The Venus Project / Zeitgeist Movement & Lojban
tijlan
money-free global sustainable society based around the principles of
energy efficiency and scientific management of natural resources.
Advanced technology and automation will be its crucial aspect.
Human-machine communication will be an everyday activity for the
inhabitants.
The project has been popularized by Peter Joseph's film series,
Zeitgeist. Joseph stresses that education and critical thinking skills
are keys to the development of the resource-based economy that will be
the systemic core of the proposed society. It will be essential for
the people to have a clear grasp of what they need and what resources
are available when and where, to have the attitude to think
unambiguously about the demand and supply in their environment.
That is a controversial idea, and I do not intend to argue for its
feasibility here. Nonetheless, its philosophy seems to resonate with
Lojban's. Were it to succeed, how would the Lojban community be
involved? Will there be a need for a language like Lojban for the
purposes of human-machine communication, critical thinking, etc., or
will the advanced technology be enough to make the things easier for
the people?
More about the machine-led resource management:
http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/technology/city-systems
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
(from 1:30:00)
mu'o
Matt Arnold
feasible. It seems to me that any answers to your questions, if they
do not take feasibility into account, would be only so much noise.
You say its philosophy seems to resonate with Lojban's. Does Lojban
have a philosophy (other than language design)? If so, what do you see
that philosophy to be?
I believe you are taking a philosophy about how to design a boutique
experimental language for fun, and inferring from that a philosophy
about people and the world. That is a mistaken inference, in my view.
I have been involved in Lojban for almost a decade, and have seen many
Lojbanists with different motivations and goals. Very few of them have
anything to do with global communication, or convincing entire
populations to use Lojban. For the most part, it's a hobby.
Your description of the Venus Project lists many desirable goals,
which most mainstream movements already embrace at least with lip
service. But you list no political proposals with which to reach them.
All problems and all solutions are political. Who gets to make
decisions for society? How are those people chosen? How are their
qualifications determined? If machines make the decisions, who gets to
decide the design of those machines? No scientific or technological
change can be implemented without convincing people in some way. We
already have all the resources we need, so long as we can persuade
billions of people to implement them. How does the Venus Project
accomplish that? All problems on a global scale are political, not
scientific or technological. Without these political strategies, we
don't even know what we are discussing.
-Eppcott
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