Which may or may not, but it depends on who I'm talking to.
If I'm talking to a bunch of firemen
I'll say you guys sacrifice your life for the country
but the real problem is: no fires.
"If you did away with fires, I'd lose my job."
There's a threat there too.
I spoke to policemen years ago (I never told you this).
I spoke to about 50 policemen
and I told them that they could be easily displaced.
They said "Oh no, you've got to have policemen."
I began to proceed on how to displace them.
I put a kymograph in an automobile
a rotary cylinder, electrically operated, with a needle on it
so when you get to a zone of 60 mph, if you do 65
the kymograph registers every violation you made.
You have to mail that in every month.
You don't need traffic cops out there on motorcycles.
Every violation will be indicated by that.
They said to me "That'll put us out of work."
I said "Yes, you're easy to put out of work, easy."
There's no job that's secure. Nothing.
Even surgery will be out 15 to 20 years from now.
It's just a matter of time.
If we live that long, if we live to the next 20 or 30 years
the system will be very bad, if we continue the way we are.
I see nothing to stop people from really stopping polluting.
The Peace Ship that goes out
they don't want the Japanese killing whales
and we kill chickens and cows
because we eat them and the Japanese eat fish.
They eat certain things we don't eat and there's money in it.
Why shouldn't they kill the whales?
Who are you to say "Don't kill the whales? " Don't kill anything.
Don't kill a fly because they're here, made by God.
You're killing all God's creatures.
There's no way to deal with that subject.
The Peace Corp wants peace
but they don't know that peace is a product of culture.
Peace is the interval between wars.
There never has been peace as a system.
There's always been wars. That's a natural thing.
Natural for humans, the way they are today.
Where do they get it? From the Bible: "Revenge is sweet."
The Jews were permitted to kill people, have sex with people
that were non-Jews. Did you know that?
I told you about Salem, Massachusetts, didn't I?
Witch hunts? - Yeah, I know all about it...
- Did you know that if you found a witch you got their possessions
their bank and land? - Yes.
It was good to find as many witches as you can!
The system is so... Where the hell do you start?
It's aberrated all the way through.
If a guy says "I believe in the free enterprise system"
I don't even want to take the time out.
If they say "Do you feel the system can be improved
and how can that be done?
How would you deal with corruption amongst the politicians?"
They'd ask questions, millions of them, if they were sane.
If people come from another world
if they're that smart, to make that journey
what you say to them is "What do you think I ought to know?"
You don't talk to them about "You got a wife and two kids?"
They're not interested in that shit. What do you think I ought to know?
If they're more advanced
they'll tell you what you ought to know, if they can do that.
You know what I mean?
You've got a tough job in front of you
but I'd rather have a tough job than go along with this.
- I agree - If I wind up in jail, all right
but if you're not attached to things, like the buildings we have here:
I'm not attached to them. I do all I can in them
but if the government takes them over because they don't like the direction
that's possible, too.
You have to include the possible or the highly probable
and you might get arrested or beaten up
because they think you're a communist. Do you understand?
People don't have enough of a value system to see where you differ from it.
"All Japanese look alike. All niggers look alike."
When I was a kid, that was the thing.
When a Jap appeared in town
we used to run down the street and look at him as kids.
We used to do terrible things. We used to say
"Jimmy's sister is a cripple. " Did you know that?
Normal kids, how can they be conditioned to do that?
Imagine kids that are insensitive
to a blind person. They trip them.
Many cerebral insufficients were walking down the street when I was a kid
they were not hospitalized.
Kids used to give them horse shit and say "Eat it."
The guy would eat it.
They thought "Hey, this guy eats horse shit!"
The kids had no knowledge, no training.
They were very cruel
but they were normal kids.
"Did you ever see that, the idiot in town?"
I encountered that.
I built a model airplane and I put it on the ground.
One of the town insufficients was coming by
and I'd wait
so I could see if he'd be amused by that
and he came over and wrecked it completely.
I learned a lot that day.
I thought he might be interested.
I was looking for justice.
Looking for justice will kill you. There's no such thing.
Whatever happens is real.
What you think should have happened is not real.
You're disappointed, not in the world, but in your value system.
It's your value system that's screwed up, not the world.
The world is normally screwed up by time.
If you say "That's terrible what people did Wednesday.
They killed a black guy and he was the wrong guy!"
That's within probability.
Whatever happens is real. Can you remember that?
What you think should have happened is not.
"I've been fair to my wife, decent.
I bought her everything she ever asked for, she ran away with the milkman."
So what are you looking for?
You don't know your wife's value systems that well, is what it means
or you don't know enough about people.
That's very hard to accept, "Whatever happens is real."
You go in for an examination one day and the doctor says
"You've got the last stages of cancer. You should have come much earlier.
You've got about 4 months to live. Wrap up your problems."
It's very hard for people to say "I see."
"But I'm only 40 years old!
I'm only a kid and I'm bald. I've lost my hair from radiation."
Kids say "That's not fair. I haven't even begun to live yet."
The mother says "That's not fair"
but whatever happens is real. Malaria, disease...
People die, young and old.
They die because we don't have sufficient research in all those areas.
How the hell do you get that across?
I seem to get that across to most people that come here
but they're people that apparently seem to like The Venus Project
so they seem to be attuned to this.