For nearly all of his 86 years,
Jacque Fresco has been designing cities of the future.
This is what it looks like: a future where
technology is harnessed for all and money
has no relevance.
It's called The Venus Project, and he says
50 million people around the world are now
involved or aware of it.
[French commentator]
[Russian commentator]
[Spanish commentator]
You may not have heard of Jacque Fresco,
but he is known around the world.
Documentaries have been done about him.
Magazine writers from Europe have written stories about him.
I've now come to the other side of the world to Florida
to a place called The Venus Project
to meet a man who has a very clear vision
of what he thinks the future of cities should look like.
Fresco's vision goes beyond architecture.
He sees his cities as tools for fostering humanistic values.
[Jacque Fresco] I feel that environment shapes our values:
the people we know, the people we identify with.
What will drive people in the future?
A world without war, without hatred,
without bigotry, without prejudice.
The future isn't Star Wars according to Jacque.
It's a home for everyone.
Jacque thinks he has the answer in the city of the future.
We’ll show a world in which values are different.
The aspirations of people: they have compassion,
feeling for one another, concern over the environment.
[Abby Martin] He’s a self-educated industrial designer, engineer and futurist
who truly believes the ills of society can be cured ONLY
if we throw away the rules that govern it and ourselves.
A Resource-Based Economy states that
if you declare the Earth and all its resources
as the common heritage of all of the world's people,
there's no need for armies, navies,
police, prisons, none of that's necessary
if people have access to their needs.
[Larry King] Now we'll start with this,
and you tell me, you can point right at it.
The center of a city, the nucleus,
will house an electronic computer.
The computers do not control people.
All the machines do
is control the physical entities that comprise the environment.
You can't be human or decent
without the knowledge to overcome scarcity.
[Brian Rose] He was talking about this stuff before it became trendy,
before it became popular,
before Al Gore started talking about it.
To save our land, to save our environment,
we've got to reorganize our way of thinking
and reconsider our social aims
toward the brotherhood of man.
If you had a free society
you couldn't get people to go to war.
If you had an intelligent type of upbringing in one’s children,
they would say "there must be many other ways of solving problems
other than killing people!"
We had him on the show, it was quite an honor.
It was for a long time the most watched show.
And it's not just an economic platform
or a technology platform,
it's really a different way of looking at humanity.
Now here they take a group of scientists and engineers
and they work on flying machines.
You give them a flying machine, they use it to bomb cities!
So how can a person be scientific
if they have allegiance to their country
rather than to the Earth and everyone on it,
and the intelligent use of resources?
This would be a scientist, to me.
[Natasha Tsakos] He is the founder of The Venus Project,
which integrates science and technology
for a new society
based on human and environmental concerns.
The primary function
is to maximize the quality of life
rather than profits.
Mr. Jacque Fresco.
We have to learn how to manage REAL economics,
not for profit, [but] for human betterment.
Then you'll see the beginning of a civilized world.
It must be a privilege to serve members of society.
Not that we want rewards or medals or honor for what we do,
[but] because it is just an honor to do it.
You don't always communicate with people.
[Roxanne Meadows] Jacque’s work gave meaning to so many people's lives,
and I feel very grateful to be one of them.
There is nothing else I see that's more viable to work on
that would bring such positive change to the way we live.
I welcome your participation
as I continue introducing this direction to others
while taking whatever steps possible
toward a saner world.
And I am so grateful
for those who are working with me.
♪ ♫
Jacque Fresco [1916 - 2017]
[Production credits]
[Appearance credits] 2017 The Venus Project