Skeptic Project

Telling someone to "go away" means you have no interest in what they're saying. Which means you don't view them as equals at all.

I have no problem admitting that I don't consider you an intellectual equal, but then again I'm honest about it.

> quite simply we live in a monetary system and we dont have money to buy the
> land. simple as that.

Thats a fair comment, land is often in many places very expensive.

It took me a while to find cheap land myself.

I've found some!

Its around £250 an acre. (I hear land in Brazil is far far cheaper, about what was it now, £10 an acre.) But as I live in the UK, I'll go with the more expensive UK land to start with.

If you are in the US, there is even free land available I hear :-)

http://www.kansasfreeland.com

I'll try to be nice here, but do you see how this debate thing works, someone mentions a problem, someone mentions a solution.

Then what is supposed to happen is that solution gets put into practice, more problems are put on the table and we repeat, progress is made in the human race and people become happier!

Fresco owns plenty of land. Why are the buildings located there powered by conventional energy? Why are there no vegetable gardens? Why are there only two people living on a vast acreage of property?

What is that land doing but sitting there looking valuable? Sounds like wasteful capitalism to me.

Any feedback on my flyer? I want to improve it and print out another batch. :)

> anticultist posted that, not Nanos.

One of the problems with forums lacking threading, it can be hard to figure out who said what to who.

> @nanos - its a general number, an estimate, but there need to
> be enough people that reject the current system in order for
> it to fail.

Its a fair point you make there.

(I would argue that we already have that and more people available right now to as you say, reject the current system, there is no need to wait..)

> @ Nanos that is not the TVP city so no it not built already

True, but I imagine you'd agree its better than many other current communities yes ?

For example, its ecological footprint is half the UK average..

http://www.heraldscotland.com/findhorn-eco-footprint-is-world-s-smallest-1.827780</p>

So, its a step in the right direction yes ?

Imagine if we built those now, we would be moving towards being able to build a TVP city in the future would we not ?

Rather than putting up with what we have now ? (Which for many is being homeless..)

> Land is only one of many initial costs.

Oh I agree there!

So, what else do we need money for ?

> enough people need to be on board with the movement or its
> likely that capitalists will have the power to try and prevent
> the city from being built.

Thats assuming the capitalists are against the idea..

I think they would be for it myself!

Why, well, I like to think of it like this, with lots of poor people around at the moment, its hard for them to buy goods. But, build a community for them, where housing is cheaper, they have jobs, why they can afford to buy things then!

All sounds good to me/them..

The capitalists didn't stop Findhorn did they ?

Nor are they stopping the likes of this eco-community being built either..

http://www.davidlock.com/weardale2/news.html</p>

I quite agree we need more money, and saving money is a good way of having more of it later on, building our own communities now, would save us money long term.

And, going industrial, building wealth, would see us have even more money to spend building the future.

@ Nanos indeed I do agree its a step in the right direction.

All. Powered. By. Conventional. Energy.

So woopie do.

well, you said we didnt build a single house - which is false. Jacques and Roxanne dont have the resources to build a solar grid. geesh.

yes, the houses arent perfect. we have a lot of work to do once we get enough support.

resources are not abundant, and they are made scarce by the monetary and capitalist system.

In fact, I remember a video of Fresco watering his lawn.

He has all this time to water his lawn, but not water a vegetable garden. He is in fact wasting a precious resource to make his land look pretty.

This ain't about solar panels.

so you think Jacques is a liar and actually doesnt care about sustainability?

(YOU ARE A CONSPIRACY THEORIST MATT)

resources will be abundant once we declare them all common heritage of all the people. right now, no, they are not because people use physical force (fences, walls, guards) to protect resources.

There are thousands of people who live in normal homes that care about sustainability. to say that just because Jacques lives in a pseudo-sustainable home means he doesnt care about sustainability is foolish.

> Fresco owns plenty of land. Why are the buildings located there > powered by conventional energy?

Now I did get to ask that question, from what I could gather, the answer is they cannot afford to invest in a better solution. (Which is why I suggested we all help them get off the grid, and then we can help the rest of us too..)

> Why are there no vegetable gardens?

Good question that one..

> Why are there only two people living on a vast acreage of property?

Well, thats also a good question too..

From what I know, and its very little, they do have a few more people staying there, even VTV was invited to go and live there I heard.

People do turn up at the doorstep and want to help, but I hear they get turned away..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Zeitgeist_Movement

> 2. The Venus Project is a think tank type organization, they do
> not have the capacity, nor do they seem to want the capacity, to
> take action. This is from my own experience contacting Roxanne
> Meadows and conversing with her over a period of 6 months, showing
> up at their research facility in Florida offering free labor from
> myself and 3 other people, and then being turned away. Roxanne and
> Jacque both told me in person during a tour that the primary goal
> of the venus project right now (as of 6/13/10) was to produce a
> feature film targeting audiences that the documentaries missed.
> These films are really great, but again, the movement is preaching
> about action, and all that seems to be happening is talk.

Now I can actually understand the problem here, I know other people who have land and housing, and want people to go and help them, but without people having paid jobs, whose going pay for their food and electric/etc.

So its not easy to just take anyone showing up..

Which is why its important as a first step to help folk get jobs, ideally teleworking jobs they can take with them when they move, as then it would be easier to get these things moving.

> What is that land doing but sitting there looking valuable?
> Sounds like wasteful capitalism to me.

Indeed.

(I did suggest some time ago, that they use the land to house people in tents, web developers, setup a web developing company, make some money! then they could afford to build some more buildings! (I hear land nextdoor to Fresco is for sale, maybe we should buy it and build on it, even give them a lower cost electricity supply!)

> I own land too but I'm not building a research city on it.

Why not ?

> and frankly, Jacques' land in Venus is the prototype and is not
> big enough to build a city.

Your perfectly correct, its not big enough for a city.

So, lets build a small community instead, anything wrong with that ?

> like has been said, we need ~70 million before we can build a
> city. its all laid out in the plan.

Aside from the argument that I reckon we can build a city with far less, say, oh, 100,000 people. Lets start with, why not build a town before building a city ?

Especially as we don't yet know what this city will be like, would it not be a good idea to build something a little smaller so we can get the design right of many aspects of the city in advance ? (Being that we cannot design them in just theory, we have to build test samples, try them with real people and adjust the design as we find faults.)

> Any feedback on my flyer?

Sure, if you can give a link to it! (Or did I miss that..)

> 70 million anti credential non qualified conspiracy theorists
> all bumbling about trying to build a futuristic highly
> technological city. I would pay to watch that

You know, it reminds me of the university student downstairs who asked me to change a lightbulb for him as he couldn't figure out how, or the guy nextdoor who had trouble knowing which button to press to adjust the volume on his TV..

But that is why its necessary to attract more qualified people, not ban them when they start pointing out errors in the plan..