructive (literally) acts.

All of us today, in some respect, are a victim of trauma. And you wouldn’t say to someone who is a victim of trauma, I don’t want to hear or see you, I don’t want you to share, just go off and heal yourself in silence. And yet, those who are inspired in their healing by images and concepts that uplift, when they use such inspiration to create something which may be similar to that which was inspiring, then protectionist organizations shut them down and interrupt the healing (not only for themselves, but for all of humanity). Sometimes protectionist organizations even go so far as to say, “You should not be sharing in that way. We are here to create the better world for you.”

We could compare the copyrighting of words, works, and tools with the “drug war”. For instance, if you share consciousness altering substances that you have cultivated on your own, for the good of humanity, then force will be applied to stop you (in most jurisdictions throughout the world). If you share architectural works (drawn arbitrarily after 1990) that you have created on your own for the good of humanity, then force will be applied to stop you (in most jurisdictions throughout the world). The war on drugs is a war on humanity, just as the war on self-expression is a war on humanity, and neither have led to positive resolutions, only more profit, suffering and harm. The fact is that the methods involved in protectionism preclude any other method, and are thus, a fundamental restriction on the freedom of human expression.

The Venus Project was started in the 1970s, but the idea of an integrated and automated circular city has been around for much longer than that, and is now widely spoken about by many organizations. Here, we would very much like to know which of the works of The Venus Project are older than 1990, so that we can use those? This would be a responsible thing to share with humanity. Which of Jacque Fresco’s works were done prior to 1990? We have heard (through a variety of sources) that although Jacque is still drawing, many of his designs and city configurations are ~30-50 years old (we do not know whether this is true, and The Venus Project has volunteers sign non-disclosure agreements in order to volunteer with them). Unfortunately, it seems that for one reason or another Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows burned some of their architectural works on or around 2009.

“We burned a lot of blueprints about a year ago, because we were going to move to another country. I had blueprints on skyscrapers, machines to do the work of people, many blueprints, but we, I can do them over again.”

(Source: https://archive.org/details/JacqueFrescoBurnedHisBlueprints | 2010 | Note: This video is no longer available from its original source; it has been taken down by The Venus Project Corporation and replaced with another video. We were concerned that it might be taken down, and so we saved this public domain video in our archive. Please contact us if you would like a copy of the video.)

We look forward to a better time, when we are all sharing in our fulfillment, and working together on a better way of living for all.

In summation, although we have fundamental disagreements in approach (open source vs. closed source) we think you should continue to support The Venus Project financially, as we have done in the past and will continue to do so well into the future. The irony, however, is that we would give The Venus Project even more money, and we think that The Venus Project would become even more popular, if it were open source and the project wasn't restricted to just the vision of one man.

Below are several letters of resignation form former Venus Project "points of contact" who felt their energies were best spent elsewhere:

• •2014 November - TVPA POC resignation letters and TVP Response
  • ○Steven Black letter of resignation (google docs)

• • ○Ritta Veijalainen letter of resignation (google docs)

• • ○Lucy Li letter of resignation (google docs)
  • ○The Venus Project's response by Saso Luznar (google docs)
• •2016 August - TVPA POC  resignation letter
  • ○Roberto Simonovich (google docs)

Thank you to all who participated in this conflict, and may we all move forward with more compassion and understanding.