You know the standardized opening chapter about the history of internet in virtually every book about the Internet ever printed? You think You know the ARPANET story? Ooooooooooh,sooo booooooooring. So watch this video and find out at last how it really happened.
The Fantastic Worlds of Jacque Fresco
Even-thou you may think, that the modular tower on the picture above is looking like from another planet, it is not the planet Venus which gave name to the Venus project. It is actually Venus, Florida. A 21.5-acre research center from where the Venus Project NGO operates. I came across the “Future by Design” movie on YouTube a two weeks ago and I became fascinated. First I thought that Jacques Frescos work (American Futurologist,Philosopher and Architect Jacque Fresco is the Mastermind behind the whole project) is just a futuristic architectural and designer vision and somehow I lacked the political dimension of the whole endeavour, but the more I investigate the more I believe, that the Venus project has something to offer. Not only a viable scientific alternative to the outdated technological processes used by most of the industry and society as whole today, but also an economical alternative to our chronically ill monetary economic system.
As soon as I found out, that the Venus project is also behind the popular “Zeitgeist” documentary, there was no doubt that Mr.Fresco does have a clear vision on “How to move from our collapsing monetary economy to his Utopian alternative”.
I also find out that there is a second part of the movie “Zeitgeist:Addendum”, which features some interviews with Fresco himself. You can find both of those movies in my documentary section.
Personally I find the political and sociological dimension of the Venus Project a bit underestimated, (I am not satisfied with the claim that political leadership will be not necessary in resource-based, high-tech, cybernated and automated society) but I’m pretty sure that there is a lot more happening behind the curtain, than you can learn from the official website. And as the documentary started a whole movement already, there is a door open for further development of the general ideas of resource-based economy proposed by the project. I am definitely sympathetic with the idea of all resources available for everybody, but it looks too much like communism for me. And as I grew up in communist country I know that the corruption will always find its ways. In other words; We can be all equal, but some will be always more equal than the others. I think that the idea of completely getting rid of the monetary system is a bit obsolete and too much utopian, and that we shut better look for some transitional hybrid economy. Where Frescian resource-based cities and communities, still produce and trade with the outside “old” world on basis of state controlled currencies. Some other forms of alternative currencies could be also developed on the way.
I am also not very sympathetic with Frescos vision of religion. If you embark on such a monumental journey as Jacque Fresco did with his Venus Project, you would be better off looking for allies rather than for enemies. Even-thou I agree with the bottom-line and with the statement that religion is false, I can see no problem why should religious communities not prosper in Frescos futuristic cities.
Check the links on the bottom of this article and enter into the brave new world of Mr.Jacque Fresco, as he truly is a present day DaVinci.
http://www.thevenusproject.com
http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/DesigningtheFuture.pdf
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacque_Fresco
You can also check this Facebook groups devoted to Zeitgeist movement promotion:
ZEITGEIST-DOCUMENTARY OF LIFETIME
No not really. It may look like the end of it for the rest of us, but there is no end to the Gaza conflict for the Israelis and for the Palestinians. In my previous articles I asked “What will be the consequences for Israel for its actions ?” and I have to sadly answer my own question with “It looks like there will be none.”
The International community is staying divided and so are the Arab countries. With only Syria,Iran and Qatar taking a hard stand. So not really much change to the situation before the Israeli 22 days long massacre. The European leaders are quietly waiting for the new American policy of Mr.Obamas administration. And Mr.Obamas “It will be the first thing I will do after I take the office”, turns into first thing he promised to do and he didn’t. Well, it looks like Israelis picked a very good moment for their “final solution”. There is no doubt that the timing of the offensive during the Mr. Bushes long good bye and Mr.Obamas long Hello was not purely accidental.
So the only real outcome of Israeli offensive are more than 1000 victims of the conflict. Hamas is staying more or less untouched. Keeping the control over the Gaza and probably with more support than ever before. The main official objective of the offensive, to stop the Hamas launching the rockets on Israeli (?) ground was an absolute failure. With more than 40 Palestinian rockets falling on Israel on Saturday,the last day of the offensive.
So no victory and no solution for non of the participants. Just hundreds of innocent victims and a big loss for international community and the UN closing their eyes . It may be looking like the conflict is over (as the “reality show” of News Channels is), but it should not be over for us, if we want to live in the world ruled by the law and order and not by the dictation of “rogue” states, that are having more power over our own governments than the UN itself.
The Israeli offensive is over, but I hope the overall public disillusion with Israeli actions is not, and that finally there will be consequences.
As a part of my blogging endeavour I’m adding a comprehensive collection of documentary movies to my blog. The collection is covering such variety of topics as politics, society, new web 2.0 technologies and services, social initiatives, human rights violations etc.
But there is one feature of this videos, that they all have in common. You will not see them on your local channel! Or at-least; “You will not see this kind of content on commercial TV as much as it is necessary (Considering the dumb state of today’s youth for example)”. Don’t you have a feeling sometimes, that there is someone up-there who just want to keep you stupid and uninformed? That when you are watching the evening news they are misinforming you instead of informing you. There is no doubt that the “Phat” media tycoons are hiding something from all of us. I just hope we are on the way to change the course of moral decadence and citizen passivity caused by the mainstream TV channels and all different forms of harmful media.
As I’m surfing the web looking for still more good docus to fit in to my blog, sometimes I come across a site that just stands out of the crowd. Documentary-log.com surely is one of those sites. A nice collection of free-to-watch-online documentary movies divided into topic categories. Some of those movies will definitely find a way in to my own collection, but as I have no intention to copy the mentioned site here is the link. Educate yourself with … www.documentary-log.com
“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”
Oscar Wilde
When I was starting my blog a month ago I was pretty sure what is it going to be about. I was going around the idea for years, but only few weeks ago I got the concept right to start with actual writing and pulling the content together. Without any doubt, there is still a long way to go for me. In the moment I am trying to add some valuable content to my blog; like links to existing sites and Web 2.0 services, that I believe have (or could have) a positive influence on our understanding of global society and consequently on our actions. As I am too concentrated to work on this kind of content in the moment I somehow omitted one of my initial ideas. To write about those intentional communities all around the world that tried, with less or more success, to construct a small living utopias in our bad-bad world already. That’s why it’s nice to see that somebody did at-least part of that job for me.
So if you came on my site looking for that kind of information do not hesitate and follow the link at the bottom of this article. Chris Coates’ website “Utopia Britannica” reveals around his book of the same name and it is a great resource on Utopian experiments and communities that emerged during the curse of the history on British Isles, but also on more general issues concerning the concepts of Utopia.
Don’t miss the comprehensive “further reading” section and links to existing on-line forums and initiatives.
Thanks Chris. You’ve done a good job
http://www.utopia-britannica.org.uk/
To answer that question in one simple sentence, “Biomimicry is the Future!” Biomicry is a science that studies the sustainable models, processes and systems of mother nature to get inspiration for sustainable solutions of our own technological problems. A simple but very powerfull idea that changes the way we think about many other fields of science and engineering.
The term itself has been made popular by Janine M.Benuous in her book “Biomimicry:Innovation Inspired by Nature” and it comes from greek words “bios=life” and “mimesis=imitate”.
Some good examples of the biomimicry can be found in this slideshow from TreeHugger.com Click to start the slideshow in new window
You can also find out more about Biomimicry by visiting “The Biomimicry Institute” website here
or by watching this fantastic lecture of Janine on the TED conference
Al Jazeera launched an experimental website based on Ushahidi platform to track and aggregate information, about the Gaza conflict. Ushahidi is a cross-platform mash-up that allows to aggregate geotagged information via sms, e-mail,twitter and web-forms and position it in Microsoft Virtual Earth. Ushahidi is an open-source initiative started by Kenyan bloggers during the escalation of violence in Kenya and it was also successfully deployed in conflict in DR Congo.
I was looking for this kind of platform for a long time, as it not only allows to position the aggregated information on the map, but also in timeline and it generates news categories. I’m only a bit disappointed about the circumstances. This kind of platforms are definitely a way forward to a new breed of citizen journalism and activism and can be used to support many different causes.
I would like to see a facebook plug-in developed in the future and mash-up the service further with facebook groups.This would allow not only to track the real-time-real-place information on ground of the conflict, but for example also to organize the protests around the world as well.
Check the AlJazeeras War On Gaza service here
or go directly to Ushahidi.com to find out more about the platform. Click here
From sustainable skyscrapers to floating cities and colonies in the skies.
Utopia as far as the eye can see.
How is the architecture of the future going to look like? Are we going to build cities underwater like in the sci-fi TV series Seaquest, or we are going to completely destroy our natural environment like people of the future did in Ridley Scotts Blade Runner and Luc Bessons 5th Element. Maby (probably) we will finish with something like the futuristic world of the movie Minority Report, with gigantic vertical cities connected through a network of advanced transportation systems. Only the future will show! Here are some examples of future architecture that you can see around the world already today (or very soon). As I tend to think positive I deliberately omitted those that would probably take us to the Blade Runner alternative.
Picture by Jacque Fresco
Green Towers
As our over-populated mega-cities grow to ever bigger scales, we need to look for viable solutions to bring mother nature back to our environment. One of the possible solution would be sustainable skyscrapers.Capable to harvest water, heat, energy and agricultural products and creating a basis for new breed of society, less dependent on outsourced food production and goods transportation. Some examples of such approach are already a reality:
Solair
Standing at 20 River Terrace in New York, these two buildings can hardly aspire to be called a skyscraper, with just 27 floors. But they could be called like that elsewhere. The building is consuming just half of drinkwater usualy consumed by a building of this scale and its cutting down 35 % from its energy consumption (65% in peak hours) . Both buildings feature a green roof planted using a special soil medium called “So-lite”. There are also some mirrors installed on top of the buidings to reflect the sunlight into the nearby park surrounded by tall buildings.
Vertical Farming
Vertical farms could be a solution to our ever greater demand for agricultural land and create a pleasant oxigene rich atmosphere in our buildings.
Tour Vivante
This project of atelier SoA is the best example of the Vertical Farm. Described as a “autonomous ecological machine” the tower will be able to produce great amounts of fruit, recycle waste-water and cover a part of electricity demand of the building by employing two wind turbines on the roof.
Artificial Islands
Building artificial islands, like those in the city of Dubai may not sound like the best green idea, but in this particular case, there was no natural habitat destroyed. The Dubai desert continues underwater on the bottom of the sea. This kind of developments may protect the natural beaches elsewhere and it simply looks cool.
Underwater Cities
Yes,we are almost there. The first underwater hotel resorts are already in construction in Dubai, Turkey and offshore England. I wonder if I will be ever able to afford them.
Poseidon Underwater Hotel
Hydropolis
Earthships
There have been a lot written about this organic structures made of recycled materials like cans, bottles and recycled tyres dumped with dirt. Both good and bad. Some may argue, that this is not the best way to recycle the materials and that there are better and more environmentally friendly building materials available on the market, but I still think that this may be a great environmentally friendly solution to deal with poverty and homelessness. From slams of Manila and Brazil to the gypsy-camps of Eastern Europe, this kind of low cost architecture can be successfully deployed. There have been some reports of people actually getting sick, due to the materials used on the construction, but I believe earthships are still way too much healthier and environmentally friendly that the current alternatives on places I mentioned above.
Postmodernism
Such amazing postmodern structures as Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao are completely transcending the mere functionality and creating a deep symbolism and sense of transformation and regeneration in our urban developments. I use to be a Guggenheim employee and I can assure you that you can hardly call it a green development, but there is no doubt about its positive influence on the economy and culture of the town and the entire region.
Floating Cities
This may be one of the constructions, that we will probably not see in our lifetimes. But they are looking just beautiful, doesn’t they? What a shame that we are spending our money to finance wars a manufacture weapons, rather that constructing places like this one.
lilypad floating city
Living Houses
Ok, once this thing gets on the market I’m going after it! What a wonderful sensation to live in the house, that actually breath and grows. This idea is just lovely. And it is so much better to let our homes to grow their own roots, instead of stuffing the ground with tons of concrete. My girlfriend would probably object, that she don’t want to live as a squirrel and there would be probably some insects problems in the house, but I would still love to own one of those.
Find out more about Fab Tree Hub on Inhabitat.com.Great Article and Video. Click
High in the Branches
These wonderful structures may be a way to coexist with natural habitats, rather than destroying them. I imagine whole cities build in that way; Reconstructing and regrowing post-industrial landscapes instead of attacking existing habitats. A new breed of human populated forests. A modern mans return to the tomb of mother nature. OMG, why do I have to wake up every morning in that square box I’m living in?
Solar Towers & Co.
Appart of a nice place to live we also need the energy to power up our consumerist way of life. This solar towers outside of the city of Sevilla in Spain are just looking so sci-fi fantastic. One tower is already standing and another six are to follow. This will make Sevilla the first city completely powered by green energy. I think I’m up for a trip very soon!
Outworlders
And finally; The final frontier. So this is what we are definitely not going to see in our lifetimes. Way too expensive for our greedy and blood thirsty species. Even-thou, maby there will appear some marvellous technology in the near future, that will change everything. Never stop hoping.
As the body count of the Israeli operation in Gaza grows we have to start asking, “What will be consequences for Israel for his brutal violation of human rights and international law?” Is this conflict going to be forgotten, like all the previous Israeli operations against the Palestinian population? Is the state of Israel going to annex another small piece of Palestinian territory, without the following intervention of UN? Are the Zionists going to postpone the peace process leading to two state solution for another generation ? Exterminating not only their blood enemies on the other side of the Gaza frontier, but also their biggest enemy: “The rule of international law!”
As I’m going through the many on-line articles and forums , I am being (not so) surprised by the sheer scale of public support for the Palestinians. Even after the constant brainwash policy of ” War on Terror ” that has been put in effect by most “Westworld” mass-media and the general subsequent anti-muslim and anti-arab moods, there is no doubt that the support of the world public is today with the Palestinians. You really have to fuck-up hard to achieve this kind of results in the current socio-political climate and it is exactly what Israelis achieved! A total loss of support for their causes on international scale!
I am far from describing myself an antisemitic, as I am coming from a part of the world that was hit very hard by the Holocaust and the Nazi rule. I grew up listening to the stories of my grandmother, about her Jewish friends that were one day concentrated on the main square of our small-town and stuffed in the stock wagons to never return back. The tragedy of the Jewish nation is without any doubt the biggest humanitarian catastrophe ever, and I do not blame the early Israeli settlers that they refused to return to their old neighbours, after what they’ve done to them. But I always believed that Israel was the first big mistake of United Nations,as it was imposed on the Palestinians by the very international community that than failed to protect them from their new rulers. The history of Israel is a History of the suffering of Palestinian people and current events are only an evidence of that claim.
The State of Israel has been created as a safe-heaven for the Jewish Diaspora which have been afraid of another Holocaust after WWII, but Israels claims on “right to defend themselves” are just sounding so inappropriate today. After bombing thousands of innocent Palestinian citizens and killing hundreds, after targeting UN compounds and suppressing the freedom of press, after violating tens of international agreements; “Israel has never been closer to an absolute catastrophe and the security of it’s citizens has never been compromised in the same way as it is today.”
For every Hamas terrorist killed during the operation (and for every innocent citizen), five new will grow. Israel surrounded by millions of his enemies will now face bigger danger than ever. Not due to the international antisemitism, but due to its own actions. The eventual short term security improvements for Israeli citizens will be very soon outgrown by the long term consequences of these actions. The Gaza attacks are water on mills and a blessing for terrorist recruiters, not only in Palestine but elsewhere and they are a complete disaster for moderate Muslim leaders.
The only way to reverse a very unfortunate fate for Israel and a sad legacy of its actions for the rest of us is to impose the Palestinian State on Israel, the same way as the Israel was imposed on Palestine. It is the only way to restore the UN credibility as well. Israel is playing a lot these days. Undermining the credibility of the very organization separating it from its terrorist roots (Lehi) and giving it a legal right to exist.
I just hope the pace of the international politics will finally turn around and this will be the last fiasco of UN, which managed to completely destabilize the international politics with the Kosovo’s doubtful independence and the subsequent Russian actions in Georgia. I just hope we will soon remember about the Raison d’être of the organization called UNITED NATIONS and about the circumstances of its creation.
Utopia Crowd Blog