Education should be more than the presentation of many facts to be memorized by students. The first aspects of an innovative education should have an emphasis on communication and the ability to resolve and avoid conflicts. This can be accomplished though an exposure to general semantics.

Although books and computers will be used in the future of education, an exposure to basic science is an absolute necessity. This would include an exposure to the scientific method and how it applies to everyday living. But most of all, science and technology must be applied with environmental and human concern, without which technological development in itself would be meaningless.

Another portion of education that should be emphasized is the contributions of many different nations to the arts and sciences that are used in the world today. The tendency to use education to enshrine a particular nation is more of a propaganda approach than the presentation of genuine information. It is not possible for people to understand other cultures without an overview of many of different cultural practices. No civilized culture today has lifted itself by it’s own bootstraps. Instead all nations evolved as a result of many creative people throughout the world that have contributed to the arts and sciences.

A high emphasis would be placed on education. The better informed children are, the richer everyone’s life could be. Every child shooting up drugs today is a wasted life that you and I will ultimately pay for. Although books, videos, computers, and virtual reality would be used, most of the educational processes would be of a participatory nature in which students could interact directly with the physical environment. They would become aware of the symbiotic interrelationships between plant and animal life. They would learn by doing in a hands-on approach in which education and the communicative sciences would be brought into sharp focus, enabling the student actually to grasp the significance of physical phenomena in a much more concrete way. Above all, they would learn how to interact effectively with others, to share experiences, examine alternative approaches to problems, and accept ethnic and cultural differences, replacing intolerance with understanding.

A comprehensive overview of the history of all civilizations would be essential to understanding other cultures, values, and the forces that shape them. The generalist education, as proposed by The Venus Project, will enable students to gain a better understanding of cultures that differ from their own, leading to a better understanding of the advantage of all nations joining together for the preservation of life on planet Earth. With emphasis on a world viewpoint, it would be more difficult to persuade anyone to engage in aggressive, offensive, or belligerent behavior toward individuals and other nations. With this broader education, children would come to see that the Earth is a fantastic and bountiful place where all nations can share and prosper.

When we think of sustainability, often we think of durability, longevity and environmental respect. In general, a sustainable practice is a practice that takes the health of the future into consideration. However, this idea isn’t just reserved for the physical, material world- it also applies to thought, belief, human conduct and society as a whole.

An unsustainable practice is one that has an unbalanced negative effect, which, through time, will adversely effect a person, society and/or the environment. A classic case is our current use of Oil as a medium of energy. This could be considered unsustainable due to the fact that oil is largely unrenewable and, when burned, is damaging to the environment. Any practice that causes an irreversible resource depletion or long term environmental pollution is an unsustainable practice.

Likewise, if a particular company outputs large amounts of waste byproducts during production, polluting the environment, this would be considered an unsustainable practice as well, regardless of what they are producing.

Similarly, if materials or knowledge used in the production of a particular kind of product are not of the highest known quality, very often the integrity of that product is compromised inherently, leading to the eventual creation of more waste when that product fails or becomes obsolete. Given our current system of profit, most everything that is produced is done so with a built in weakness, due to the need to compete for market share. In other words, if two companies are each competing to create a certain item, both will need to be strategic in the materials and designs they use, very often compromising quality for the sake of affordability. The result is a product which breaks down much faster than a product which was given the greatest care and highest quality component materials.

This doesn’t happen in our system for two reasons: 1) If a company was to use the best known design and the best known materials, they would likely have a much higher production cost and would likely lose a competitive edge. 2) If products were made to last for extended periods of time, people would not need to repeatedly replace, update and fix their items as much, and a vast amount of revenue and jobs would be lost by industry at large, slowing the economy.

This is, of course, unsustainable by definition, for the inherent inefficiency of the economic system eventually creates unnecessary multiplicities, waste and pollution.

And this leads us to unsustainable ideologies.

An unsustainable ideology is one that inherently leads a person or group to unsustainable practices. For instance, the reason a production plant might use poor materials to create unsustainable products, while also outputting a disproportionate amount of waste, is really the result of a larger force, known as the Monetary or Profit System. In a Profit System, there is no reward for sustainability, for the system is built upon competition and regeneration. In such a circumstance, sustainability is always second to profit, for the survival of a company is based on profit, and profit is partly based on reducing costs and expanding income. Therefore, the unsustainable practices that exist in all industries are the result of an underlying flaw in the ideological economic structure itself.

In theory, most would agree that having an abundance of resources, along with products that are made of the most endurable materials for maximum sustainability and efficiency, is a good thing. However, these notions are not rewarded in our current world monetary system. What is rewarded is Scarcity. Scarcity and planned obsolescence are rewarded in the short term, for it creates a ‘turnover’ of profit, while also making more jobs. Sadly, this ’short term reward’ is at the cost of ‘long term destruction’.

The Free Enterprise System, along with all other subgroups, such as communism, socialism and fascism, is an unsustainable ideology, for it has built into it a propensity for environmental and social abuse. To put it more clearly, a world that is in competition with itself for labor, resources, and survival is an unsustainable system inherently, for it lacks an external conscience.

So then, what is an sustainable ideology?

While this question will always bring new answers as human evolution continues, in the present day we have a concept called The Scientific Method. Very simply, the Scientific Method is a process of investigation which, though the most modern methods of learning, measurement, testing and experimentation, works to demonstrate the validity of a particular understanding or possible resolution to a particular problem.

An example would be a problem with a car. If your car doesn’t start, you would begin a train of thought, based on logic, to find the source of the problem. Logic would guide your focus, likely beginning with how much gas is in the car, moving towards the ignition mechanism, etc. This is the scientific method applied to problem solving. A non scientific method for such a problem would fall under the category of ‘irrational’. For instance if you car doesn’t start, it would be irrational to start looking at the tires, for the tires would likely have nothing to do with the mechanisms associated with the problem.

Sadly, our approach to social operation is largely without logic or methodology, but rather it is submerged in tradition, superstition and outmoded methods of conduct. A scientific approach to society, using logic and reason to assess and react to social issues would have a natural gravitation towards sustainability, for nothing can be isolated or detached in such an approach. In other words, we need to stop looking at the world through the blinders of the systems and ideologies that have been created in the past, and start looking at the world in the most broad, unbiased way we can. The only medium which supports this approach, is Science, and the gifts of science have proved its validity without question. Therefore, it is time we utilize the methods of science in our approach to society itself.

A quick glance at the modes of operation used in the world today reflect a gross negligence of reason, logic and scientific application. Our economic structures are based on mediums of exchange and values which have little relationship to true resources and reality. Religion continues to preach worldviews which have long been overridden by progressive scientific thought. Our labor system is setup so that people must be “employed” in order to gain money to survive, while the actual contribution that these occupations have to society are highly suspect, showing that “jobs” often exist simply to keep people doing “something” in order to live and support the economic structure. This is a waste of human life…

There are many, many facets to the understanding that our current social institutions are unsustainable. To summarize the issue, our life on earth must have a foundational premise by which our operations relate. This premise must be as empirical as possible, and not based on opinion or projection. From a scientific perspective, we see that resources and human ingenuity are the most valuable issues at hand. Human intelligence and awareness, coupled with the thoughtful management and utilization of earth resources are really the only two core issues. Everything else is built upon this. Therefore, we need to begin an approach which maximizes education, technology and resource management.

Until this is done, sustainability will be in jeopardy. This is the goal of The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement.

When we consider the relevance of our social structures and ideologies in society, very often we view governments, politicians and corporations as the guiding organizational and catalystic institutions responsible for the quality of our lives. This is, of course, true… but only to a certain extent. As time has moved forward, human beings have become more and more aware of nature, its processes, and thus have been able to derive inference about how to imitate nature in all its creative glory.

The result has been Technology, which is what separates us humans from the other species as far as functionality. We have the ability to create in very vast ways. If we don’t want to clean sewers, we can devise a machine to do it for us.

At the beginning of the Industrial Age, a great majority of people worked in factories. Today, automation comprises 90% of nearly all factories. This has displaced humans and created a large, artificial “service” industry in order to keep humans in employment for money.

This pattern is very revealing. The implication is that machine automation is constantly challenging the role of general human labor. This doesn’t mean that humans will have “nothing to do” as time moves on. Quite the contrary… this implication denotes the freeing of humanity from jobs which humans do not care to engage in, so they will have time to pursue what they choose to. As an aside, it is important to point out that society today assumes a very negative posture towards humanity, retaining the belief that if human beings were not “required” to do something, they would just sit around, be lazy, and do nothing. This is absurd propaganda.

The notion of “leisure” is a monetary invention, created because of the oppressive, fascist basis of the employment institution itself. Laziness is, in fact, a form of rejection of the system. It is a quality that only exists due to the oppression and required servitude.

In a true society, there would be no such thing as the separation of “work and “leisure”, for humans should be allowed to pursue whatever they feel is relevant. To put it a different way, consider the curiosity and interest of a child. He or she doesn’t even know what money is…Do they need to be motivated by money to go out and explore/create? No. They have a personal interest and they pursue it without reward. In fact, the greatest contributors to our society, such as Einstein, Newton or Galileo, pursued what they did without any regard to money. They did it because they wanted to. The act of doing and contributing was their reward.

The point here is that money is not a true incentive for anything and to think as such is to assume that humans are inherently lazy and corrupt. Laziness and corruption are products of the conditioning our social system creates.

Now, coming back to technology, we find that our quality of life, as far as functionality, has been increased greatly by the benefits of the technological tools we create. From a lawn mower to a pace maker, technology saves lives and decreases the amount of time we need to spend on mundane, difficult or dangerous activities. In fact, if one steps back far enough, it becomes clear that Technological development is the most important institution we have and the pursuit of socially helpful technology(not weapons) should be the highest priority of the culture.

At the same time, technological development is brought about by a particular train of thought, or process… this could be called “The Scientific Method”. Carl Sagan was once quoted as saying something to the effect of “Society welcomes the gifts of science, but rejects its methods”.

This is very true in the modern age, for what the public fails to understand is that science is not just a tool… it is a near universal functionality which can be applied to society in ways many would not think about.

It seems obvious that technology improves our lives and serves as the greatest liberator of human life in the material realm… so why aren’t its methods applied to society as a whole?

Obviously, the scientific method is used constantly for isolated systems, but it has never been truly considered in the broadest ways. This is largely due to age old superstitions which battle the logic of science in favor of a dogmatic, outdated and highly romanticized world view.

If we had the option to rebuild a society from scratch, how would we do it to make it the most efficient, sustainable and humane? This is our perspective. Obviously, we cannot build a society from scratch but the point is clear. It is time we stop thinking about monetary concerns and limitations, and begin to think about the possibilities we have here on earth in the broadest sense.

It is this interest that has created the concept of a ‘Resource Based Economy’. The Venus project has been working on this concept for a long time and its foundation is very simple. We survey, preserve and maximize our use of planetary resources in conjunction with open information and technological development.

In this view, little is left to subjective interpretation, for it is a scientifically derived strategy for social construction at the very core. From there, the scientific parameters work themselves out as far as possibilities.

Sociology is often defined as “The study of society; human social interaction”.

This field considers social structures, both Cognitive and Material. An example of a Cognitive Social Structure is the established institution of religion and how its operation affects the collective awareness. For instance, Prolife Christians share a disposition that human”life” is a separate element of nature and that killing an unborn fetus is wrong. Concurrently, the competition based monetary system has proponents putting forth ideas such as how competition is the most productive social state that humans can engage in.

Material Social Structures, on the other hand, are very obvious and they exist in the form of corporations and governments, each having a strong influence on society. Of course, all Material Social Structures bleed over into the Cognitive realm, for they always have an ideology behind them.

Now, a common sociological issue has to do with “Human Nature” and its effect in a collective sense. For instance, most people have been taught that human beings are naturally competitive with each other, along with the assumption that social stratification or hierarchy is also a “natural human tendency”.

This is a fallacy.

If you look to, say, a pack of lions, you will see social hierarchy and violent competition for food in most cases. This comparison is what leads people to think it is a natural occurrence in human society as well (war, greed, ego, etc.). What is overlooked however, are the Environmental Conditions present in each case. The pack of Lions exist in a world of Scarcity. They do not have the ability to create traps for food, nor is food accessible in an ‘on demand’ basis. They have to hunt and fight with each other. This creates competition naturally, for in order to survive, the lions MUST be aggressive with each other. In turn, hierarchy is developed for the strongest of these lions wins the most, and in turn exert their dominance in a stratified way.

Likewise, in our current Human Society, the exact same thing is going on. Humans have been living in the same sort of scarcity since the dawn of existence. However, as time has gone on, we have become more and more “civilized” due to our ability to Create. Unlike the Lions, humans are able to create tools and set in motion processes that free the human being from a particular chore or problem, reducing Scarcity.

Given this “insight” we then see that on a fundamental level that if scarcity could be eradicated, then human behavior would undergo a dramatic change, moving away from competition, dominance and stratification.

Likewise, outmoded ideologies that do not stand up to the test of time, such as theistic religion, compound this myth that humans/society are built a certain way. For example, the Catholic ideology states that humans are “born with sin”.

This is absurd, outmoded and based on a primitive understanding of human behavior.

There is no difference between a Ghandi baby or a Hitler baby… it is the environment that shapes the person and hence the society (and vice versa).

Therefore, true Sociological change will come from removing the conditions that cause the aberrant behavior patterns which pollute our societies. Prison, Police and Laws are mere patchwork and, in fact, tend to make things worse over time.

Ultimately, it is going to take a redesign of our culture to change human behavior for the better.

Psychology is often defined as “The science that deals with mental processes and behavior”.

In the modern day, there are basically two prevailing schools of thought. ‘Geneticists’ and ‘Behaviorists’… the old notion of “nature vs nurture.”

The Geneticists are inclined to think that human behavior is derived from heredity and instinct. Often on the news, reports detail how some study claims to find the ‘genetic predisposition’ ‘to being republican’ or ’smoking cigarettes’. This supports the world view that we are ‘hardwired’ in some way and that even subtle nuances of behavior, such as an inclination for addiction, is genetic or “instinctual” in some way.

The Behaviorists, on the other hand, see the human being as a product of conditioning, as based on the environmental exposure of that person. Therefore, the actions of a person have a source that is derived from experience or a triggered train of thought, brought on by a learned understanding. The mechanism of action/belief therefore is sourced in learning, not heredity or instinct.

Which is more relevant? Obviously, both views are relevant in certain ways. Our interest in surviving and reproducing is imprinted/genetic in some way, as it is directly associated with fundamental survival. However, the means by which survival is obtained is entirely based on the social conditioning of that person. If a person grows up in a scarce, poverty stricken environment, with limited access to employment, they will have more of a propensity to engage in illegal activity to survive… more so, then say a middle class person who has basic needs met.

On the other side of the spectrum, if a person with great wealth has grown up in an elitist family and is thus conditioned into thinking that his or her wealth/class serves as a status symbol, they might often exploit those who work for them or perform illegal activities to conform to the identity and social arrogance they think is real.

The bottom line is that it is environmental conditioning that really affects 99% of our actions, and all diligent behavior studies have proven this time and time again.

People become alcoholics not because they have a genetic predisposition, but because of the influence of their parents or friends. If you abuse a child, very often they grow up to abuse other children. When the mass media promotes a certain idea in society, such as “terrorism”, the public is conditioned into believing this is true and a real threat, regardless of reality. The fact is, we are emergent, vulnerable organisms and always undergoing influence, conditioning and change to a certain degree.

That ‘degree’ is largely influenced by the social/ideological identifications which many have been conditioned to think are immutable. This particular state of awareness is where paralysis comes in, for there is nothing in nature to support the conclusion that anything we think about today will not be outdated in the future, for one of the few patterns we can stand behind with a certain degree of confidence(so far) is the reality that all elements of nature are emergent. The ‘identification’ with a set understandings for the sake of ones integrity is a serious distortion in our world, for it is considered a ‘weakness’ when a person is proven wrong. This is, of course, absurd, for to be proven wrong is how most learn and it should not be a feared circumstance.

Fritz Pearls once said that “The human species is the only species that has the ability to interfere with their own growth”. This is an important understanding, for our belief systems, which we think we must keep to support our identities, often stand in the way of new, changing understandings and personal growth.

The most dominant institutions which perpetuate this paralysis seem to be Theistic Religion and The Monetary System. Theistic religion promotes a fixed world view, with a “faith” based understanding that rejects logic and new information. The Monetary System ( in all countries) is based on Competition for Labor and thus Labor for Money. Very simply, the “competitive edge” can only be sustained through self-perpetuation, and self-perpetuation/self interest naturally leads to a static institution which prefers not to change, for it threatens the survival of that business, government or the like.

This is unsustainable.

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So why discuss something negative like your fears? By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m very focused on the positive and constructive behaviors but I find it important to raise awareness to our biological and sociological fears. They are what most people use against us when they wish to persuade us into a new belief system, or behave in a certain way to their liking, not to mention SELL us some fancy product. Let’s investigate the surface of this. Here’s the list (strongest to weakest)

1. The fear of POVERTY
2. The fear of CRITICISM
3. The fear of ILL HEALTH
4. The fear of LOSS OF LOVE OF SOMEONE
5. The fear of OLD AGE
6. The fear of DEATH

The fear of POVERTY scores highest on all the scales. Nobody want’s to be poor, and in the words of George Carlin. “The lower class is there to scare the shit out of the middle class, so that the upper classes can rule undisturbed while the lower ones fight it out for survival.”

The second thing I noticed was the hilarious fact that the fear of DEATH (pretty grave stuff?) is ranked LOWER than the fear of CRITICISM that I consider a small force in my life. However according to Napoleon Hill, over 80% of people interviewed said that they’d rather die than speak in front of a crowd 1000 people. This puts our social life into perspective and how a negative peer pressure situation will lead to the death of freedom of speech. This also shows how main-stream media sets a frame of what is worth discussing, and anyone talking about stuff outside of this frame will be labeled different and often ostracized, and therefore may never mention their view on any given topic.

The current swine flu pandemic is extremely hot in main stream media, and I think they ride the fear of ILL HEALTH and fear of DEATH like cowboys. Please check out Dr Greger’s video on the history of Swine-flu. Interesting stuff.

The LOSS OF LOVE OF SOMEONE is very powerful in most peoples lives that arn’t hermits. People who stay in abusive relationships, people who don’t challenge friends belief systems because they are afraid of loosing that friend.

The fear of OLD AGE is more common in people older than me, that is 27. It is the fear that you are too old to start something new, a new project, save the world and any other bogus negative belief systems you can imagine. To ger rid of this, read deeper into the science of attitude :D

And last the fear of DEATH. This fear is also closely related to avoiding physical pain, wich is a strong motivator in peoples minds.

With that being said I think we’ve gotten a better picture on how to behave not to live life as a slave to our fears. Love and alltruism is a very potent antidote to these fears, and better than medication and sedatives… However I do recomend green tea and chai tea… You don’t want to DIE or live UNHEALTHY now, do you now? >;)