Sasha reflects on the Venus Project

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Sasha resigns from the Venus Project

Why I Left The Venus Project

Personal Story

When I was a kid, my father took my brother and me to places like Tunisia, Morocco and Mexico, where we saw other kids living on the streets and begging for money, or begging us tourists to buy bananas or souvenirs. I noticed homeless people everywhere, from Moscow to New York, to almost any place we visited and I couldn’t help but wonder, how can people just be ok with other people living on the streets like this? How can our society be so careless? Does it really have to be like this?

As I got older and traveled more, I saw more waste, more destruction, more people living in worse conditions, and I never wanted to just accept or ignore this, but I had no idea what I could do about it.
In 2010, I (accidentally) got into a course called “International and Global Studies” at the University of Sydney in Australia. This degree spanned across many different faculties in order to give us an understanding of the global and international world that we live in. I studied everything from the global economy, to global environmental issues, global politics, international conflicts, international business, laws and agreements, international cultural dilemmas, indigenous land rights, environmental disasters, deforestation, climate change, sustainability, sustainable development and more.

Basically, I learned more about how fucked up the world was, but this time from an institutional point of view. I learned a lot about how different people and organizations were trying to solve big global problems today, and how none of it was working.

I learned that more than half of the population is being exploited; enslaved, basically, to work in horrible conditions in clothing factories, mines and wherever else. I learned that our planet is being exploited. I learned that we have no global control over anything, no global limits to deforestation, no global limits to fishing the oceans, we have all the technology we need to solve climate change, but not the international or global cooperation that’s needed to put this technology in place. The best we have today are some international agreements, which are almost completely useless.

Some of my courses promoted the need to develop third world countries. I never quite understood this. I mean, I don’t want people to suffer, I don’t want human beings or anything on our planet to be exploited. But how is developing these areas through capitalism going to help? Ok you give these people some business opportunities and perhaps their business will thrive and they will do better, but businesses require resources, so the more successful businesses there are, the more resources we will need. There’s no global control over the resources we use, so this will inevitably lead to more and more exploitation of the land and therefore, more problems. That means no sustainability. Real sustainability has to be global.

I quit university several times to travel around the world and try to make sense of what I had learned. One day, I flew to Morocco and reconnected with an old friend who introduced me to the Venus Project (TVP). He showed me the documentary, “Paradise or Oblivion.”

The first part of the documentary was like a trailer to what I learned in the degree I was studying- it outlined some of today’s global problems and showed that our current methods of solving these problems weren’t working. It also made it clear that the entire structure of our global society was not sustainable and it needed to change, which I completely agreed with. The second part of the documentary showcased an alternative holistic solution for these problems: a global resource-based economy (RBE). That is an economy that’s not based on money or trade, but on the carrying capacity of the Earth’s resources.

After we finished watching the documentary, I turned to my friend and said, “that is really nice :), but you know this will never happen.”

He replied with something like, “but Sasha, if someone like you says that it will never happen, then it definitely won’t.”

I grinned. I continued to be skeptical but decided to keep an open mind and look further into Jacque Fresco’s work and ideas. I spent the next few months watching every Fresco lecture I could find. I was intrigued by this little old man, he was so funny and charismatic, I loved his criticism of our culture and society, I loved his ideas and I agreed with almost everything he said.

I still didn’t necessarily believe that a resource-based economy was achievable, but after I read Fresco’s book, “The Best that Money Can’t Buy,” I decided that it was necessary.

So basically, it went something like this (except in a longer time frame :)):

I decided that whether an RBE is achievable or not, we need to do something -anything- to at least try to make it happen. If we don’t, we’ll very likely bring ourselves and most other living creatures to extinction in the not-so-far-away future.

I decided to go back to Sydney University and finish that damn International and Global Studies degree. I graduated in 2014 with even more confidence that we really do need a global resource-based economy. I also had more confidence that there was absolutely no point of “joining the system” and wasting my precious time on Earth trying to create some kind of career for money, or trying to fix these big problems from within the system (like through business or politics).

I was exhausted from this degree and I didn’t really know what to do or where to go so I ended up traveling for the next couple of years and just having fun. I spent time in Indonesia, Australia, Sri Lanka, Hawaii, California, the Caribbean, Russia and Europe (mostly just being a dirtbag, living on $10-15/day and doing extreme sports). After those two years of just having fun, I started to feel a little guilty :). I couldn’t forget about those kids begging on the streets, the entire disaster I learned about in university and all the problems that I saw around the world. I also couldn’t forget about Jacque and his ideas.

He put so much effort into designing a better future for us, and here I was, doing absolutely nothing useful…

I felt like I needed to make a change in my life and do something more important than just traveling around the world for fun. I couldn’t think of anything more important than the Venus Project, so I bought a flight to Florida to visit the TVP research center and meet Jacque Fresco in person.

Meeting Fresco

It was 2016 when I met Jacque, so he was already 100-years-old. He was frail, skinny, and even smaller than me. He couldn’t walk on his own, his hearing and vision were very poor, and he could barely hold a stable conversation, yet he was still participating in these weekly seminars and still talking shit about humanity :).

It was sad to see him in this condition. It was also sad to see that only two other people came to this tour. Jacque had such great, big ideas… but nobody seems to care, I guess.

The research center seemed kind of old. The building designs were dome-shaped and looked interesting, but nothing else about the place seemed unique or modern. The buildings were cooled by these big old loud window air conditioners, it didn’t look like anything was automated and it just didn’t feel like all that much was going on there.

That made me a little sad, but not hopeless- that just means that we have A LOT of work to do! I’m ready! :D

I figured it was hard for Roxanne and everybody else to take care of Jacque at that age, and that was their priority, which makes sense.

I couldn’t have much of a conversation with Jacque, but I did get to speak to Roxanne and a guy named Saso about volunteering. I told them a little bit about my background and they said that they were actually looking for a bilingual Russian-English volunteer. They told me that the Russian-speaking team was the biggest TVP team in the world (20-30 active volunteers and over 200,000 supporters), but they had some communication issues with the rest of the teams and needed a good “link.”

That got me excited! I could be the missing link! :D I immediately volunteered to help and gave them my contact information. Saso said that they would get me into the next “orientation process” (OP) to become a Point of Contact (PoC) for TVP, but that this would take a few months.

Volunteering for TVP

Nine months later I got an email from Saso, saying that they were ready to start the next OP and that if I wanted to be a volunteer Point of Contact, I had to take this quiz, have an interview (or “video chat”) with a ‘TVP Support’ admin and then I’d be able to start this 5-month long “OP,” which meant watching some TVP material, taking notes and then discussing this once a week with an admin and other potential volunteers. After I finished all of that (and signed a document with a bunch of rules), I would be an official “PoC” for the Venus Project.

I was a bit surprised to find out that there was such a long process just to volunteer, but I was very excited to get involved so it didn’t bother me.

The quiz was extremely easy, sometimes in a comical way, and the video chat went well. Then as soon as I started this “OP,” I was also added to the main admin chat of the Russian-speaking team. And what happened next, I did not expect at all.

It turned out that there were big BIG problems (not just communication problems) between the teams, and I was thrown right into the middle of a huge mess. I was introduced to problems upon problems upon problems. All internal issues, having to do with bureaucracy, laws, rules, trust and so on. The issues were so problematic that I actually flew to Florida a second time to meet Roxanne and talk about these problems with her in person. That didn’t end up solving anything, so then I wrote and translated a 22-page document to better explain what the Russian-speaking team wanted to communicate. But that still didn’t do much. Then I got into a series of long conversations with Roxanne and other TVP admins about all kinds of problems.

This is one example of one of the problems I tried to deal with:

As a result of a legal issue, Roxanne asked for all of the teams to change the name of their social media pages from “The Venus Project” to “TVP Support.” This might not seem like a big deal to an English speaker who knows that “TVP” stands for “The Venus Project,” but this is extremely confusing to a non-English speaker or anyone that has no idea what “TVP Support” means.

Just imagine this: a Russian speaker hears her friend talk about the Venus Project and wants to learn more about it, so she searches for “The Venus Project” in social media. If our team is not called “The Venus Project,” she will not be able to find the team’s social media page. If she sees a page called “TVP Support” she will probably ignore it because those letters mean nothing to her.

Just imagine if the English-speaking Venus Project page was called “Поддержка ПВ” -would you click on it if you were looking for information about the Venus Project? ..Probably not.

Even worse, there are “fake” groups in Russia who are working under the Venus Project’s name to make money or get attention. They say that they are the Venus Project (but don’t know anything about Jacque Fresco or TVP), they collect donations from people, and are even building “eco-villages” on the outskirts of Moscow, getting people to work for them for free- claiming that they are the Venus Project, and confusing the general public. The Russian-speaking team used to be able to block these scammers, and blocked 357 scammer groups back when they had “official status” but, about 3 years ago, one of Roxanne’s “close people” took away the team’s “officiality.” This apparently happened because of some rule violation, but as far as I could tell, it was because of a personal conflict, and as a result, the team is unable to block scammers. So now these scammer groups are on the rise, getting bigger and stronger. This is one of them, for example -this video has over 50,000 views. So, if the group changed their name from “The Venus Project” to “TVP-Support,” people would search for “The Venus Project” and instead of finding our “official” team, they would only find these scammer groups. Imagine how that would ruin the reputation of TVP.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, if you’re really interested in reading about these problems, you can read more here.

At the time that I was involved in this mess, I thought that solving these problems was the most important thing in the world, but in hindsight, I can see that it was really just a huge waste of time. I basically spent almost every minute of every day writing and translating messages, contacting different people from TVP and digging into as much information about the organization as possible (*note- I was not focusing on learning about or promoting Jacque Fresco’s work or ideas). I wrote and translated over 100 pages of texts and documents to try to fix these internal issues. I tried so hard to be this “missing link” but nothing worked and nothing changed, and eventually I realized that it wasn’t actually a link that they were missing.

I realized that the people running the main (English speaking) organization of TVP were very incompetent and were contradicting what Jacque used to talk about. They were just “normal” people with “normal” lives and “normal” values, emotions and ways of communicating. I realized that the whole organization was a strict hierarchy, with Roxanne at the top, and barely anything could be done without her permission. I realized that TVP was stagnating because of all of this. Jacque used to tell people to always question everything and everyone, to take in new information and keep yourself updated, to let experts in their field make decisions, to arrive at decisions through research, and so on, but it seemed to me that no one dared to question Roxanne or any idea behind TVP, and that Roxanne’s word was the final word, whether she was an expert on the subject or not, and other people’s advice and opinions weren’t really considered.

Then I found stories and resignation letters from other ex-TVP volunteers, which were all similar to my experience:

Lucy

Tio

Steven

Aurovana

Ritta

Roberto

Response

So eventually I just stopped trying.

I finished the OP and became an “official” “Point of Contact” at the end of 2017. I stayed in the PoC chat because I still valued Fresco’s work, but I gave up on trying to fix these ongoing problems between TVP and the Russian-speaking team. The Russian-speaking team made some changes that Roxanne asked for but they were also fed up with TVP’s inability to communicate and collaborate with them, so they also took a step back from these endless discussions. I felt like the Russian-speaking team was much better at communicating and collaborating among themselves and with others, they functioned more how I would have expected the main TVP organization to function, except that they were restricted by the dozens of rules that TVP imposed on them. I stayed in their chat as well but didn’t participate much.

At the end of 2017, I decided to start my own blog and I also found out about the TROM project, which I was extremely impressed by. It was similar to TVP but much more detailed, with a 13-hour long documentary, dozens of free e-books and a bunch of other great tools. Then I realized that the person who made TROM had also worked with TVP and went through a similar experience to mine, but even more intense. I contacted this guy, showed him my new blog, and offered to help with TROM.

I spent the next year and a half learning more and more about TVP and TROM, writing blogs and hosting meet-ups on the TROM documentary and some Fresco lectures, both online and offline in Siberia. I called my TROM and TVP- based English Club “Better than your Average Conversation in Irkutsk” :D because it was :).

The Plan

I didn’t give up on the idea of an RBE after learning about how TVP was run, but I did understand that it was extremely unlikely that this organization would be able to do anything to substantially impact society. Aside from having a rigid hierarchical structure centered on Roxanne (who I do not see as a competent leader) and being unable to communicate and collaborate, they also have a poorly detailed and, in my opinion, unrealistic plan for working towards a resource-based economy.

This is the plan: https://www.thevenusproject.com/faq/what-is-the-plan/

Here it is summarized by me (Sept, 2019):

Phase 1: raise awareness through things like books, documentaries, videos and the TVP research center in Florida.

Phase 2: raise more awareness through a major motion picture.

Phase 3: build an experimental research city.

Phase 4: build a theme park to raise more awareness.

*As far as I understand, another big part of TVP’s plan is to build a new “Center for Resource Management” and eventually build more and more technologically advanced and mostly self-sustainable experimental cities. You can find more information about that here.

So most of the plan has to do with raising awareness and educating people about Fresco’s work and the idea of an RBE. I agree that this is important and that’s probably the reason that I didn’t officially leave TVP until just last month.

The other part of the plan is a bit more complicated.

-Let’s say that we raised enough awareness for most people to understand the need for an RBE- now what? How do we make it happen? Tell me more about the plan!!

I assume that TVP battled with this question a lot and this is what they came up with (again, this is still just my summary, if you’re curious about this, look it up for yourself):

• Build efficient, automatic, self-sustainable cities where people are well educated about their environment and Fresco’s work, and they do not have to work meaningless jobs (because most of those jobs will be automated).
•  If this city is successful, another one can be built. Then another, then another, then another and so on. If the environment is what influences values and behavior, then such an environment (these cities) should “breed” saner people. If there are enough of these cities and enough well-behaved people that come from this environment, then perhaps the world can eventually become a saner place, and perhaps eventually the cities can connect to form a global resource-based economy. As far as technology and physical resources are concerned, we do have what it takes to rebuild the surface of the Earth with efficient and sustainable cities.

This all sounds very nice and the more you listen to Fresco, the more you may be convinced that (maybe) this really can work.

But let’s not forget to ask questions!!!

Here are some important questions that come to my mind:

*The answers are the conclusions that I personally arrived at after having studied TVP, after being involved with them, and talking to PoCs and other volunteers. Again, if you’re really interested in this, go find out for yourself 😉

1. How will TVP build such technologically advanced cities? Where will they get the funds or resources?

-Right now, the plan is to start small and not to build an entire city, but a ‘Center for Resource Management’ the size of a university campus. TVP estimates that they will need 18 million USD for this project and the plan is to raise 3 million USD in donations by the second half of 2019 and another 15 million by 2022 (resourcebasedeconomy.org)

-8 years ago, 200,000 USD was raised to write a movie script (thevenusproject.com), but this movie still has not been made (I think even the script still hasn’t been completed). I understand that there were difficulties with this movie script, but there will certainly be more difficulties with a ‘Center for Resource Management,’ and of course with an entire city and future network of cities. If TVP hasn’t been able to produce a movie script in so many years with $200,000 of donations, then I just cannot be confident that TVP will be able to build such an expensive ‘Center for Resource Management,’ let alone an entire city and a network of cities that are supposed to change the entire world.

I’m not saying that this is 100% impossible, but in order for people to take this project seriously, TVP needs much much more detailed information available to the public about the entire project. I don’t see any transparency on the website- how much money has been raised so far, what, exactly, has been done with this money, etc., the best I can see are some very vague graphs (source).

I learned a lot about TVP’s incompetence when I tried to communicate, collaborate and fix problems between the Russian-speaking team and the main organization. Sure, we were dealing with some complicated issues, however, building an $18 million center (and an entire city!) will inevitably be more complicated than running some social media pages, so there will certainly be more (bigger) problems ahead. If TVP already can’t handle problems, I can foresee this entire ‘building something’ as a disaster and a huge waste of time and resources. Again, if TVP had detailed transparent information about this project, then maybe I could change my mind (maybe).

2. Let’s forget about TVP’s incompetence for a moment and pretend like they really are capable of raising millions of dollars and building something. The next question that comes to my mind is:

Is it really worth it? In other words, is this plan likely to actually bring about the change we want to see in this world? More specifically, how will you ensure that the people living in these “experimental cities” are any different from “normal people” with “normal values” and shitty behavior?

– My main concern here is the influence of our global culture and society on the people living in TVP’s cities. Human behavior is extremely complex, and almost anything can influence the way you think and behave. If the people living in these experimental cities are not completely cut off from the outside world, they will inevitably be influenced by it. Even if the entire city was automated and self-sustainable, the internet will still surely continue to influence the people living in these cities.

– When I raised this question in the PoC chat, the replies I got were very vague. This is one example (you can read the whole discussion here if you’re interested):

“If my basic needs were met, meaning that if I had a home, food, water, and utilities at the ready for me; then you can absolutely say that my priorities would change. The whole reason for us working everyday is to be able to obtain and maintain the fulfillment of our basic needs. The shift in the paradigm of day to day living would change, people would start to focus more on their goals, hobbies, enjoyments, etc. Social media would most likely discontinue at some point, but you’re referring to a post-transition mentality.”

– In my opinion, maybe this could work in a small community living in such a great environment, however, I’m afraid that the more you scale it up, the more influence you will get from the outside, the harder it will be to control people, their influences, values and behavior. I’m afraid that having your needs met may not be enough to change most people’s values if they are still influenced by Facebook, Instagram, dumb YouTube videos and smart advertisements.

Other people brought up the Sociocyberneering Education Project (SEP)– TVP’s only educational course, saying that this course will be one of the important factors that influence the values and behavior of the people in TVP’s cities (or “Center for Resource Management”).

– If you happen to have read through the dozens of pages of discussions I had with Sue and Saso, you may have noticed this course come up as a topic of conversation. I also had discussions about the SEP with Roxanne and Theofilos, the guy that’s teaching the course.

I started talking to them about the SEP because Roxanne told the Russian-speaking team that they couldn’t post anything except direct translations of what was on the main TVP Facebook page or website onto their own social media pages, unless somebody in the Russian-speaking team had taken the SEP. I told Roxanne that I could take the SEP and share it with the team so they could translate and automate it. She didn’t seem so thrilled about that idea and she also said that the SEP was not available. – There is only one teacher of the SEP (Theofilos, a pilot from Greece) and back then (2017) there were only two people taking the SEP- Sue and Saso, and Theofilos did not have enough time to teach it to anybody else (plus there was a huge waiting list anyway). As far as I’m aware, no one has ever completed the SEP, even today.

– So again, I have very little confidence in this SEP since I’ve never heard of anyone completing it, the PoCs don’t seem to know much about it and there is very little information about it on the TVP website. If it’s so important then there should be plenty of information about the details and progress of this course available online.

But what concerns me the most about the SEP is not the lack of detailed information about it, but the aim of this course. The aim is not really to educate the general public, it is to create “mentors” who can accurately represent TVP.

This is a document I received from Theofilos when I proposed to automate the SEP. It says:

“The Sociocyberneering Education Project, is a carefully planned educational course attempting to achieve a particular aim. This aim is in summary: To have people who must be able to discuss and teach The Venus Project material comfortably and with no requirement of any guidance from a mentor or founder. The student must be completely autonomous with producing new material, arranging events, representing The Venus Project in interviews, debates, discussions and events.”

The fact that the aim of the SEP is to create “mentors” is scary in many ways. If you’re interested in reading more about this, see page 18 of this document.

Since the SEP is taught from person to person and seems quite inefficient (and there is very little information about it), I have very little confidence that it will have much impact on the people living in TVP’s center for resource management or experimental city.

But let’s pretend like TVP actually did create a fantastic course and most of the people living in this automated experimental city got to take it. You must realize that that’s still not enough!

Since humans are influenced by everything in their environment, it should be obvious that one course will not be significant enough to bring about a big change in the general population of an entire city. Yes, the people taking this course will be influenced by it, but 1- how can you ensure that everybody (or even most people) in this city takes this course? And 2- these people will not only be influenced by the course, they will also be influenced by their peers, their family, the social media they use, videos they watch, and surely by the internet and the outside world (unless you totally cut them off like North Korea :P ). Education and employment is by far not the only thing that influences your values and behavior.

More Problems

Now let’s go a little further- let’s pretend like TVP is able to build a super technological, automated and self-sustainable city with a great educational course for all its people. Most jobs are automated, the people are well educated and have the time and opportunity to focus on challenges, goals, projects, problem solving and hobbies.

I still see big problems:

Mainly- Resources

Even if this city is super efficient and self-sustainable, it will still require some resources from the outside world, therefore, it will still have to use money and trade with the outside world.

– People may need certain building material, software, new gadgets, healthcare specialists for rare diseases and many other things.

– This means that people will still need to use money, regardless of whether they’ve made money obsolete within the city. And that poses a dilemma: now the citizens of this city have to figure out a way to make some money, whether as a group or through individual jobs.

If these people are still concerned about how to earn money so they can get some stuff from the outside world, then I really don’t see how building an “experimental city” would change anything.

We can already see many examples of self-sustainable communities in our world- Kibbutz in Israel is one example that started off as self-sustainable communities that provided for most of the needs of its members, but because these communities were still influenced by the larger society and still dependent on the outside world for some resources, eventually, many Kibbutz members had to get jobs and basically just become “normal people” again. They wanted to change the world by example, but after a few decades, the world changed them instead.

TVP would be naïve to believe that they are exempt from the influences of the outside world, especially if they depend on it for some resources.

It’s important to understand that an RBE is nothing more than an idea.

Sure it’s a great idea, but unfortunately, that’s all that it is.

There have been many great ideas about how to better organize our society- technocracy, socialism and communism- were all nice ideas! But the implementation of all of these ideas was a whole other ballgame and, in every case, it was a great big failure.

See this documentary about the rise and fall of socialism and notice how the idea of socialism was never actually implemented:

The idea of a resource-based economy could never be “implemented” or demoed through experimental cities; and the structure of our global society has never changed through demoing a better way to organize itself. Instead, society changes through problem solving.

Take a look at any problem- transportation: how do we get from point A to point B quickly and efficiently? – This was a problem and people dealt with this problem by coming up with different solutions. People didn’t envision an entire world of airplanes, trains and self-driving cars, they took the problem and created solutions- horses, bikes, cars, etc., eventually these solutions evolved. Today there is by no means a great transportation system, but it surely is much quicker and more efficient than walking.

Another problem: how to connect people over long distances? Radio waves, then fiber cables and the internet, today we have satellites and other means. How to fix infectious diseases? Again, tons of solutions. Problems change our society.

And the change comes gradually almost all the time- through education + infrastructure. Ford didn’t demo how a society based on cars is better than one based on horses. Stallman didn’t showcase how a free and open-source software society could work, he started to create free and open source software and educate people about it.

So that’s the next challenge: Identifying the Problem

When I brought this up in the PoC chat, I realized that the PoCs didn’t have a unified agreement about the problem they were trying to tackle. I think that they generally agree that “the entire system” is the problem, but what does that really mean? What about the system is so problematic? Some said it was money, some named scarcity.

So let’s analyze these problems:

Money.

– Money is a medium that people use to store value and to trade goods and services. We can try to focus on getting rid of money, but since money is just a medium, other mediums can take its place without actually changing what it was used for. If you buy products with cryptocurrencies as opposed to traditional money, not much will change; if you trade your data instead of your money to use certain websites, there will still be problems; if money is replaced with social credits, this will solve nothing. By focusing on money, you ignore other mediums (trades) that could be used to replace money, but will not solve the actual problem.

But even if you forget about the previous paragraph and say that TVP wants to tackle the ‘core problem of money,’ how will this be achieved through TVP’s current plan? If there is still a need for the people in TVP’s “experimental cities” to buy some resources from the outside world, then you’ll still need to use money in the first city, and the second, third, hundredth, thousandth… and surely people will get corrupted by their need to use money. Society is extremely complex and TVP should not brush that aside too quickly.

Scarcity.

Jacque talked a lot about scarcity and some of the PoCs named it as the ‘core problem,’ saying things like:

“Trade and/or the use of money comes from scarcity, and scarcity can be real, created or perceived.”

I agree that scarcity is a problem; scarcity usually leads to shitty behavior (fighting/domination/etc.) or to the need to trade (which leads to an imbalance of power). However, I don’t think that trade and/or the use of money comes only from scarcity, since in today’s world, we do trade things that are not scarce at all.

Think about what’s actually scarce in our world- not much. Take any example- H&M – it makes an abundance of clothes! There is no real, created or perceived scarcity of clothes in our world, yet H&M convinces millions of people to buy more and more clothes because its main incentive is to trade (to make a profit). You can sell bottled water even in countries that have perfectly clean and abundant drinkable tap water.

We already produce an abundance of food- we throw away something like 40% of it, yet people are still starving to death. If you go to any supermarket you will notice that food is not scarce, it’s just that some people don’t have access to the food because in order to get access to food or almost anything else, you need to trade. You can trade money to get that food, you can maybe trade bitcoin, labor, sex, other products or anything else, but if you don’t have something to trade in return for the food that you require, then you might starve to death.

How about the internet? YouTube- it’s abundant! There are hundreds of hours of YouTube videos uploaded every minute. But YouTube collects data from you- that’s a trade and this causes problems. Same with Facebook- it’s abundant (and ‘money-free’) but is based on data trading.

There are more empty homes than homeless people, so that means we already have an abundance of homes, but people don’t have access to these homes because of the need to trade (not because there is scarcity). Same goes for electronics, transportation and almost everything.

Some people pointed out that it doesn’t matter if there’s an abundance of YouTube videos, apartments, clothes or any particular item because the reason that trade happens is because something else is scarce, and in this case, that something is money.

I can’t really disagree with that, so I would say that scarcity -in this sense- can be seen as the root cause of most of today’s problems. However, the issue with this scenario is that focusing on scarcity like this gives you a completely unrealistic problem to work with. If the abundance of any particular item/service is not enough to solve the problem of scarcity in this world, and you need an abundance of absolutely everything, including money and anything people might be persuaded to want, then what can you possibly do about this problem? Even the richest person in the world wouldn’t be able to solve such a problem today.

*Notice that I’m not talking about abundance in an RBE, but in today’s world.

And, again, how is TVP’s plan working towards solving this problem of scarcity? If there is still a need for the people in TVP’s “experimental cities” to buy some resources from the outside world, that means that scarcity still exists and human values and behavior will still be influenced by it.

In general, I think it’s a big red flag that TVP doesn’t have an aligned and detailed idea of the core problem their organization is trying to tackle. If you “have the solution” but you don’t know much about the problem, then your solution is nothing but a nice idea or fantasy. Compare this to the medical field- people with “solutions” but little knowledge of the problem are your shamans, chiropractors and spiritual healers. On the other hand, doctors who perform surgery or develop medicine for any specific disease have studied the disease in great depth- and that was how they arrived at a solution.

So what’s the problem then?

Well, we analyzed money, which is one medium of trade, and we analyzed scarcity, which usually leads to trade. Some people say that “ownership” is the problem, and although that could theoretically be true, again, there’s just not all that much you can do about this problem; that’s similar to saying that “imagination” is the problem, since we wouldn’t be able to use money or hoard much wealth without our imaginations :).

So let’s just choose one core problem that we can actually work with. How about trade itself. The entire structure of our global society is based on trades. You go to work to trade your time and skills for money, you trade that money for food, shelter and other things. You trade your attention and data to use platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, so they can trade this data for money; you may trade cryptocurrencies for goods or services; you may trade your freedom for a good social credit score or a passport. There are tons of other trades, and if you pay attention to this, you will notice that the more that something (or someone) is influenced by this “force of trade,” the more corrupted it tends to get.

Trade encompasses many other big problems (such as money) and it actually gives you something realistic to work with. If trade causes shitty behavior, then make trade-free stuff so that people are less dependent on trades. And also, don’t forget to educate people about the problem.

Remember, problems are solved gradually, through education + infrastructure.

A very interesting thing to note, by the way, is that if you manage to solve this “trade problem,” you will consequently solve the “money problem” and probably also the “scarcity problem” because when something is trade-free, it is usually also abundant.

This idea of pinpointing “trade” as the problem is well described in this book, so if you’re interested in all of this, I would recommend reading it. And don’t worry, it’s trade-free 😉.

Conclusion

I feel like my “TVP journey” was really intense, but that’s not a problem because that’s usually what happens to me in life :D. I am very glad that I went through all of this because I learned a lot.

I learned that:

1. Fresco’s ideas and the organization of TVP are two very different things.
2. TVP (the organization) has a rigid hierarchical structure centered on Roxanne. Almost everything that goes on in TVP has to be approved by Roxanne, who is by no means an expert on everything.
3. Many TVP people (especially “old-timers”) are so bad at communicating and collaborating with others that they actually contradict what they teach/ what Jacque used to talk about.
4. Many TVP people are so emotionally attached to TVP that they will not question it (neither the ideas behind TVP nor the organization). I brought up topics like “how will the values of the people living in TVP’s experimental cities change if they are still influenced by the outside world” in the PoC chat before I left and some people replied that it was “inappropriate” to discuss this and/or TROM in the PoC chat. You can read my entire last discussion with the PoCs here.
5. The aim of TVP’s only educational course (the SEP) is to create “mentors” rather than to educate the general public.
6. TVP seems extremely incompetent and lacks transparancy in its projects; as a result, I doubt that they are capable of raising enough funds and building a multi-million dollar ‘Center for Resource Management,’ and later an entire city and network of cities.
7. If they do manage to build anything, I doubt that it will have much of an impact on the world; most likely, the world will have a much bigger impact on it instead, making the whole project a huge waste of time and resources.
8. TVP (the organization) seems to brush off the complexity of this society and its influence on human behavior.

*”TVP” refers to the main (English speaking) organization, not the Russian speaking team. The Russian speaking team is continuing to do what they can to popularize the work of Jacque Fresco.

Despite all of this, I still respect Jacque and the work that he did. I still see Jacque as a very inspirational character and I still agree with a lot of what he talked about. If I was in Roxanne’s shoes, I would forget about building anything, and instead would concentrate on educating the public about Jacque’s work. The most efficient way to do that would probably be through a free online platform.

However, the most important thing I can take away from this big long blog and my saturated experience with TVP and TROM is that society changes through problem solving, not through envisioning or demoing a better society. Realizing this was the last straw that made me see TVP and even the idea of a resource-based economy as irrelevant- and that was why I finally left TVP.

Maybe we don’t know how to solve these gigantic problems of trade, scarcity, money, ownership or whatever else, but if we can identify the problem, then we will at least be one step closer to solving it.

Tio from Trom resigns from the Venus Project

TVP and ME

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

Lucy Li resigns from the Venus Project

What is wrong with TVP? – My opinion 

Having read Sue’s response to my comments and invitation for further discussions, I would like to share my thoughts and my experience in this organisation and how I feel where it is going.

I appreciate you (Sue) take the time trying to clear my misunderstandings. However, from the response I can see, unless you are willing to shift your point of observing from a TVP Activism member, to a broader perspective and examine TVP as an organisation, as well as looking deeper into the core of the issue, you may not be able to see my points. In other words, it is hard for us to communicate.

Sue: As has been mentioned various times now, TVPA has no influence over the decisions made by TVP. Concerning TVP and how I personally view it, I’d be interested to have it explained to me why is it my view that has to change and not the one of the person who fails to understand where we are trying to go and how we are trying to do that?

Lucy: I have never complained about TVPA and I said I had pleasant experience in all the teams I worked with. I have made it clear that my issue is with this organisation as a whole, mainly the top. When I say changing your view, it means put yourself into Roxanne’s shoes and think about issues on that level. But I can see you are not comfortable to do so.

My Experience in TVP

In general, I found the organisation is tightly controlled by its founders, who have absolute authority in making decisions. The rules they set for the volunteers and the guidelines for work made me feeling uncomfortable and I believe it put off a lot of people as well. That is why they come and go without even starting work. Working with other volunteers is generally pleasant. However, I have to say my communication and interaction with the teams here is very limited.

I stayed because I wanted to bring this project into reality. I felt it is the future of the world. I did not follow the guidelines. I followed my inner callings and acted with my intuition. I know that many people here think this kind of stuff is rubbish. But everyone have his own ways. Why get people to try one single way, instead of 100? I used my way but when I have to step out of the line to create a Chinese website, I communicated in advance to the authorities in this organisation and explained the reason of doing so. I was neither encouraged nor stopped. I knew I was pushing boundaries but I had to. I do not keep close contact with people here except participating POC meetings and organizing translations on Pootle in the past. And I rarely participate any Skype chats.

Sue: In these two paragraphs we have a very clear example of the misunderstandings that can arise due to lack of communication with the other teams, lack of attendance to the monthly update meetings and also a certain lack of understanding of what TVP and an RBE is about. And that’s not criticizing anyone at all, simply stating a fact.

Is it not logical that the two people who know most about an RBE be the ones to direct the way things go when it’s directly related to them? Regarding TVPA, Jacque and Roxanne set no “rules”, they inform us they would prefer us not to do certain things, such as creating separate websites or create NPOs but they cannot stop people from doing these things against their wishes. They suggest things like all POCs should read The Best That Money Can’t Buy, but they don’t say it’s mandatory. However, anyone wishing to be a POC should be able to see the importance of having studied as much TVP material as possible.

Lucy: “Directly related to them?” Yes, true. But it is also directly related to everyone, isn’t it? It is about the future of the civilization. Have you already give up your rights to have a say? Yes, Jacque is the founder. But the reason it brings everyone to work together is not because this is Jacque’s project, it is because it is the project for everyone. Do you have a say about how the organisation operates? Or in which direction does it go? Maybe not. Then you just follow the “invisible”rules.

Sue: I’m really sorry to have to say this too but, “inner callings” and “intuition” are not very scientific for managing things for TVPA. If we were to talk about associative memory that might be another matter but what we “feel” isn’t necessarily a good guideline to follow.

Lucy: Well, you and I have different spiritual understandings. It is my way of doing things and I was never going to managing anything for TVPA. I do not live in structures. And I see the world that we are living in is shifting from a world of rigid structures to a world of flowing creativity. We live in different “world” so we use different “operating system” so to speak.

In the last couple of years, I had several people from different organisations contacting me to express their interests of building a TVP city/community. Out of these, I found one with creditability and the ability to do so. This was the best chance we could possibly dream of. The organisation is under the supervision of the Development and Reform department of Chinese central government and specialize in funding and investing. Its officials are government officials and high level bankers. They were interested in the project and wanted to know how to build the city. They were not interested in get technologies and information that TVP was unwilling to disclose. They were not interested in getting profits in anyway. If you watched Jeremy Rifkin’s speech at google+ you will know China commit billions of dollars for his proposal. With the rapid development of the country, there are many problems with today's cities in China. They are looking for solutions and they are willing to commit to new ideas.

Sue: Something here doesn’t add up for me. An organization wiling to consider spending the billions needed to build a city are happy to communicate through a POC with Jacque and Roxanne? If they have that kind of money, why didn’t they visit Venus themselves and perhaps pay your ticket too Lucy? You’re not going to talk about billions unless it’s with the person who knows most about the project.

Lucy: “They will provide office and funding for full time staff needed. They can also provide funding for people from TVP so they can travel to China to provide education or organize exhibition etc. They think we must provide more material for research and education.” (Quote from my e-mail to Roxanne).

They have offered everything and what they get is a big NO, although nicely put. By the way, can Jacque and Roxanne speak Chinese? Maybe not. And these people can not speak much English. If they choose someone to faciliate the communication, it isn’t logical that POC should be the first one on the list? Or they should find a translator because there is something Roxanne does not want the people who work for them to know?

( Just to give you more evidence to see if my story can add up, I have provided some screen shot of the e-mails regarding the project. The link is on the original document)

When I expressed their interests to Roxanne, she was very keen but only want these people directly dealing with them. However, the organisation asked me to help them to communicate with TVP. They believe that I understand TVP and have no problem communicate with both sides. Feeling a bit awkward, I passed their request to TVP but did not get a yes or No, which I took as an OK. However, there was nothing at all for us to evaluate the project. All I was offered was Jacque’s book, “The Best Money Can’t Buy”, which has not been translated into Chinese.

Along with the lack of information, I felt diminished enthusiasm. In fact, it had completely disappeared. Roxanne said they wanted the first city to be built in America where Jacque can directly supervise. Looking back, I cannot help wondering, for someone who wants to go beyond the boundaries of the countries, is it important to differentiate whether the first city will be built in America or in China? Aren’t we all on Plant Earth? With the modern technology we have, is it not possible to guide someone in distance?

Sue: I can’t speak to this as I don’t know what happened here.

With absolutely no information to work on, we decide while waiting for the initial schematic plan they said someone was going to fund, we will set up an NPO and employ people to do the translation for the book and other materials so more information can be available. By the way, this is another thing that goes against the guidelines. However, if you do not registered as NPO in China, you cannot legally get donations – means they cannot provide us funding for employing people to help. However, this didn’t happen. They finally decided to pull out completely. I was deeply disappointed. It took a lot of effort to take things this far. However, I was not going to give up. If one thing does not work, I will try something else. Just as I was thinking to start the translation of Jacque’s book to get back on my feet, I received the document Sue sent us for signing. Something triggered and suddenly everything has become clear as day. The resignation letters from two POCs that followed confirmed it even more.

Sue: Many teams have no donations and work by using there ingenuity to devise methods of creating events such as screenings. The idea behind the monthly meetups is to share these ideas and help everyone’s teams.

The letters of resignation from two POCs are full of misunderstandings and projections. Infact, one couldn’t even be a resignation as he had already been removed from TVPA. Basing your own decisions on other people’s actions without understanding both sides of the story is to act with a lack of critical thinking. It’s acting on your “feelings”.

Lucy: I don’t base my decision on others people ‘s actions. The POC you removed was not even my contact so I think you have jumped into your conclusion based on perhaps your feelings. My decision has nothing to do with angry at someone or sympathy with someone. I explained clearly in my letter. I will add a bit more which I shared in POC General chat.

From my observation and experience, I have come to conclusion that what TVP as an organisation is doing now has already deviated from the essence of RBE. I personally do not think they can incorporate that spirit into the project anymore. I have given my reasons and facts in my article if you read them carefully you may “see” it. 

Essence is the key for RBE. It is the life force of a RBE city just like the soul of a person. When essence is there, it will bring the city to life and naturally bring everything together in a whole system that functions as an organic entity. Within this self-sustainable and interconnected environment, value system forms accordingly to be part of the system. You can teach your value systems but until people can live in an environment that are compatible with these values, they will not truly own it. Churches has been teaching their followers for thousands of years, how many of them become enlightened? Only direct experience can bring true understanding. When a true RBE city being built, it will allow many people to experience what a society can be and should be, and remember what they already knew deep in their consciousness. It will awaken humanity to understand its true potential.

The contact person once made a comment that he felt Roxanne wanting to control, having an egoistic purpose but claiming to be helping the world.

Sue: This is just so twisted I find it hard to even address it. If Jacque and Roxanne lived in luxury with expensive cars and jewelry, flashy clothes and luxury holidays, I might think they are self interested. However, as anyone who has visited Venus, or even seen photos of it can see, they live quite modestly and work every single day, without holidays or days off, to get this direction known. It’s a statement made by someone who since he entered the candidate process has pushed his own ideas for an alternative community of some kind and has become frustrated when they haven’t been jumped on as the panacea to helping TVP. At 98 and 60+, just what do people think Jacque and Roxanne are getting out of this? To be rich in the future? lolz.

Lucy: I quoted what other people said and I am not responsible for his feelings. I don’t know why you relates ego to material things. I don’t think it is relevant here. Egoistic means self-centered. It is a mindset that do not see others as connected with oneself and do not willing to lend a helping hand with nothing in return.

I ignored those comments at the time as I was keen to make things happen. Or maybe I trained myself to work in such condition for too long and did not think it was a big problem. I attributed their decision of pulling out to other reasons such as policies. Now I see what happened. One thing is for sure. They did not see enthusiasm and trust from an organisation who claims to promote a new way of living and thinking. They saw control and self-serving --- the stuff we see everywhere in this world. That was probably not what they expected.

With this realization, I believe I have complete the full circle here. There is a final hurdle that not up to me to change. I wish to share my thoughts here, and hopefully someone can see the need for change, although I won’t hold my breath for it. I also want to share some “inside” information (issue three) so people like me can make more informed decisions.

Issue One: The Structure of the organisation

The structure in this organisation is very traditional, although its purpose is to promote a new way of thinking. The authorities on the top give guidelines and instructions. The volunteers do their work within certain boundaries. When an opportunity comes up, the top will decide its value and how to deal with it. Creativity and ideas is only appreciated or encouraged when they are in line with what the authority wants.

The type of organisation I wish to see is different. I want to see the focus shift from “the top” to the bottom. “The top” should serve the bottom, giving advice and support. Encourage people’s new ideas and creativity, appreciate their efforts and forgive their mistakes. Help them to understand more along the way so the torch of the Venus Project can be passed on one day.

The world is changing and everyone should be able to see the trend. The Pyramid structure is collapsing everywhere. Authorities are losing their powers and people’s voice are heard more and more. It is the age of internet. It starts with information but it will eventually come to every aspects of life. You can see this from Jeremy Rifkin’s work. A world of equality and freedom is coming near. What support a pyramid structure we have today is the resource in their control. For an organisation that does not have such resources in a monetary system, how far can it go? What support the pyramid in TVP is the respect that people have for Jacque and their desire to help bring the Venus Project into reality. But some do not only admire Jacque, they want to be like him. Then the pyramid structure becomes a problem. They either left quietly or push their ideas so hard that it shakes the structure. Then there is fear of chaos and more need to control. But control rarely brings long last order. When things need to be changed and come to balance, there will be chaos. To avoid chaos by remaining control does not solve any problem but only create more.

To maintain the pyramid structure, you will see people come and go. Come with enthusiasm and left with disappointment. A new world needs people who can think and create independently. You need a system to facilitate the development of these qualities. The structure should be minimum so I agree with what Steven Black said in his resignation letter – automate the system.

Sue: Fine, that’s what we are moving towards, but who is going to create the automating system, in what areas would this be specifically and what do we do in the meantime?

It is OK to keep POCs as Point of Contact. Anyone who know the system here can volunteer for it. They do not need to be expert in RBE or TVP, all they do is to help people with information if they wish to participate joint efforts. They should not be in charge of the progress of a county of city, nor should they know everything that happened there. You probably only need POCs for different languages not region. When the system become efficient enough, there may be no need for POCs.

Sue: What evidence is there for this statement and by what process of thought is this idea arrived at? The rest of the above has already been mainly addressed by others as well as myself in previous replies.

Lucy: The process of thought is same as this: everyone can reach divine through their spirituality. You don’t need a priest as middle man.

People should be allowed to have their own groups as long as their purpose is to promote this direction. They should not need an approval to do what they think is the best. Yes, some might do something that the Jacque and Roxanne does not like. They could make mistakes. But that is life. As the metaphors I give in my previous comment about the fish and flower, you can have a controlled environment to keep everything the way you want. But if you want the world to have it, you need to let go of control. Most of us volunteers are not interested in guarding a fish bowl or even an aquarium so more people can come to admire the creation. We want the creation to survive the real world and prosper so it can bring real benefit to the world, not just entertain people with fancy ideas.

Mistakes can be made it’s true and we all make them. However, one of the ideas behind having teams that are connected with each other and hold regular meetings is precisely to help avoid these mistakes. As I said in the original TVPA 103 doc, we already saw how people going their own way lead to many misconceptions being shared as RBE ideas. I can’t believe this needs repeating.

Issue Two: Science and Spirituality

The values and visions of TVP attract a lot of spiritual people. However, since Jacque emphasizes more on scientific method, spiritual topics become questionable. Plus people often relate spirituality to religion so they believe it contradicts with what TVP promotes.

Sue: These are projections people create themselves. We can do little about it except direct people to what Jacque says about spirituality and religion.

However, Spirituality is not religion and not in conflict with science.

Sue: As the word spirituality has a different meaning for everybody this is a statement that confirms nothing. “ "The Venus Project is a translation of all religions: The end of war, the end of poverty, the brotherhood of humanity, and if that isn't spiritual, like I've said before, I don't know what is." ~ Jacque Fresco, TVP teamspeak seminar, January 15 2012”

Lucy: It is great that he said that, but I think TVP has not done a great job to convey that message to people. That is why there are so many misunderstandings and projections around as you said. So I am here to make the point clear.

True spirituality give people the freedom to be their own authority. They respect life and its diversity and believe we are all one in the core. And this is where all the values that TVP promote origins. Truly spiritual people does not go around recruit people to believe something or join an organisation. They respect other people’s own choices and their own time of awakening. Spirituality is about inner world. It is about how to become a truly caring and responsible human being. It is about realizing one’s own potential. Spiritual people commit in personal growth and help to create a better world.

Sue: The aim of an activist for TVP shouldn’t be to “recruit” people but share the information about a different option for solving the problems we face. If someone an activist speaks to then wishes to join and help build a team then that’s wonderful. If an activist thinks it’s about recruitment, they aren’t doing it right!

Lucy: I was talkina bout spirituality not TVP. Sure, it applies to TVP too.

However, I agree with the approach that TVP take in this respect, which is to focus on values and scientific approach. It can avoid falling into the trap of religion and can be accepted by almost everyone. Also we warn people to be aware of any type of “saviour figure”, be it a religion leader or secret ETs. To believe something exist, does not mean you should count on them to be saviours. Any form of worship or blindly following authorities create a pyramid structure and will not bring the society forward. However, personal growth (including spirituality) should be respected if not encouraged. People should not feel that a part of them need to be hidden because it is not “mainstream” in this community.

There are nearly 250 people in our discussion group. Some hate metaphysics and the others are into New Age stuff. So I asked people to respect the differences and no personal attack is allowed. People are free to express themselves in discussions as long as they respect each other. But they are asked not to share their spiritual teachings or information there because they must respect the fact that these kind of information are “Junk mail” for many others in the group.

Issue Three: the “right” city

When we discussed about the project in December last year (2013), Roxanne said that there was a group who were interested in funding them for an initial “schematic” plan. So to get something to evaluate the project is “not something that we can help you at this time”. Now when I read this, I wonder who is helping who? Aren’t we supposed to be a team?

In the e-mail, I replied “The detailed plan for the evaluation is for the actual funding to start the project of building the city. If this is not available now, then it means we are in an earlier stage of developing the idea. They have agreed to help us to promote the idea and set up a research and development center. So we can still ask for funding for this “schematic” plan as part of the preparation or development process. However, since you mentioned that someone else is going to pay and do it, I wonder if it is just a matter of waiting for the result. I would assume since TVP is non-for-profit and a global initiative, once a plan is done, it should be available for all the interested parties. It would be a waste of the resources to make preliminary plan for every city that need to be built.” (Quote from my e-mail)

To this, Roxanne replied, “If our funding comes through we will be doing the schematic plans here in Florida. They have to be done with the consulting and in conjunction with Jacque Fresco. The first city would be an initiative taken on by The Venus Project. We have a very specific end goal that it not based on Politics, religion or metaphysics but on the methods of science directed toward the way we live to deal with problem solving. At this stage we are really not interested in “city” design only or making them open source, at this stage. Our main goal is education and a very specific education. If we built beautiful, efficient cities and brought in people with the same values then we would make very little progress.”

She went on challenge how much I knew about the Venus Project because I used a “sensitive” word in my reply, “What we are going to do here is not just to build a city. It is a new social design/experiment. The people who get involved must understand this and adopt a different value system. They must understand cooperation is emphasized in this new society, not competition. To get people to raise their consciousness from separation to oneness is not an overnight job. It is probably harder than building a city.” (Quote from my e-mail)

“We recently had people approach us to design a city for the teachings of Oneness Universityhttp://www.onenessuniversity.org/index.php/oneness-meditation but to us it would be a step backwards and not achieve the aims that The Venus Project is striving for but maintain and perpetuate old values. I am not saying this is what you are doing by using the same word but that word does not have a precise meaning. I honestly don’t know how much you have studied on The Venus Project.” (Quote from Roxanne’s reply)

I hastened to reply that I do not support any organised spiritual teachings although I do agree with the principles they teach. I explained in details about my understanding with regard to the Venus Project, and to which she replied, “We are in agreement”. I thought that would mean I had passed the “open source” test and everything is OK. But she never contacts me again regarding the “schematic” plan although I asked her to keep me informed of the progress. When I contacted her just recently to clarify the issues about the book before I start translating and informed her that the organisation had pull out from their support, she seemed a bit surprised, “I am glad you are still helping out and working with POCs”. Nothing had been asked about the organisation or what happened.

Look through all these correspondences again, I can understand her surprise. I still stubbornly believed that something can be done here. I did not realized that in her mind she has rejected and discarded my help long time ago when she knew that this organisation from China wanted to participate in the development of the city and build it in China instead of giving them the funding so they can do their own project. I was so disappointed with the organisation’s pulling out and wondered why, and now I can see they understood it much earlier than I did as an external party.

I appreciate the importance of the first city and their desire to realize Jacque’s vision as best as they possibly can. If that is the only reason (to which I doubt), I can acknowledge it is a good intention. However, in my opinion, there are still great limitations in their thinking here.

“The first city would be an initiative taken on by The Venus Project.” I thought if Jacque helps to build a TVP city in China, this would be a TVP’s initiative. At least, it should be the joint initiative by both TVP and the Chinese organization. I thought this was part of TVP’s goal – to build TVP cities all over the world. Then what can be counted as TVP initiative now? Do they mean the money should be given to TVP so they can own the project? If that is the case, they greatly diminish the chance of a TVP city being built. Things are not always working out the way you imaged. As long as the project is for the charitable purpose (not for profit) and can have enough guidance from Jacque, is it really matter who initiated?

“At this stage we are really not interested in “city” design only or making them open source, at this stage.” Although science give us the most efficient way of solving problems, it should not be the reason to create a conformed world. Unity in diversity is the principle of the universe. Every country has different social and cultural environment, only in real life experiment you can have the best of learning. Because of these differences, people will adopt to the new value system through different learning curves. Cities will be operated in different environment. No matter what a great example you make in America, it can be a quite different thing in another country. So why reject the opportunity to try, to learn and to progress?

I do not know what the story was with those who were going to give funding for the initial “schematic” plan. I don’t know how many opportunities have to pass by before something happens. I don’t know how many country or organisation will meet the criteria to get into a tomorrow’s world for EVERYONE. I don’t know why they cannot see that there are a lot of bright young minds in today’s world and they are totally capable and mean to help with building these cities, which will not be prefect but will progress as they learn and improve. Do they worry that their reputation will get ruined if something go wrong? Is this reputation more important than the evolvement of the civilization? I wonder why the seed of this flower cannot be planted wherever it is needed to give it a chance to grow, but has to be in “Jacque and Roxanne’s garden”. Is this the Venus Project I support? It doesn’t sound like it.

I agree that education is very important and if we put people into a beautifully designed city without changing their value systems, it won’t work. However, what can be a better educational tool for people if they live in a real life RBE city? Environment do change people. I think we all agree on that. Living in a sustainable city without a monetary system will dramatically change people’s behaviour and their values. It is a totally different world. Their way of relating to people, their attitude towards material wealth and their ability to understand the importance of sustainability will be far better than what we can get from our best educational tools.

Sue: How can TVP give free reign over the building of the first city to people who are probably still deeply entrenched in this system? Jacque speaks about having been approached by people over the years who eventually wanted to make the city for egotistical reasons and profit. The ony way to ensure that this is done in the manner Jacque has been working on for decades is for them to be the decision makers. If they are no longer with us, then it should be people who have the deepest understanding possible about an RBE who carry the project forward.

Lucy: This is a very typical thinking where one gives his/her own power to know and change to someone that they perceive as knowing everything. So they are just happy to trust these individuals to be the decision makers instead of seeking understanding themselves. The decision making in a RBE society should be reached by many if not all who understand and can contribute through scientific ways of communication. To count on one or two person to make right decision and the majority is happy to stay in ignorance is the very reason that Humanity plunged to darkness in the first place.

Sue: Just as we are moving towards a system where money becomes obsolete, we are also moving towards a system that can be open source. We are not living in such a society yet and so cannot a) stop using money or b) make everything open source.

Lucy: The progress of a civilization is never a clear cut of one type of system totally collapse and then a new one is born. Capitalism started somewhere when many other places were still in the old system. So will be the transition for RBE. It has to co-exist.

Jacque said himself, we have to “outgrown” the old system. How? When the old is there, the new one is born and grows and eventually makes the old obsolete. This is not changing a light bulb. Changing to a new one when old is broken. civilization need continuity.

We are trying to bring about a new system in an environment with monetary system. As I said if you want to have them co-exist, you have to deal with the issue of money. Can someone be corrupted? Sure. It is a possibility. So for that possibility, we should give up trying? I have given the metaphor about the fish and flower and I think I have made my points very clear in both documents.

"If you have beautiful tropical fish in your fish tank, you can always keep it nice and clean. In other words, it can be perfect. However, not many people get to see it. If you want the whole world to enjoy them, they will have to live in the ocean where there are sharks and jellyfish and other staff you may not like. If you create beautiful flowers, you can keep them perfect in your garden. But if you want them grow all over the field, you may have to tolerate the weeds and other stuff out there."

My resignation

I have been working for TVP for more than 3 years now. I organised discussion groups and work teams. I designed our website myself and paid for the costs associated with it. I wrote articles and organised team of translators. We used Pootle to translate the website here so it had a Chinese version. We then created a tab on our Chinese website to link to it and put various articles on the website so the like mind people who never heard of the Venus Project can have an opportunity using this “bridge” to get to know it. We translated many videos and uploaded to different Chinese social websites. I never imaged when we finally bring someone who want to build a TVP city and was told that “it is not open source”.

Judging by how the organisation treats its people and how it organizes itself, I would image the city they build (if they do) and have total control of will be more or less the same. Unless, in my opinion, the leaders become wiser or have a wiser leader, it is the real situation of blind leading blind. Values are not what you teach through books, it is something you demonstrate in everyday life. If someone have a rigid mind that cannot understand diversity, or does not see that serving the world is serving the self because we are all connected, I really cannot see how the values that TVP promote can be expressed. Even someone comes along to invest and satisfies all the criteria, the city is not going to be a real TVP city. It is going to be a city without a soul, or in TVP’s words, a city with beautiful design but without the right values.

I think that many people who work for the Venus Project believe that they are serving the world. Well, it is not true, at least not at this stage. They are serving this organisation call TVP, which at this stage is not ready to serve the world. For whatever the reason, the organisation attracts volunteers with a charitable concepts and goals, but do not wish to serve the world in a charitable way, not at this stage. I share this information so people like me can be more informed for their choices because I think most people are kept in the dark with regards to how the things are progressing on the top.

Jacque was way ahead of most people in his life. However, things are rapid changing. Humanity is catching up and more and more people have seen the vision. For me, TVP is only a brand now. A brand without a wise leader will worth nothing. The concept of RBE, can inspire any creative mind to see the city in their hearts. They only need to look deeper and trust themselves. Divine inspiration is not anyone’s asset. If they do not pass the seed on, it will be given to those who are ready.

Sue: Ouch! See the city in their hearts? I thought we had it clear that it’s not about the city but the mind set, the values we hold and understanding why we behave as we do so we can learn to change negative behaviour patterns. Trust themselves? How can someone who is not well enough informed trust themselves to understand what needs to be done? Divine inspiration? I’d really rather not go into that :(

Lucy: How do you think Jacque see the city? from someone’s books? lectures? educational videos? Was Jacque well enough informed when he envision the city? I’d say he was very a brave person who trusted himself when he was facing so much ridicule:-)

I believe I have done what I can for this organisation and I see there is no need to be a POC anymore.

Sue: Lucy, I personally know you have done a great amount for TVP and sincerely thank you for having continued despite time zone difficulties and so on. I am truly sorry you felt the need to leave us. I would like to think that in the future you will hear/ see/ read more information that will help clear your misconceptions and will welcome you back “with open arms” as they say, if you should decide to join us again.

Lucy: Sue, I really appreciate that. However, I know you and I have different views regarding these key issues. I respect your opinion although I do not agree. Surely I do not think mine is misconceptions but this is a subjective thing so there is no point to argue. I thank you for your appreciation and it has been a pleasure working with you and others in the team.

Sometimes, the biggest challenge is not the accomplishment that you achieve, but to go beyond your limitations.

Sue: Indeed :)

Lucy: To go beyond his limitations, one must first “see” it.