September 14th, 2009 by admin

We are pleased to report that things are happening in the UK: Zeitgeist Movement UK has organised a branded Venus Project Taxi, just in time for Jacque Fresco & Roxanne Meadow’s upcoming lectures in London. (City University London, Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre, 3 Oct 2009, 13:00 (sold out) and 18:00). Tickets available here: www.thevenusproject.com

If you catch the taxi, you can spend your journey reading up about the aims of the Venus Project.

The talk will be a week after a visit to The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen. (September 26th, Time: 02.10 pm- 04.50 pm No admission fee. Contact information Ida ida.suhr@welovepeople.dk)

Also check out The Venus Project Design – a new non-profit organisation based in the UK which aims to collaborate with The Venus Project by recruiting volunteer architects, engineers, animators and scientists interested in the aims of the resourced based economy and by registering them into a global database.

Future For Sale is continuing to document this progress as well as another exciting energy solution development in Sweden. We’re aiming to finish the film by the end of the year.  Thanks for all who have (patiently!) supported us so far!

April 14th, 2008 by Maja

Do we change from within or from outside factors? Is change possible from within the system or is a new system needed? If we choose to work from within the system, do we work from the roots or from the top? Or perhaps; from all these angles at the same time?

All these big questions sometimes make me feel like a change is impossible, but then meeting ordinary people living this economic crisis, it is clear that the existing system is not sustainable. Witnessing the fine line between prosperity and poverty, and seeing what multi-national companies are doing to the third world, people at home, and the environment, keeps reminding me of the necessity to change this system quickly, and not spend all energy debating over whether it’s possible or not.

It is a man-made economic system after all, and trading methods have changed before to suit the times, so surely they can change again to suit our present situation. Perhaps it is the free market ideology that is a failed utopia?

 We all know we are in a globally fragile state, and historically this is when extremist forces have got to power. Trying to conserve a no longer suitable system will be detrimental to everyone and heighten existing conflicts.

There is a real need to educate and supply ideas to the public, which give hope for a better future, and inspire solutions. It is up to all of us to decide if we want it.

mb

April 2nd, 2008 by admin

It is hard to picture a total social and environmental breakdown and it’s easy and comfortable to dismiss these kinds of predictions. But on the 13 of June 2007 it was ‘made official’: the Crash of the U.S. Economy had begun. In a column titled “The Takeover Boom, About to Go Bust” in The Washington Post, one of the foremost house organs of the U.S. monetary elite, economic writers Steven Pearlstein and Robert Samuelson writes:

“It is impossible to predict when the magic moment will be reached and everyone finally realizes that the prices being paid for these companies, and the debt taken on to support the acquisitions, are unsustainable. When that happens, it won’t be pretty”.

Escalating international tension, crisis, war…

At the same time researchers at NASA and Columbia University determined that man-made greenhouse gases have brought the earth’s climate precariously close to a major “Tipping Point” that would have dangerous and far-reaching consequences for the Global Biosphere and its human inhabitants.

Similar reports are being published all over the world…

This increasing dystopian outlook of the future and the need to be rescued seems to concern the public more and more, making way for documentaries such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and TV series such as Tim Kring’s Heroes.

There is one problem with documentaries such as The Inconvenient Truth: they don’t offer any real solutions, and deep down we all know that to save the cheerleader is never going to be enough to save the world.

While some of the “younger generation” have become activists in the anti-globalisation movement, the vast majority has been called the MTV generation – fluent in popular culture but largely a-political. But perhaps the personal focus, the obsession with style and surface doesn’t mean that people have stopped caring, maybe it was just a shift of language, but a transformation of sorts? Does popular culture hold the key to our beliefs and attitudes, and can it even unlock people’s consciousness, if packaged seductively? If people have lost faith in politicians and traditional political filmmaking, what do they believe in?

Future For Sale will try to focus on solutions already available but at a first glance might appear as science fiction. Futurists have always had a close connection to this genre since it is a way to plant ideas into the public consciousness. But it is rare to see new films depicting a better future, currently a pessimistic view of the future seems to be more popular. Perhaps filmmakers also have to take the responsibility to be a part of this search?

Many “futurists” have changed the focus of their work, however. If futurism is a movement, then one can argue that its tone has largely changed from ideology to business. Two of the main goals set up by the European Futurists Conference Lucerne, for example, are directly related to support European businesses, and to create an understanding of the future of business, politics and society – in that order.

Does restricting the visions to a future within the monetary based economy mean that the great visionaries of our time become important tools for the big companies?

Does futurism become pointless if the monetary system is a problem in itself in order to progress? Or can we create a sustainable change within it?

March 21st, 2008 by admin

I sometimes hear I belong to a ‘lost generation’, which no longer cares about anything but themselves. But how can we trust our political system when we feel disenfranchised and unable to make a difference; what’s the point in caring for something that no longer belongs to us?

Even though economists recognize the influence of money lobbyists on the political system, and are aware that “the market” cannot in itself take action against global warming and pollution, there is no prevalent search for alternatives or debate about the fundamental workings of our monetary-based economy. The public debate is between the left and right of the same model; how much a government should intervene into “free trade”, a debate that many of my generation have stopped participating in, rejecting it as false democracy.

With the possibilities of modern technology at hand and the wisdom from civilizations that have risen and fallen before our own, is this really the best we can do? Why is there no real debate about alternative ways of managing our resources, where are the ideas for a new economic system?

I think it is time to focus on what solutions we have available since we are already despondently aware of the problems – and that is what Future for Sale is all about, and what I hope we will be discussing in this blog.

mb

March 20th, 2008 by admin

We need to think globally about global matters, and both the economic and environmental crises are global concerns at this point.

Who are we to say an economic transformation will never happen in our lifetime? Many things now commonplace were just as inconceivable 50 or 100 years ago. What ordinary person then could have conceived of “software” or the Internet? And who would have thought green issues would become mainstream one day?

In times of crisis there is both the threat of destruction and the possibility for rapid change, it is ultimately up to us what way it will go.

mb/sh