Jacque Fresco Interview

Marcelo Sanchez: Jacque Fresco, the creator and the mind behind The Venus Project, a monumental work of several fields of knowledge that unify the concept of a new future for the human civilization. Fresco's entire life is perhaps the definition of a second chance, a new opportunity for social progress in harmony with our planet and technology.

The Venus Project looks to move beyond money and resources

Jacque Fresco:

On the Venus project:

Jacque Fresco & Roxanne Meadows

The Venus project is an attempt to bring world peace and all the nations together. If you don't want war, killing, crime, you have to redesign the way society works. You have to declare all the earth's resources as a common heritage of all the world's people. Then, we have to remove the monetary system which is basically corrupt. As if to that, we have to erase the artificial boundaries that separate people, so we have one world working cooperatively towards preserving the environment and all life as we know it.

Modern economic setup cements wealth and power inequality

A money based economy produces incentive, but it also produces incentive for corruption, pay offs, paying off senators, corporations, buying senators... It's never been a democracy, we've never had a democracy, no nation's ever had it. If you don't have equal purchasing power, you can't have a democracy.

Communism uses money, it has social stratification, it has banks, it has army and navy, prisons and police, we (a Resource Based Economy) don't have any of those.

The Venus Project rejects both Capitalism and Communism

On human thinking:

Human being is conditioned to think in a certain way. If you were raised by the headhunters of the Amazon as a babe, if you never saw anything else, you'll be a headhunter. If you were raised in Nazi Germany where all you see is Heil Hitler ..., you'll be a German. So I think all people are perfectly well adjusted to where they're coming from. There's no such thing as good or bad people, you're taught to hate certain people, where do you get that from? From environment! It's not that people are good or bad, it's that they are raised in an aberrated or twisted environment.

Notions of good and evil depend entirely on social context

On language communication:

There has to be a language that is not subject to interpretation, since our language is very old and it is difficult to talk one on another, it is so automatic and has no meaning. Mathematics, Engineering, Chemistry, Physics, Structural Engineering are languages that are not subject to interpretation. So it's possible to develop a language not subject to interpretation.

Language is exact science and not subject to interpretation

On democracy and "freedom":

Democracy is a con game, it's a word invented to placate people, to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing: "We are free!" the moment you hear Freedom and Democracy, watch out! Because in a truly free nation no one has to tell you you're free.

Democracy is a con game to give people illusion of freedom

This system right now is moving towards fascism, in order to defend the Status Quo, cutting back in our freedoms, the little freedoms we had, we never had complete freedom 'cause the word freedom has no meaning. When an Arab comes to this country (USA) with ten wives, they say: "you can only come in with one". So don't use the word Freedom, say: "There's a certain range of behavior that we permit in this society and this is what it is". Don't use the word Freedom.

Societies only offer freedom within strict contraints

Each system wants to perpetuate itself, we don't go to another country to bring democracy, we go there for their resources: Oil, metals, cheap labor. We don't go there to bring democracy. We took this land from the Indians, we stole it, and after that we took New Mexico from Mexico, and California from Spain, after we stole all the land we needed, we put up the sign: "Thou shall not steal". All nations are corrupt, all of them, not one nation knows enough about ecology to handle the problems. All politicians are basically ignorant men, all of them, all the way back in history. Our problems are not political, they were a hundred years ago, but today they're technical: safe transportation, production with abundance, making things available to people without the use of money, as long as money exists you're going to have corruption, no matter how many treaties you sign, no matter how many laws you make. 90% of man-made laws are irrelevant, it isn't laws that we need, people need access to the necessities of life, when that's arranged, they don't steal.

Crisis poses threat as weakened leaders hit back at people

Useless laws and ignorant politicians collapse any system

On human nature:

There's no such thing as Human Nature, otherwise we would still be living in caves, if human nature wouldn't be changed, It is learned when you're mother says: "You're a Lutheran, you don't play with that little catholic boy", so the parents indoctrinate their children. In the future parents will be educated on how to raise children. You have to raise children because children can learn anything at all, they can learn Geology, Physics, Chemistry, but we give them garbage. We have Mickey Mouse clubs in America, How shameful! That's no way to raise children!

Children need real valuesinstead of Mickey Mouse garbage

We own so much to so many nations, the separation of nations is dangerous, wrong and the failure of nations to work together is what war is, War is the supreme failure of bridging the difference between nations. There'll be no military in the future. There will be people who learn to solve problems so that they’ll become problem solvers. That's what is needed: Science applied to government.

Lack of education turns soldiers into killing machines

In the future when the children look back, they will ask: "Couldn't you see that the monetary system had people paid off? Couldn't you see? Wasn't it obvious to you?" and you'll say: "No, we were growing up in it, we didn't know the difference". Kids will not understand that in the future.

Gábor Maté on brain development and addiction - Gábor Maté nos habla de desarrollo del cerebro y adicción.

"... When we are not in integrity, that's when we're more judgmental of other people because we can't stand seeing in others what we don't like about ourselves... Which is I think why so many people have such a harsh time with drug addicts, because who in this society is not addicted as this whole society is all about getting something from the outside: you have to look that way, you have to be that way, you have to buy that, get that, do that, it's all getting something from the outside to make ourselves feel OK which is what addiction is all about: getting something from the outside to make us feel ok, temporarily. 

That's what addiction is, this whole society is addicted, the whole economy, and look at the consequence, the consequence is that we're destroying the earth. We're actually destroying the earth. And then we say to the drug addict: "How can you shoot yourself cocaine when it's so damaging to you?" or "how can we do what we're doing to the earth when it's so damaging to all of us?" But we can't stand seeing that part of our selves, so we push it all to the drug addicts and say: "What's wrong with you?!" 

So the biggest thing that stands in the way of society helping the addict, and of people individually helping the addict, is the judgments... But there's nothing wrong with having judgments, it's very human, you can't help it, in fact, you're not even doing it, when you have a judgment, you're not doing it, it's not that you deliver to say to yourself: "humm, what judgment can i come up with?" No! your brain does it, you're not even there, your brain is doing it, without you, so when i say "there's nothing wrong with it, it's perfectly human" there’s nothing wrong with judgment being there, the problem's when you believe the judgment. So the thing is to notice it because if you don't notice it, it's going to get in the way. And if we're working with drug addicts we have to be very compassionate, with ourselves and with the other person too."

... "If you are going to be with an alcoholic, be with him! and if you can't stand being with him, then don't be with him. But don't be with him wanting him to be any different than the way he is... but if you choose to be with him, choose to be with him exactly the way he is, without any move to try to make him any different... 'cause there's a spiritual teacher, that i read a lot, and she said that "Only in the presence of compassion where people love themselves, we'll see the truth"



"... Cuando no estamos en integridad es cuando somos más críticos de otras personas porque no podemos soportar ver en otros lo que no nos gusta de nosotros mismos... Que es por lo que yo creo que tantas personas tienen tantos malos momentos con drogadictos, porque ¿quién en esta sociedad no es adicto? En toda esta sociedad se trata de conseguir algo del exterior: hay que verse de esa manera, hay que ser de esa manera, hay que comprar eso, obtener eso, hacer eso, todo se trata de conseguir algo desde el exterior para hacernos sentir bien y esto es exactamente lo que la adicción es: Conseguir algo desde el exterior para que nos sintamos bien, temporalmente.

Eso es la adicción, toda la sociedad es adicta, toda la economía, y miren la consecuencia, la consecuencia es que estamos destruyendo la Tierra. En realidad estamos destruyéndola, y luego le decimos al drogadicto: "¿Cómo puedes usar cocaína cuando es tan perjudicial para ti?”O" ¿cómo podemos hacer lo que estamos haciendole a la Tierra cuando es tan perjudicial para todos nosotros", Pero no podemos soportar ver esa parte de nosotros mismos, así que se lo empujamos todos a los drogadictos y decimos: "¿Cuál es tu problema?"

Así que el mayor problema que se interponen entre la ayuda de la sociedad hacia el adicto, y de la ayuda de las personas individualmente hacia el adicto, es la crítica... Pero no hay nada de malo en que existan Críticas, es muy humano, no lo puedes evitar, de hecho, tú ni siquiera lo estás haciendo, cuando tienes una crítica, tu no la estás haciendo, no es que te digas a ti mismo: "Hmm, ¿Qué crítica se me puede ocurrir ahora?" ¡No! tu cerebro lo hace, tu ni siquiera estás allí, tu cerebro lo está haciendo, sin ti, así que cuando digo "No hay nada malo en ello, es perfectamente humano" quiero decir que no hay nada malo con que la crítica esté allí, el problema es cuando crees que esa crítica está bien. Así que la cosa es darse cuenta de ello porque si no eres consciente de esto, esto se interpondrá en el camino. Y si estamos trabajando con drogadictos, tenemos que ser muy compasivos, con nosotros mismos y con la otra persona también."

... "Si vas a estar con un alcohólico, estate con él! y si no puedes soportar estar con él, entonces No estés con él. Pero no estés con él, deseando que sea diferente de cómo es... pero si eliges estar con él, elige estar con él por como es, sin ningún tipo de movimiento para tratar de hacerlo diferente... Porque hay una maestra espiritual, de quien he leído mucho, que dijo que "Sólo en presencia de la compasión donde la gente se ama, veremos la verdad".