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You Can Never Design The Best City, But You Can Design The Best City You Know How To Design At This Time.
-Jacque Fresco
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You Can Never Design

Jacque Fresco
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You Can Never Design The Best City, But You Can Design The Best City You Know How To Design At This Time.

Understanding the Quote: "you can never design the best city, but you can design the..."

This quote by Jacque Fresco reflects deeply on the theme of cities. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Cities, Design, Know How, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Jacque Fresco interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Jacque Fresco

Jacque Fresco is celebrated for insightful thoughts on cities and design. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Cities
Design
Know How
More From Jacque Fresco
You Cannot Advocate Decency And Ethics, You Must Design The Conditions That Eliminate The Problems. In Scarcity, People Will Tend To Steal. If You Make Things Available, People Tend Not To Steal.
People
Design
Scarcity
If There's A Group Like Amish People, That Want To Live Their Own Lifestyle – They Don't Want To Live In Our City – They Want To Live Out In The Country, With Their Own Projects. We’ll Put Up The Buildings For Them, Design The Buildings For Them, Design The Food Production Systems For Them – If They Want Us To. But We Don’t Control Them.
Country
Cities
People
The Fact That Cultures Are Failing All Over The World Means That They Don't Know How To Operate A Society To Make It Work. Politicians Have No Real Knowledge Of Technology; Therefore, They Are Not Capable Of Increasing Food Production, Designing Transportations Systems That Are Safe… They Have No Knowledge In That Area. Therefore It's Senseless To Talk To Them About Anything Of Significance.
Real
Mean
Technology
Our Times Demand The Declaration Of The World's Resources As The Common Heritage Of All People.
People
Heritage
World
You Can Teach People Specific Reasoning, Such As How To Fly A Kite Or Build A Wheel. General Reasoning Cannot Be Imparted Upon People, Particularly If They Like Things The Way They Are - Meaning, If Their Reactions Are Very Simple. The Reason Most People Behave Badly Or Poorly Is Because They Only Understand Simple Things.
Simple
People
Kites
The Only Limitations Are Those Which We Impose Upon Ourselves.
Limitation
Armies Are Created To Protect An Established System, Not People. In The Future, An Educated Humanity Will Not Stand For War.
War
Army
People
When Somebody Asks, 'whats The Answer To All Of These Questions?' That's Absurd. There Is No Answer, There Are Answers, Along The Way.
Answers
Way
Absurd
What Kind Of Competition Is There In Your Body? Suppose Your Brain Said ' I'm The Most Important Organ, And The Liver Said 'i Am, And I Want To Go In A Free Enterprise-system.' You Would Rot Away In A Month, If Every Organ Of Your Body, Were Out For Itself.
Competition
Brain
Important
You Can't Exceed The System With Language. You Can Only Exceed The System With Events; Recommended Procedures That Are Better. You Can't Exceed The System By Telling People To Be Good, Be Kind, Be Considerate... You Have To Take Away The Conditions That Makes It Necessary For You To Be Kind. And To Be Kind, You Design Highways That Aren't Slippery; Where No Accidents, Or Less Accidents, Occur. In The Future, Everybody Becomes An Innovator - A Creator.
People
Design
Events
Today We Have Access To Highly Advanced Technologies. But Our Social And Economic System Has Not Kept Up With Our Technological Capabilities That Could Easily Create A World Of Abundance, Free Of Servitude And Debt.
Technology
Today
Debt
We Don't Want To Hurt Anybody, Kill Anybody, Build Any Prisons, Or Build Police. We Want To Make It Unnecessary For People To Steal - So They'll Have Access To Medical Care, Health Care, Decent Housing, All People, All Over The World. As Long As You Don't Share Your Resources, You Are Going To Have Trouble
Hurt
Long
People
You Know That You Can't Go Out There And Change The World Tomorrow Morning. It Just Takes Time, And The Realization Of That Does Not Produce Frustration. What Produces Frustration, Is When You Expect The World To Join With Your Cause It's So Reasonable. It Is Not Reasonable To Unreasonable People.
Morning
Frustration
People
If Nations Join Together Now, Before The Big Collapse And Share Their Resources, They Can Maintain A Level Of Sustainability. Sustain The People That Is, And Not Banks And Businesses.
People
Together
Levels
It Takes A Different Value System If You Wish To Change The World.
Inspirational
Wish
Different
We Don't Know How To Live Together On Earth, How The Hell Are We Going To Live Together On Mars?
Knowing
People
Together
You Can Either Have One Guy Lifting A Billion Pounds By Himself, And It Takes Many Years Of Planning And Preparation - Or You Can Have A Billion People, Each Lifting One Pound, And It Takes A Mere Moment. This Is The Power Of Unity.
Years
People
Guy
There Isn't Anything That Is Said That 'someone' Won't Take Issue With.
Issues
Said
The Uncreative Mind Can Spot The Wrong Answers, But It Takes A Very Creative Mind To Spot The Wrong Questions" The Question Has Never Been: Do We Have The Money? The Question Has Always Been: Do We Have The Resources?
Creative
Mind
Wrong Answers
Instruction In Academia Did Not Emphasize What I Thought Of As Essential Points. I Was Interested In The Broad Range Of Interrelated Connections Within The Physical Sciences, But Formal Studies Isolated Each Branch Of Science.” I Feel That I Have Advantages Greater Than Da Vinci’s Such As Access To More Information, Materials, And Methods.
Essentials
Connections
Academia
The Government Means Industry, If You Know What I Mean.
Mean
Government
Knows
Once You Accept The Fact That People Have 'individual Choices' And They're 'free' To Make Those Choices. Free To Make Choices Means Without Being Influenced And I Can't Understand That At All. All Of Us Are Influenced In All Our Choices By The Culture We Live In, By Our Parents, And By The Values That Dominate. So, We're Influenced. So There Can't Be Free Choices.
Mean
Individual Choice
People
All Things Change. The Automobiles Change Every Year. [your] Television Set Gets Lighter And Smaller And Higher Definition. All Things In The Scientific World Change. But Politicians Do Not Change. They Carry Old Values And They Don't Even Know It.
Years
Television
World
Opinions Are Very Dangerous, Because They Aren't Based On Scientific Studies.
Science
Opinion
Study
The Teachings Or The Information In The Venus Project Is Not What Jacque Fresco Dictates. It’s First Doing A Survey Of The Carrying Capacity Of A Given Environment And Maintaining A Population In Accordance Of The Earth's Resources, Not Fresco's Opinion.
Teaching
Population
Earth
The Original Intent Of Laws Was To Get The Masses Of People To Accept The Limitations Superimposed Upon Them As Being The Result Of Their Own Misbehavior.
Law
People
Accepting
It Is Not That People Are Evil Or Greedy. The Conditions That Socially Support The System Force Us To Behave In Socially Offensive Ways.
People
Evil
Support
We Are All An Integral Part Of The Chain Of Life.
Chains
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.
Real
Thinking
Should Have
If You're Shipwrecked On An Island With 10 Million Dollars And Your Wife Has Gold And Diamonds, But There's No Water, No Arable Land, No Fish, You Have Nothing. Money Is A 'nothing' Thing.
Islands
Water
Wife
The More Intelligent Our Children, The Better Our Lives And The Richer Our Culture Will Be.
Children
Intelligent
Culture
To Be Human Is To Care For Your Fellow Human Beings And Protecting The Environment.
Care
Environment
Humans
Youre A Rich Man, Why Arent You Smart?
Smart
Men
Rich
I Don't Believe In Gods And Devils. I Think It's Man-made Stories To Try And Help People Understand Where All This Came From. They Said 'where Did The World Come From If There's No God', 'where Did Life Come From'. Just Say 'i Don't Know'. Don't Say Some Guy Made A Man And A Woman. You Have No Business Doing That, You Know What I Mean? And Then He Got Mad And Flooded The Whole World; Told Noah To Build An Arc. These Are Terrible Stories.
Business
Believe
Mean
We're Not Sane Enough Yet To Enter Space Until We Learn To Live Together In Peace On Earth.
Space
Together
Earth
The Majority Of The People Of The World Today Are Unsane, Not Insane, Unsane Meaning Having Been Exposed To Methods Of Evaluation That Have Long Rendered Obsolete.
Long
People
Insane
Merely Complaining Without Proposing An Alternative Offers Nothing.
Complaining
Alternatives
Offers
We Must Look At Alternatives Objectively, And Not Try To Fit The Future Into Our Present Social Mould.
Trying
Alternatives
Looks
If You Want Your Children To Relate To The Culture You Live In, If You Want To Train Them Outside Of The General System, You Have To Tell Your Children That Ordinary Children Tend To Say Things Like 'i Can Run Faster Than You; I Can Draw Better Than You; I Know Things You Don't Know'. You Have To Tell Them What Normal Children Are Like. Normal Children Are Messed Up And You Have To Tell Them About That. But If You Instruct Your Child In High Correlation With The Physical World, They Won't Be Able To Relate With Normal Children. Normal Means Mixed Up As I Use The Word.
Running
Children
Mean
Creativity Is Taking Known Elements And Putting Them Together In Unique Ways
Creativity
Unique
Together
If Technology Does Not Liberate All People For The Pursuit Of Higher Aspirations In Human Achievement, Then All Its Technical Potential Will Be Meaningless.
Technology
People
Achievement
If You Make A Movie Of The Present Day Culture, In The Future It'll Be A Horror Film.
Culture
Horror
Film
We Are All Victims Of Culture.
Culture
Victim
Our Problems Are Technical, Not Political
Political
Problem
There Are No Bad People, There Are People With Insufficient Information To Make Appropriate Decisions.
People
Decision
Information
Don't Forget - You're Dealing With Aberrated People. They're Not Responsible For Their Answers. They're Victims Of Culture. That Means They Have Been Influenced By Their Culture.
Mean
People
Culture
So Your Having Trouble With Your Partner. Well Ask Yourself, If You Were In A Relationship With A Replica Of Yourself How Long Would It Last?
Long
Lasts
Trouble
As Man Reaches Out Toward The Twenty-first Century, He Will Learn To Be Suspicious Of All Ideas That Are Not Formulated So That They Can Be Tested By Observation. He Will Realize That The History Of Human Thought Shows That The Ideas Of Which We Are Surest Are The Ones We Most Need To Test. He Will Realize That His Common Sense Only Mirrors His Training And Experience. What Seems Natural And Right To Him Is Usually A Reflection Of The Conditions Under Which He Spent His First Decade Of Life.
Reflection
Men
Ideas
During The Thousands Of Years Of Monetary System, Most Workers Have Been Paid Just Enough To Make It Necessary That They Return To Work, Even When Higher Wages Have Been Possible. How Else Can The Wage-payer Keep The Workers Coming Back?
Years
Return
Wages
The Venus Project Is A Translation Of All Religions: The End Of War, The End Of Poverty, The Brotherhood Of Humanity. If That Isn't Spiritual, Like I've Said Before, I Don't Know What Is.
Spiritual
War
Humanity
If We Really Wish To Put An End To Our Ongoing International And Social Problems We Must Eventually Declare Earth And All Of Its Resources As The Common Heritage Of All The World's People.
People
Wish
Heritage
Take Off All The Masks, Manners, Fancy Clothes, All The Devices You Use, And Be The Most Honest Person You Can Be With Yourself. Then, Whatever Love You Get Then Is Real. All The False Approaches, Like Trying To Be A Player, Only Bring False Results.
Real
Love You
Player
The Venus Project Is Neither Utopian Nor Orwellian, Nor Does It Reflect The Dreams Of Impractical Idealists. Instead, It Presents Attainable Goals Requiring Only The Intelligent Application Of What We Already Know. The Only Limitations Are Those Which We Impose Upon Ourselves.
Dream
Intelligent
Goal
Much Of A Behavior Acceptable Today Would Be Socially Offensive In A Saner Or More Logical Arrangement.
Would Be
Today
Offensive
Learning To Be Flexible In Values Takes A Very Long Time...of Course I Felt A Little Uncomfortable During Questioning The Concept Of God, But Then Reading About The History And Evolution Of Gods. There Were Many Different Gods: The God Of War, The God Of Peace, The God Of Love, Which Was More Like The People That Invented Them. They Behaved, They Got Angry, They Made Sacrifices, They Created Floods When They Didn't Like The Way Things Are Going. This Didn't Come Through As Superior Intelligence.
War
Reading
Sacrifice
When You Think, You Think In Terms Of Your Culture.
Thinking
Culture
Term
Money Is Only Important In A Society When Certain Resources For Survival Must Be Rationed And The People Accept Money As An Exchange Medium For The Scarce Resources. Money Is A Social Convention, An Agreement If You Will. It Is Neither A Natural Resource Nor Does It Represent One. It Is Not Necessary For Survival Unless We Have Been Conditioned To Accept It As Such.
Agreement
People
Survival
We Are Not Taught To Be Thinkers, But Reflectors Of Our Culture. Let's Teach Our Children To Be Thinkers.
Inspirational
Children
Reflection
It’s Your Own Expectations That Hurt You. Not The World You Live In. Whatever Happens In The World Is Real. What You Think Should Happen Is Unreal. So People Are Hurt By Their Expectations. You Know , You’re Not Disappointed By The World, You Are Disappointed By Your Own Projections.
Life
Hurt
Disappointment
War Is The Supreme Failure Of Bridging The Differences Between Nations.
War
Differences
Nations
The Venus Project Presents A Bold, New Direction For Humanity That Entails Nothing Less Than The Total Redesign Of Our Culture.
Humanity
Culture
Venus
The Guys In The Old Days Who Believed The Earth Was Round Must Have Had A Very Rough Time With Academia
Guy
Academia
Earth
Don't Get Mad At Me Cause I Call Something A 'nothing Thing'. I Mean It's Nothing In Terms Of The Majority Of People.... I'm Not That Concerned With My Son. I'm More Concerned With All People. I Look At All People As Brothers And Sisters. I Have No Priority For Members Of The Family.
Brother
Mean
Son
We Must Get Away From This Limited *i Did This And I Did That* And The Self-centeredness, That Dominates Our Society Today. It Must Be A Privilege To Serve Members Of Society. Not That We Want Rewards Or Medals Or Honor For What We Do, Because It Is Just An Honor To Do It, If You Cannot Work For That, Than You Missed The Boat. You Don’t Understand The Teachings Of The Wisest Men Ever Lived.
Teaching
Men
Wisest Man
Instead Of A Pentagon, You Have A Lot Of People That Are Trained In Bridging The Difference Between Nations. The Pentagon Would Serve As An Intermediate Organization To Bridge The Difference Between Cultures.
Bridges
Organization
Differences
Working With Drug Addicts, Alcoholics, And So-called Juvenile Delinquents In New York City Convinced Me That Instead Of Working With Individuals, More Effective Methods Would Deal With The Societal Conditions That Create Dysfunctional Behaviors In The First Place.
New York
Cities
Drug
We Accept, Without Sufficient Consideration, A System That Breeds Inefficiencies And Actually Encourages The Creation Of Shortages.
Creation
Consideration
Accepting
You Can't Participate In Agriculture Or Redesign Of Aircraft For Making Them Safer If You Know Nothing About It. So, Whenever A Person Says 'will I Be Participating In The New World?' Only In Areas That You Can Participate It. Areas That You Have Competence In. I'm Not Talking About Self Confidence, I'm Talking About The Ability To Solve Problems. Electrical, Chemical, Technical. I Don't Know Of Any Other Kind Of Problem.
Self Confidence
Talking
Agriculture
There Is Only A Policeman In Front Of Something You Have Need For And Don't Have Access To, So You Put A Guard There... But If Orange Trees And Apple Trees Grew All Over The Place, You Couldn't Sell Them.
Orange Trees
Apples
Needs
This Is Not A Dictatorship, This Is Based Upon Scientific Evidence To Support A Given Project. If You Want To Put Up A Building, Say Half A Mile High, The Material Has To Be Available. Using Statistics Is Not A Dictatorship. It's A Method Of Getting The Most From Existing Resources.
Support
Half
Want
The Future Is Our Responsibility, But Change Will Not Take Place Until The Majority Loose Confidence In Their Dictator’s And Elected Officials’ Ability To Solve Problems. It Will Likely Take An Economic Catastrophe Resulting In Enormous Human Suffering To Bring About True Social Change.
Responsibility
Suffering
Majority
Your Frame Of Reference Is What You See.
Frame Of Reference
We Have To Learn How Scientists Arrive At Decisions. Once You Use The Scientific Method, It Doesn't Mean That Your Decisions Will Be Perfect. They'll Be Far More Accurate Than Just Opinions.
Mean
Perfect
Decision
Love Is To Stop Making Demands On People And Give Them Room To Grow.
Love Is
People
Giving
There Is No Such Thing As Beauty. If Your Culture Says, 'this Is A Beautiful Girl,' That's Within The Framework Of Your Culture. If You're Brought Up In An Island Where People Have Pointed Heads, That Would Be 'beautiful' In Your Terms. All These Mythological Structures Is What Gets Us Into Trouble; The Artificiality Of Our Values That Get Us Into Trouble.
Beautiful
Girl
Islands
You Can Never Design The Best City, But You Can Design The Best City You Know How To Design At This Time.
Cities
Design
Know How
We're Running Into A Lot Of New Problems Today Because Of What We Emphasize In This Culture. The Word 'success' To The Average Person Means Earning A Lot Of Money And Having A Home, Two Cars, Children In College. Success To Me Is Entirely Different To What Success Is To The Average Person. Success Is Being A Successful Human Being In Terms Of Pursuing What You Believe In. If You Believe In Making Paintings, Writing Poetry, Writing Music. If This Is What You Really Want, You're Successful To Yourself. But To Be Successful To Your Culture Means To Sell Yourself Short Of What You Really Want
Success
Music
Running
Our Customs, Behaviors, And Values Are Byproducts Of Our Culture.
Culture
Behavior
Customs
We Have To Ask Ourselves What Kind Of World We Want To Live In.
World
Want
Kind
As We Begin To Plan For A New Human Society, We Need To Foster Common Values About Clean Air, Water, And Other Elements Of Self-sustenance. These, Along With A Complete Inventory Of Earth's Resources, Will Form The Basis For A Holistic Approach To Cybernated Decision-making.
Air
Self
Water
Science And Education, When Devoid Of A Social Conscience Or Environmental And Human Concern, Are Meaningless.
Environmental
Social
Concern
If You Love Someone And They Want To Leave, You Help Them Pack. That's Love
If You Love Someone
Want
Helping
The Difference Between A Serial Killer And A Saint Is Environment. That's A Very Hard Thing To Accept Because That Raises A Lot Of Questions
Differences
Serial Killer
Saint
Everything That You've Learned: 'make A Lot Of Money, Have A Nice House'. But They Never Teach You At School How To Relate, How To Communicate With Others, How To Share Values With Others. ...they Teach You How To Make A Living. You Become An Optometrist, He Becomes A Physicist, She Becomes A Structural Engineer, He's An Architect. In The Future, None Of That. Everybody Is Trained To Be A Generalist, So They Understand Different Cultures, Different Values, How We Get To Be The Way We Are. So No-one Can Ever Use You For War Or Killing Anybody Or Hurting Anybody
Hurt
War
Nice
As Long As Superstition And Ignorance Prevail, Humanity Will Fall Short Of Eradicating War, Poverty, And Hunger.
War
Fall
Ignorance
If You Think We Can’t Change The World, It Just Means You're Not One Of Those That Will
Mean
Thinking
World
Lack Of Education Turns Soldiers Into Killing Machines.
Soldier
Machines
Killing
The Venus Project Is A Concept That Could Happen Today But It Is Not Up To Me, It Depends On What Others Do To Help Bring It About.
Venus
Today
Helping
And You Can't Find "love" Because In Order To Find "love" You Have To Be Capable Of Dishing It Out. In Order To Be Capable Of Giving "love", Your Own Life Has To Be In Harmony With Everything Else, And That's Not Attainable.
Love You
Love Is
Giving Love
If Orange Trees Grew All Over The Country, You Couldn't Sell Oranges. Do You Understand That? So, All Our Decision Making Is Based Upon Scarcity Or The Availability Of Resources. If We Have A Shortage Of Any Kind Of Resource, We Put All The Labs To Work On Making Substitute Materials. People Always Worry About 'what If We Run Out Of A Certain Material?', But We Have Enough Technology Today To Make Thousands Of Different Substitutes.
Running
Country
Technology
If All Things Keep Changing, How Can You Become Sane?
Sane
All Things
Ifs
People Say That The Monetary System Produces Incentive. This May Be True In Limited Areas, But It Also Produces Greed, Embezzlement, Corruption, Pollution, Jealousy, Anger, Crime, War, Poverty, Tremendous Scarcity, And Unnecessary Human Suffering. You Have To Look At The Entire Picture.
Jealousy
War
Anger
We Have More Than Enough Resources In The World. The Only Thing We Don't Have Is Brains In Washington.
Brain
World
Enough
You Can't Be Conscious Unless You Have Variable Receptors... When People Say The Way I See The World Is The Way It Is - That's Ridiculous. We Can Only See It Depending On The Quality Of Our Receptors And Background.
People
Quality
World
I Don't Want You To Trust Me, I Want You To Question Everything I Say.
Want
Trust Me
I Want You
As Long As You Have War, Police, Prisons, Crime, You Are In The Early Stages Of Civilization.
War
Civilization
Long
In Our Society, We Move People Out Of Government. It's All Operated By Machines, Meaning – Not The People, Just The Products: The Farming, The Agriculture, The Production – It's All Machine-designed And Programming. But It Does Not Program Or Design People. People Are Free To Live Whatever Lifestyle They Want To. If They Hurt Other People, They're Helped – They’re Not Put In Prisons
Hurt
Moving
Government
Politics Was Good A Hundred Years Ago. Today, Politicians Have No Ability To Solve Any Problems Because They Are Not Students Of Behavior. They Are Not Students Of Agriculture, Oceanography - They Know Nothing About The Factors That Operate The World.
Years
Agriculture
World
If You Took The Profit Out Of War, There Would Be No War. What The Hell Do You Think War Is? You Think We Go To Another Country To Bring Democracy? We Go There 'cause There's Oil, Resources Or Something We Need.
Country
War
Thinking
Human Behavior Is Subject To The Same Laws As Any Other Natural Phenomenon. Our Customs, Behaviors, And Values Are Byproducts Of Our Culture. No One Is Born With Greed, Prejudice, Bigotry, Patriotism And Hatred; These Are All Learned Behavior Patterns. If The Environment Is Unaltered, Similar Behavior Will Reoccur.
Nature
Hate
Learning
All The World's People Should Share All The World's Resources.
People
World
Share
Only When Science And Technology Are Used With Human Concern In A World In Which All Of The Earth's Resources Are Held As The Common Heritage Of All Of The Earth's People Can We Truly Say That There Is Intelligent Life On Earth.
Intelligent
Technology
People
No One Is Born With Greed, Prejudice, Bigotry, Patriotism And Hatred; These Are All Learned Behavior Patterns.
Hate
Learning
Hatred
In Our Search For More, We Have Blinded Ourselves To Our Personal Responsibility For Challenging These Absurdities. A Resource-based Society Considers Us All Equal Shareholders Of Earth. We Are Responsible Both For The Planet And For Our Relationship With Each Other.
Responsibility
Challenges
Earth
The Venus Project Is Not About New Cities Or New Architecture. It's About A Way Of Thinking
Thinking
Cities
Venus
The Intelligent Use Of Science And Technology Are The Tools With Which To Achieve A New Direction.
Intelligent
Technology
Tools
We Must Learn To Outgrow Our Egos In Exchange For Constructive Dialogue Rather Than Debate. In Addition, We Must Be Capable Of Stating Problems And Proposing Solutions Clearly And Succinctly, Without Distortion Of Meaning Or Misunderstanding, Even When These Solutions Are Radically Opposed To Accepted Norms.
Ego
Problem
Debate
There's No Way To Design A Society That's Optimal Or Utopian. It's Better Than The One That Was. Systems Always Undergo Change.
Design
Way
Utopian
When Biological Technology Becomes Further Advanced, Human Beings As We Know Them, Will Become A Modified Species. If We As Human Beings Fail To Include The Possibility Of This Development In Our Overall, Social Evolution We Will Witness The Decline Of Our Species
Technology
Development
Evolution
In A Society Where Every Man Works For Himself, Individual Incentive, Working For One's Self. If People Worked For One's Self, There Wouldn't Be The Electric Light, There Wouldn't Be Engines And Powered Vehicles, There Wouldn't Be Electrification And Reservoirs And Water Purification. These Are Processes That Help All People. And Processes That Help Single People Is A Very Primitive Value System Carried Into This Century, Which Is Really Not Necessary.
Men
Light
Self
When They Say All Men Are Created Equal, That Bothers Me. I Told You Some Are Thin, Some Are Heavy, Some Have Better Eyesight Than Others. I Don't Know What That Means. I Think They're Trying To Talk About Equal Opportunity And I Know That Doesn't Exist. If You Don't Have The Money To Go To College, The Word 'equal Opportunities' Mean Nothing
Mean
Opportunity
College
I Was Asked Once,'your A Smart Man,why Arnt You Rich?i Replied 'your A Rich Man,why Arnt You Smart?
Smart
Men
Rich
There Is No Way You Can Think Outside Of Your Culture.
Thinking
Culture
Each System Will Depend On Resources Available, Not From The Bottom Up Or Top Down. In Other Words, If You Put 500 Passengers In An Airplane That's Designed To Carry 100, It Won't Get Off The Ground. So All Decisions Are Made Based Upon The Physical Equipment You're Working With, Or The Environmental Resources Available. They're Not Made By Fresco Or Any Other Person. They're Arrived At By Studies And Research.
Airplane
Top Down
Decision
Most People Don't Put Things Together. Geologists Study The Surface Of The Earth And Geological Phenomena. Meteorogists Study The Weather. That Isn't Science. Science Is The Study Of All Things That Affect Human Beings. They Have To Be Together! A Meteorologist Has Difficulty Talking With A Sociologist, Because They Don't Understand Each Other. You Can't Teach Sciences In 'bits'; You Have To Bring It All Together. Science Is A Way Of Thinking - A Way At Arriving At Conclusions Without Your Own Opinion In It.
Thinking
Talking
Weather
We Talk About Civilization As Though It's A Static State. There Are No Civilized People Yet, It's A Process That's Constantly Going On... As Long As You Have War, Police, Prisons, Crime, You Are In The Early Stages Of Civilization.
War
Civilization
Long
It Is Not Enough To Criticize Society Without Offering A Workable Alternative.
Offering
Alternatives
Enough
Earth Is Abundant With Plentiful Resources. Our Practice Of Rationing Resources Through Monetary Control Is No Longer Relevant And Is Counter-productive To Our Survival.
Practice
Survival
Earth
The Only Hope For Developing A New Civilization Is To Accept Responsibility For Improving Our Lives Through Knowledge, Understanding, And A Deeper Comprehension Of Humanity’s Relationship To Natural Processes Of Evolution. Our Future Is Determined By Effort We Put Forth To Achieve This Transition.
Responsibility
Civilization
Effort
I Am Afraid To Live In The Society We Live In Today. Our Society Cannot Be Maintained By This Type Of Incompetency.
Our Society
Today
Type
You Don't Need To Get Rid Of Religion; You Have To Outgrow The Need For It. In Other Words, Instead Of Hoping For The Good Life, You Make The Good Life.
Hope
Atheist
Good Life
If Your Values Are Not Related To The Earth Or Realistic, You'll Believe In Things That Aren't So, Which Will Hurt You In The Long Run, And As A Species, Too.
Running
Hurt
Believe
The System You're Brought Up Under Tries To Make You Like The People That Succeeded In That System.
People
Trying
Love Is A Fluxuating Thing, Not A Fixed Thing. That's Why We Don't Understand What's Happening.
Love Is
Fixed
Happenings
Architects Are Mostly Self-centered And Their Buildings Express Their Ego. [they Are] Not Social Buildings To Make It More Comfortable For People - To Make Life Better For People. The Cities Have To Be Designed So People Can Get Together And Talk With One Another.
Self
Cities
People
Crime Is Based Upon Need, Making Money. People Sell Drugs To Make Money. But If Everybody Is Cared For, They Don't Sell Drugs And If There's No Money You Can't Sell Drugs Even If You Wanted To. There'd Be No Such Thing As Gambling, Prostitution, Or Selling Out, Or Paying Off A Senator Or A Governor. There Are No Senators, There Are No Governors So You Can't Pay Them Off. If You Take Away The Basis Or The Condition That Generate Abhorrent Behavior, You Don't Have Abhorrent Behavior.
Money
Caring
Gambling
The Way We Use Technology Is Completely Wasteful. We Duplicate Many Vacuum Cleaners, Tools; In The Future We Will Make The Best Of Equipment And Make It Available To Everyone.
Technology
Vacuums
Tools
You Have To Tell Your Children About The World They Live In, About The Discrepancies, About The Things That Don't Work… So You Have To Bring It Up With A Scientific Orientation So They Learn To Ask Questions, And Learn How To Say The Most Difficult Thing In The World: 'i Don't Know'.
Children
World
Difficult
The Majority Of The People Of The World Today Are Unsane, Not Insane, Unsane Meaning Having Been Exposed To Methods Of Evaluation That Have Long Rendered Obsolete, Our Language In The Future Will Change To A Saner Language Where We Have No Argument In It, 'can There Be Such A Language?' There Is, When Engineers Talk To Each Other, It's Not Subject To Interpretation, They Use Math, They Use Descriptive Systems, If I Interpreted What Another Engineer Said In The Way I Think He Meant It: You Couldn't Build Bridges, Dams, Power Transmission Lines. The Language Has To Have Meaning
Math
Thinking
Bridges
War Represents The Supreme Failure Of Nations To Resolve Their Differences. From A Strictly Pragmatic Standpoint, It Is The Most Inefficient Waste Of Lives And Resources Ever Conceived.
War
Differences
Waste
We Will Never Know What Anyone Is Really Like, Until Everyone Has Economic Security And Doesn't Have To Answer To Anyone Else.
Answers
Economic
Security
So, "normal" Is Really What Society Dictates As Normal And If We're Born In That World, We Would See That As Normal. But If You Think About It For A Second, Is It Really?
Real
Thinking
Society
It's Hard In A Monetary System To Trust People.
Trust
Money
People
There's No Such Thing As Designing The Perfect Utopian City. Everything Is Subject To Change. There Are No Final Frontiers.
Cities
Perfect
Design
The Question Is Not Whether There Is Intelligent Life Out There, The Question Is, Whether There Is Intelligent Life Down Here. As Long As You Have War, Police, Prisons, Crime, You Are In The Early Stages Of Civilization.
War
Intelligent
Civilization
A Resource-based Economy Is In The Application Of The Methods Of Science With Human Concern And Environmental Concern. If We Used The Scientific Method Throughout The World, The Probability Of War Drops To Zero. The Probability Of Human Suffering Disappears. Deprivation, Poverty, Crime - All Those Things Tend To Disappear Because There's No Basis. I'm Strictly Concerned With The Environment That People Are Raised In And If That Environment Is Altered, So Will Behaviors Be Altered.
Zero
War
People
War, Poverty, Corruption, Hunger, Misery, Human Suffering Will Not Change In A Monetary System. That Is, There Will Be Very Little Significant Change. It’s Going To Take The Redesign Of Our Culture And Values.
War
Significant Change
Suffering
You Have To Take In The Whole Picture, And Ask, "what Is It You Want? What Kind Of World Do You Want?" So, I Have Drawings Of Different Cities. Those Cities Have An End Goal; They're Not Just Cities. The End Goal Of Those Cities Is To Make Things Relevant To People That They Respond To. There's No Other Way.
Cities
Drawing
Goal
When Education And Resources Are Available To All Without A Price Tag, There Will Be No Limit To The Human Potential.
Education
Price Tag
Limits
I Don't Get Upset If People Think I'm Crazy. If You Go To A Mental Hospital And Someone Calls You A Name, Would You Get Upset? Of Course Not. Well, That's The Way I Think About The World. They Don't Know Any Better.
Crazy
Thinking
Names
When You Live In A False Society, That Bases Its Wealth Upon Money, Then That Society Itself Will Collapse Eventually. Not Because I Say So, Because It's Not Based On Physical Reference.
Wealth
Collapse
Bases
Our Universities Today Are Better Equipped Than Ever, And The Wars Keep Getting Worse.
War
Today
University
Whatever I Decide Will Not Work. It's What People Want That Will Work. So No One Decided Whether You Become A Vegetarian Or Anything Else. What Determines That Is The Availability Of Food. If We Run Out Of Vegetation Due To Floods Or Natural Disasters, People Will Consume Meat And If We Run Out Of Meat They Will Consume Vegetables. I Have No Control Over That. That Would Be Up To People.
Running
Vegetables
Availability
We Live In A World Where Our Social System Is Old, Our Language Is Old, The Way We Acquire Goods And Services Is Outdated, Our Cities Are Detrimental To Our Health, Chaotic And A Tremendous Waste Of Resource, And Most Of All Our Politics And Values No Longer Serve Us.
Health
Cities
Political
People Will Continue To Search For Answers To Universal And Perplexing Problems. But To Find Meaningful Answers, One Must First Know What Questions To Ask.
Meaningful
People
Answers
We Must Stop Constantly Fighting For Human Rights And Equal Justice In An Unjust System, And Start Building A Society Where Equal Rights Are An Integral Part Of The Design.
Integrity
Fighting
Equality
We Can Work Out Anything If We Put Our Mind To It, Study It, Do Hard Work Instead Of Finding Simple Answers
Hard Work
Simple
Work Out
As Long As There Are Prisons, Police, Armies, Navies; We Are Not Civilized. When The Earth Joins Together And Uses The Earth Intelligently, That Will Be The Beginning Of Civilization.
Army
Civilization
Long
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 Minute You Hear ‘freedom’ And ‘democracy’, Watch Out… Because In A Truly Free Nation, No One Has To Tell You You’re Free.
Freedom
Acceptance
Games
There Are No Negro Problems, Or Polish Problems, Or Jewish Problems, Or Greek Problems, Or Women's Problems, There Are Human Problems”.
Greek
Problem
Polish
In A Monetary System, Most Of Us Live Near Our Work With A House, Car, And Lifestyle We Can Afford (or, All Too Often, Cannot Afford), Rather Than The One We Prefer. We Are Only As Free As Our Purchasing Power Permits. Even Many Wealthy People Today Select A Residence Mainly To Impress Others With Their Status. Lacking A True Sense Of Self Worth, Many Live To Impress Others.
Self Worth
Car
People
Perhaps The Most Significant Thing A Person Can Know About Himself Is To Understand His Own System Of Values. Almost Every Thing We Do Is A Reflection Of Our Own Personal Value System. What Do We Mean By Values? Our Values Are What We Want Out Of Life. No One Is Born With A Set Of Values. Except For Our Basic Physiological Needs Such As Air, Water, And Food, Most Of Our Values Are Acquired After Birth.
Mean
Reflection
Air
Every Action And Decision We Take – Or Don’t – Ripples Into The Future. For The First Time We Have The Capability, The Technology, And The Knowledge To Direct These Ripples.
Technology
Decision
Firsts
In The Future, In A Saner System, We Would Design Products Not To Wear Out And Break Down; To Last As Long As Possible, So That The Responsibility Of The Service Sector Would Not Be Overloaded.
Responsibility
Long
Design
I'd Declare All The World's Resources As A Common Heritage Of All The World's People And Get Them To Join And Become One Nation Who Takes Care Of The Environment, The Earth, The Atmosphere. I'd Abolish All Separate Nations Because They Are All Corrupt.
People
Atmosphere
Heritage
Every System Tries To Get People To Conform To Support That System. That Goes For Communism, Socialism, Free Enterprise, Or Any Other Civilization. If They Don't Demand Loyalty, They Can't Keep Their Civilization Together. So What They Do Is They Teach Things That Would Support An Established System. We Do Not Advocate An Established System. Tvp Talks Of An Emergent System Into State Of Change. So That We Always Prepare People For The Next Changes Coming Ahead. So That People Will Not Cling To The Past.
Loyalty
Past
Civilization
I Didn't Want To Teach My Kid How To Read, So I Used To Read To Him At Night And Close The Book At The Most Interesting Part. He Said, “what Happened Then, Daddy?” I Said, “if You Learn To Read, You Can Find Out. I'm Too Tired To Read. I'll Read To You Tomorrow.” So, He Had A Need To Want To Learn How To Read. Don't Teach Children How To Read. Don't Teach Them Mathematics. Give Them A Reason To Want It. In School, They're Working Ass-backwards.
Motivational
Children
Reading
Capitalism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, The Free-market .... What Good Are These Approaches For? These Attempts Are Made By Men Who Are Cerebral Insufficient. I'm Trying To Give You Back Your Brain, Which They Took Away From You In Schools And In Your Upbringing. I'm Trying To Show You How The World Works. So If You Want A Better World, You Have To Get Up Off Your Ass And Make It Better
School
Stupid People
Men
Social Change Cannot Come Above The Intellect, It Comes About By People Suffering. And The More People Are Related To That, The More They Lose Respect For An Existing Government. They Will Seek Another Direction. If There Are Too Many People Who Seek A New Direction, Then The Existing Government Calls Upon The Army And Police To Manage Society – That Is Called Fascism.
Army
Government
People
You Really Don't Want A Job. What You Want Is Access To Those Things You'd Like To Have.
Jobs
Want
What You Want
Self-centeredness Will Bring On The Destruction Of Our World. National Pride Separates People. All People Need The Same Thing. When You Really Get Down To It, You'll Find That All People Need Good Food, Clean Water, Clean Air, And A Decent Environment, Meaning Education As To How To Relate To One Another And To Avoid Conflict, How To Accept The Differences Where Different People Draw Different Conclusions.
Education
Food
Pride
You Don't See The Plug Connected To The Environment, So It Looks Like We're Free, Wandering Around. Take The Oxygen Away, We All Die Immediately. Take Plant Life Away, We Die. And Without The Sun, All The Plants Die. So We Are Connected.
Oxygen
Plant Life
Looks
We Have More Than Enough To Take Care Of Everybody On Earth At This Time. If We Have A Shortage Of Anything, It's Very Easy For Science To Make A Substitute Material. There's No Shortage Of Anything Except Brains In Washington.
Brain
Earth
Care
It's Wrong To Criticize Government Without Offering A Possible Alternative.
Government
Offering
Alternatives
Very Few People Can Communicate With One Another. The Only Language That's Not Subject To Interpretation Is Mathematics, Chemistry, Basic Science, Engineering Principles, And Applied Agriculture. But Other Than That, Many Systems Today Are Subject To Interpretation.
Agriculture
Engineering
People
Politics Is An Obsolete Way Of Doing Things. Although It Was Good A Hundred Years Ago, It Has No Place In Today's High Tech Society.
Years
Today
Way
In My Work, I Am Not Attempting To Predict The Future. I Am Only Pointing Out What Is Possible With The Intelligent Application And Humane Use Of Science And Technology. This Does Not Call For Scientists To Manage Society. What I Suggest Is Applying The Methods Of Science To The Social System For The Benefit Of Human Kind And The Environment.
Intelligent
Technology
Doe
If You Make People Uniform, You Can Control Them. If You Teach People To Read, And Think, And Question Things, You Lose Control. So, The Best Idea Is To Separate People If You Wish To Maintain A Monetary System. It's Called Divide And Conquer. By Dividing People, They're Not A Threat, You Can Control Them.
Reading
Thinking
Ideas
If You Had A Free Society You Couldn't Get People To Go To War, If You Had An Intelligent Type Of Upbringing In Ones Children. They Would Say; There Must Be Many Other Ways Of Solving Problems Other Then Killing People.
Children
War
Intelligent
War Is Not The Only Form Of Violence Imposed On People Through Inadequate Social Arrangements. There Is Also Hunger, Poverty And Scarcity. The Use Of Money And The Creation Of Debt Fosters Economic Insecurity, Which Perpetuates Crime, Lawlessness And Resentment. Paper Proclamations And Treaties Do Not Alter The Facts Of Scarcity And Insecurity, And Nationalism Tends Only To Propagate The Separation Of Nations And The World's People.
War
Hunger Poverty
People
Anthropology Studies Different Cultures; Mainly Primitive, But It Doesn't Think Its Own Culture Is Primitive, Unfortunately. There Is No Field That You Can Study Today That Isn't Trapped In The Culture In Some Way. It's Hard To Escape Your Culture.
Thinking
Different
Culture
If We Are Genuinely Concerned About The Environment And The Fellow Human Beings, And Want To End Territorial Disputes, War, Crime, Poverty, Hunger, And The Other Problems That Confront Us Today, The Intelligent Use Of Science And Technology Are The Tools With Which To Achieve A New Direction – One That Will Serve All People, And Not Just A Select Few.
War
Intelligent
Technology
At The Beginning Of World War Ii The U.s. Had A Mere 600 Or So First-class Fighting Aircraft. We Rapidly Overcame This Short Supply By Turning Out More Than 90,000 Planes A Year. The Question At The Start Of World War Ii Was: Do We Have Enough Funds To Produce The Required Implements Of War? The Answer Was No, We Did Not Have Enough Money, Nor Did We Have Enough Gold; But We Did Have More Than Enough Resources. It Was The Available Resources That Enabled The Us To Achieve The High Production And Efficiency Required To Win The War. Unfortunately This Is Only Considered In Times Of War.
War
Fighting
Winning
What Will Drive People If They Don't Have Money Or Reward? The Reward Is The End Of War, The End Of Poverty, Most Crime, And The End Of Begging For Medical Care. Everyone Will Be Cared For And Educated. There Will Be No Taxation, And No Advantage Group. No Technical Elitism, Or Any Other Kind Of Elitism. If That Isn't Incentive Enough, Then I Don't Know What Is.
War
People
Groups
We Have The Technology To Build A Global Paradise On Earth, And At The Same Time, We Have The Power To End Life As We Know It. I Am A Futurist. I Cannot Predict The Actual Future - Only What It Can Be If We Manage The Earth And Its Resources Intelligently.
Technology
Paradise On Earth
Ends
If You Remain Conventional And Don't Change, You'll Get Along. You'll Get Along In The Limited Forms Of Insanity That Exist Out There. You'll Never Be Able To Keep A Marriage Together, You'll Never Be Able To Keep Anything Together, Because The Whole Goddamn Thing Isn't Together.
Insanity
Together
Able
Laws Do Not Stop Crime; They Merely Make Noise About Crime. They Say 'don't Take Anything That Doesn't Belong To You'. Well, That Doesn't Do Anything.
Law
Noise
Crime
The Entire Money Structure And Materialistic Society Is A False Society.
Materialistic
Structure
Let's Teach Our Children To Be Thinkers.
Children
Teach
Thinker
If Our System Continues Without Modification Involving Environmental And Social Concern, We Will Face An Economic And Social Break Down.
Environmental
Faces
Breaking Down
Truly Free People Do Not Need To Be Told They Are Free.
People
Needs
It's Hard To Be Decent In A Money World. We Want To Shut Down All Repetitious Jobs, Automate It, Free People.
Jobs
People
World
There Are No Good Or Bad People, Humans Are Shaped By Culture.
People
Culture
Humans
Nicola Tesla Didn't Say, 'i Have To Make Wireless Electricity!' The Brain Does Not Work That Way.
Brain
Electricity
Notions Of Good And Evil Depend Entirely On Social Context. It Is Not That People Are Good Or Bad, They Are Raised In An Aberrant Or Twisted Environment.
People
Evil
Environment
Man, In The Collective Sense, Is The Hero Of Science. Man, In The Collective Sense, Is The Hero Of Earth.
Hero
Men
Earth
I Asked Myself, 'how Are You Going To Change All These People, They Have Different Values, Different Customs, Different Language, Different Interpretations?' So That’s The Time I Joined The Ku Klux Klan In Miami. The Reason I Joined Is To See If I Could Change Them. So I Dissolved That Organization In A Month-and-a-half, Alone. [applause] Then I Joined The White Citizen Council. The Wcc Hates Foreigners – All Foreigners. So I Joined That Organization; I Dissolved It In One Month.
Hate
Organization
Ku Klux Klan
The Social Designs That Are Proposed In [the Venus Project] Merely Provide The Opportunity For Individuals To Develop Their Fullest Potential In Whatever Endeavor They Choose Without The Fear Of Loss Of Individuality Or Submission To Uniformity.
Loss
Opportunity
Design
Wiser, Never Wise. Smarter, Never Smart.
Wise
Smart
Wiser
I Have No Notions Of A Perfect Society, I Don’t Know What That Means. I Know We Can Do Much Better Than What We’ve Got, I’m No Utopian, I’m Not A Humanist That Would Like To See Everybody Living In Warmth And Harmony: I Know That If We Don’t Live That Way, We’ll Kill Each Other And Destroy The Earth.
Mean
Perfect
Earth
Living Through The 1929 Great Depression Helped Shape My Social Conscience. During This Time, I Realized The Earth Was Still The Same Place, Manufacturing Plants Were Still Intact, And Resources Were Still There, But People Didn’t Have Money To Buy The Products. I Felt The Rules Of The Game We Play By Were Outmoded And Damaging. This Began A Life-long Quest Resulting In The Conclusions And Designs Presented In The Venus Project.
Games
Play
Long
We Could Either Develop Paradise On Earth Or Oblivion; Wipe Ourselves Out, Only The Future Will Tell. It's What You Do To Make The Future.
Paradise On Earth
Wipe
Oblivion
We Found Out That You Can't Pass On Acquired Things Like Bigotry, Prejudice, Greed. That's All Learned In Your Culture Or Your Sub-culture
Greed
Prejudice
Culture
You Cannot Approach People Who Think Differently With Reason And Logic If They Don't Know What That Means. First, You Have To Appeal To Their Values To Start With. If You Attack Them, You Lose Them.
Mean
Thinking
People
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