The Venus Project is an organization
that proposes a feasible plan of action for social change, one that
works towards a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. It
outlines an alternative to strive toward where human rights are no
longer paper proclamations but a way of life.
When one considers the enormity of the
challenges facing society today, we can safely conclude that the time
is long overdue for us to re-examine our values and to reflect upon
and evaluate some of the underlying issues and assumptions we have as
a society. This self-analysis calls into question the very nature of
what it means to be human, what it means to be a member of a
"civilization," and what choices we can make today to
ensure a prosperous future for all the world's people.
At present we are left with very few
alternatives. The answers of yesterday are no longer relevant. Either
we continue as we have been with our outmoded social customs and
habits of thought, in which case our future will be threatened, or we
can apply a more appropriate set of values that are relevant to an
emergent society.
Experience tells us that human behavior
can be modified, either toward constructive or destructive activity.
This is what The Venus Project is all about - directing our
technology and resources toward the positive, for the maximum benefit
of people and planet, and seeking out new ways of thinking and living
that emphasize and celebrate the vast potential of the human spirit.
We have the tools at hand to design and build a future that is worthy
of the human potential. The Venus Project presents a bold, new
direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total
redesign of our culture. What follows is not an attempt to predict
what will be done, only what could be done. The responsibility for
our future is in our hands, and depends on the decisions that we make
today. The greatest resource that is available today is our own
ingenuity.
While social reformers and think tanks
formulate strategies that treat only superficial symptoms, without
touching the basic social operation, The Venus Project approaches
these problems somewhat differently. We feel we cannot eliminate
these problems within the framework of the present political and
monetary establishment. It would take too many years to accomplish
any significant change. Most likely they would be watered down and
thinned out to such an extent that the changes would be
indistinguishable.
The Venus Project advocates an
alternative vision for a sustainable new world civilization unlike
any social system that has gone before. Although this description is
highly condensed, it is based upon years of study and experimental
research by many, many people from many scientific disciplines.
We propose a fresh, holistic approach -
one that is dedicated to human and environmental concerns. It is an
attainable vision of a bright and better future, one that is
appropriate to the times in which we live, and both practical and
feasible for a positive future for all the world's people.
The Venus Project calls for a
straightforward approach to the redesign of a culture, in which the
age-old inadequacies of war, poverty, hunger, debt, environmental
degradation and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as
avoidable, but totally unacceptable.
One of the basic premises of The Venus
Project is that we work towards having all of the Earth's resources
as the common heritage of all the world's people. Anything less will
simply result in a continuation of the same catalog of problems
inherent in the present system.
Throughout history, change has been
slow. Successive groups of incompetent leaders have replaced those
that preceded them, but the underlying social and economic problems
remain because the basic value systems have gone unaltered. The
problems we are faced with today cannot be solved politically or
financially because they are highly technical in nature. There may
not even be enough money available to pay for the required changes,
but there are more than enough resources. This is why The Venus
Project advocates the transition from a monetary-based society to the
eventual realization of a resource-based global economy.
We realize to make the transition from
our present culture, which is politically incompetent,
scarcity-oriented and obsolete, to this new, more humane society will
require a quantum leap in both thought and action.
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