www.worldchanging.com

In his book, Pale Blue Dot, Sagan wrote:

“While almost everyone is taught that the Earth is a sphere with all of us somehow glued to it by gravity, the reality of our circumstance did not really begin to sink in until the famous frame-filling Apollo photograph of the whole Earth — the one taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts on the last journey of humans to the Moon.”

In a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996, Sagan related his thoughts on the deeper meaning of the photograph:

(Parts of this article are taken from Wikipedia)

It all started with a groundbreaking book of Marshal T.Savage “The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps”,which marked the beginning of the first “Millennial Project”. The Millennial Project (TMP)  is a comprehensive plan for space development, beginning with the terrestrial cultivation of an environmentally sustainable civilization and Post-Industrial culture and culminating, far in the future, in the colonization of our immediate stellar neighborhood. The book itself was by far the most comprehensive study of all the requirements necessary to begin with a real colonization of  space by then.  And it still is one of the most inspiring reading concerning the subject out-there. TMP does no only consider technological blueprints of  the actual space-fares and space habitats as it was done by then by most of the “space programmes”. Rather than that it is considering  all the socio-political and cultural aspects of such an endeavour.

Savage proposed to build sustainable floating cities on sea, that could serve as a massive training centers for future space colonists.A foundation to accomplish this mighty goal was established.

“Foundation is the starting phase of the The Millennial Project. It’s objective is to establish a social and economic infrastructure upon which subsequent phases are based by communicating TMPs vision of the future to the global society, rallying those inspired by it to concerted action, developing the financial and industrial systems needed to accomplish it, and establishing the initial physical communities and facilities to host them. It is also the starting point of a cultural transformation intended to evolve the current dominant western culture and civilization into something more functionally suited to the concerted development of space and a more sustainable way of life on Earth.”

But the first Millennial Project was based on building sustainable habitats on sea shores first. The project developers found themselves competing with the leisure industry developers for the most expensive estate on earth and the programme eventually failed. Abandoned by Savage himself.

The Second Phase

The TMP2 project is  a project of the Living Universe Foundation community to continually update and revise the content of the original plan as described by Marshal T. Savage in his book The Millennial Project. It is based on foundations Wiki and I think this is exactly what Wikis should be about. A massive collaboration environment to achieve complex goals. I think the Wiki is not very populated in the moment, but with a little promotion it can change in the close future. So we’ve build the encyclopedia and now we have to colonize the space.Check the link and find out more on:  TMP 2.0

Link to “The Trap” documentary film

The 2nd  chapter’s title “Lonely Robot”, just cannot be more accurate. I instantly remembered about a short movie I saw on Youtube time ago.

Android 207.

Isn’t that funny that you can remember about little android lost in the labyrinth, while watching a documentary about actual (very recent) political and social events.

Something must be wrong no?  I am not an android. Are  You?

Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer is not trying to reach into a far future and we can painfully see the accusations (of) and hidden messages to our present society.

I just can’t wait to put my eyes on this-one.

Official Site

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:

THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT

ZEITGEIST-DOCUMENTARY OF LIFETIME

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