The Choice Is Ours Page #7

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If we continue on current paths,

the next 10 years will be

even more disruptive than the last 10 years

because the technology is accelerating faster.

(Jacque) If you keep laying off people

and putting in machines,

which is happening in the auto industry...

they pick up the whole car and

turn it around, shove the engine in...

They're moving people out.

There comes a time when

millions won't have the

purchasing power to buy cars.

That's when the system collapses.

- All of our growth is associated

with increased consumption,

increased use of energy, and other resources

And when you ask economists

"Well, what's the alternative

that enables us to continue to be prosperous

without destroying the natural environment

on which we depend?",

they don't seem to have an answer for that.

(Jacque) There's no solution within

the present-day type society.

(Narrator) The Venus Project

proposes a workable alternative.

The aim of The Venus Project is to secure,

protect,

and assure a more humane world for all,

through the application

of technology and cybernetics

with human and environmental concern.

(Jacque) People need information to be able

to move into the future intelligently.

Without information, there's no way you can

develop a sustainable culture.

It can't be done politically,

because the problems are technical.

If you succeeded in arranging for the most

ethical people in the world

of the highest morality

and put them in government,

when the lights fail in your house,

you still need an electrician.

When the dams don't generate enough electricity,

you don't need a highly moral politician.

You need an electrical engineer.

So our problems in the world

can be solved by technical people.

The Venus Project applies

the methods of science to the social system.

[Lawrence Krauss, Theoretical Physics, ASU]

What science does provide for us,

is a great deal of information

about the implications

of the different options we have.

So, science helps us make better decisions

by informing those decisions.

That's why it's a shame to

turn away from science in the public arena.

[Paul Hewitt, "Conceptual Physics"] Science is

not an emotional way, not a wishful thinking way

but a rational way of

seeing what the connections are.

That's what science is about.

How could that not apply to everything?

(Lawrence) The scientific method, quite simply,

is a process by which you can try to distinguish

what accurately describes the universe

from what doesn't.

It involves several steps.

Often, of course,

you make some supposition or prediction

about what phenomena might result,

based on some theory.

But then, most importantly,

use empirical data - testing.

You test your idea in a way that's falsifiable.

(Jacque) When they said to scientists

"Can you put a man on the moon?"

They answered, "I don't know."

They asked, "How do you find out?"

"Well, we have to put a guy in a centrifuge

and spin him to see when he conks out.

Then we'll know how fast the rocket can go.

We can't start out at 7 miles per second.

The guy will flatten out."

After they try all these things, then they say

"Here's what we have to do

to get a man on the moon."

(Lawrence) You have to perform additional tests

that are more selective

to determine, in fact, how accurate your idea is.

And science continues by the process of

continually testing your ideas.

(Paul) If you're going to get

into nature, you're going to

get into the rules by which nature operates.

And it does operate by very specific rules.

Which means it's predictable.

And so, what is science, for me?

It's more than a body of knowledge.

It's a way of thinking.

LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE

(Jacque) Now language, itself,

is subject to interpretation.

When you say something,

it goes through my filters

and comes out a little different

than what you mean.

Now, if you had that in the

scientific world - engineering world...

When engineers talk to each other,

they use physical referent for their language.

If they all interpreted what

they think the other guy meant,

you couldn't build bridges; they'd collapse.

In medicine, when a doctor says, "Hemostat",

the nurse doesn't hand him a towel.

She hands him a hemostat.

So that language is very precise.

(Lawrence) The thing about science is that

it's independent of culture, religion,

language, everything.

That's why scientists around the world

can work together.

We all speak the same language.

(Jacque) They're talking specifically.

The wonderful thing about a blueprint...

If you give a blueprint of an automobile to Italy,

China, France...

They all turn out the same automobile.

Because it has uniform interpretation.

(Lawrence) I was just giving a lecture about

two very important results

which vastly disagreed.

What did the two groups do who vastly disagreed?

They decided to work together.

Their interest was in

determining what nature tells us,

not what they wanted to be true.

(Jacque) There's no Chinese way

of building airplanes.

There's a mathematical way.

(Narrator) Oddly enough, we've never applied

the methods of science and engineering

on a global scale to achieve a more just

and equitable social arrangement.

Our failure to do so, leaves us continuously

on the brink of oblivion.

(Jacque) Scientists were never asked to

design a society without automobile accidents.

They were never asked to

design a city that's self-sufficient.

Take the Manhattan Project.

They were supported.

So they built the atom bomb.

We're working on the wrong things!

UNIFICATION ON A GLOBAL SCALE

The society that I'm talking about

is global cooperation,

where all of the nations work

toward improving the lot of human kind.

Now why do that?

Because the smarter people are,

the richer and more secure everybody is.

But in the future,

when you join all the nations together,

and they can see the advantage of

sharing all of the Earth's resources

and all of the knowledge by all nations;

Once they realize that advantage,

they will join together.

If they do not, they'll kill each other.

- That's what endless warfare's led to; brigandage.

What else could happen?

But we, who are all that are left

of the old engineers and mechanics,

have pledged ourselves to salvage the World.

We're the last trustees of civilization

when everything else has failed.

WHEN MONEY BECOMES OBSOLETE

(Narrator) If our planet

had a common catastrophic threat,

such as a large meteor heading toward the Earth,

nations would unite

and call upon science and technology

to solve the pending catastrophe.

Border disputes would cease.

Bankers, lawyers and businessmen

would be unable to solve the problem.

Resources would be harnessed

without cost or profit.

Today, we face many common threats

far beyond national boundaries.

RESOURCE-BASED ECONOMY

(Jacque) In the world today,

we have enough resources

to solve most human problems.

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