How will you prevent the Venus Project from becoming corrupt
if people put up money to build the first city
and try to dictate the policy of the city?
First of all, the Venus Project would not be sponsored by people
who believe that this system will work.
It's the failure of this system that enables people
to put up money for an experimental system.
If doctors want to build a new hospital to operate differently
they build an experimental hospital and they check it out
see if it works. If it doesn't work, they go back to the other system.
If the Venus Project designs a city and it doesn't work
we'll change the design until it does
just like all research programs.
There's a lot of things in research that don't work.
You don't stop doing research.
You have to continue doing research until it does work.
Will it work perfectly? No, every year it'll get better
if you keep at it.
I see all things changing, always.
I see no final frontiers, no utopias, and the basis for corruption...
If you were to have a man finance a city
and he tries to steer it in the monetary direction
it'll fail, just like the monetary system.
We'll have a city which we can use
but the guy that runs the city will be out.
His business will be out because people don't have purchasing power
to keep him going.
As I said before, if wealthy people all buy big yachts
and they keep them loaded, ready to leave, with food
sea piracy will grow. There will be more pirates in the sea
grabbing yachts
because they can't sail indefinitely without fuel.
They all go out to the West Indies and they can occupy an island
(all these wonderful yachts with millionaires)
and if the people on the other islands are starving
they'll invade that island. Do you understand that?
You can't live to yourself, is the message I'm talking about.
If we don't take care of everybody, including ourselves
we cannot build a world free of war, poverty and hunger.
It's been said in religion, all these things
but they didn't know how to attain it.
They thought: If only people would be decent and fair.
They can't in a competitive world!
If you manufacture stockings
that have runs in them, people have to buy new stockings
but if Larry invents stockings that don't get a run
he'll put you out of business or you'll buy his patent
and don't produce them because you want to sell stockings.
How can you be decent and ethical in a competitive world?
How can you love your brother if you take advantage of him
by owning a patent which stops him from making something
that will benefit other people?
If you take a patent out on crutches or your wheelchair
people can't use it unless they pay you.
All patents and private property deprive other people.
When a guy is very wealthy, if he owns 4,000 acres of land
I would say he's kind of a selfish individual.
You don't need 4,000 acres
unless he gave it to some charity, then I'd say
the man is truly religious.
Doctors Without Borders to me are more religious
than most church-attending people.
People that do good without reward.
The only reward you get is seeing less poverty and hunger
starvation and deprivation, kids with swollen bellies, all gone!
If that doesn't give you incentive
if your only incentive is the money system
then you don't understand human beings.
Because you owe your own life to the advances made by Edison
Louis Pasteur and all the other people. You're alive because of them!
If you don't feel that you want to put anything back into the Earth
to make it a better place, I would say you're harmful
to yourself and to society.
Should we kill those people? No.
Send them back to school to learn or show them evidence
of the system you believe in and have them produce counterarguments.
Don't stop them! If they say
"Well, this system kills incentive"
You ask "What is your evidence for that?"
Don't kill them.
If you start killing people, you'll always have people you want to kill.
You know what I mean? People say "All those bastards
don't care about anybody but themselves!"
I would say that they need bits of information
to be able to do the things that are better for people.
Who decides which is better for people?
Eventually, the majority of people will decide that.
If the system doesn't work, they won't operate it
or they'll find a system that does work.
You know, when I was a kid
cops used to blow a whistle to stop traffic
and I remember talking about a system.
It was a red light and a section of the pavement went up
and it stopped the cars, so they couldn't violate the law.
Even if there is a red light and the guy is talking to somebody in the car
he can go through a red light.
But we don't want elevators that 'might' stop
on the floor you want it to stop at.
We want elevators to stop at the floor you want it to stop at.
We don't want traffic controlled by a light if the guy isn't watching it.
We want traffic controlled by a mechanism in the car.
Instead of the red light, the car stops
while the other cars are passing
and when they cease to pass, then you get the go sign.
But don't leave anything up to people. It won't work!
Even on an aircraft carrier today
there's a guy that signals the planes to come in.
If a plane has a landing gear problem, he's given priority.
They tell the other planes to fly around
until this damaged airplane lands.
Nobody makes that decision except the conditions that prevail.
Do you understand what that means?
If we begin to run out of farmland and the wealthy people
or the middle class have difficulty getting food
then a lot of research will be done in hydroponics and ocean farming.
But right now, you can't get a nickel for ocean farming
because it's not that necessary.
As long as they are eating, that's your problem
and if you make it your problem
you might kill the wealthy guy for his bank account
or kidnap his wife for ransom, so that you too, can eat.
This system generates predatory behavior
where we take advantage of other people.
You say "Well, that's human nature!"
[because] that's the way things are today and there's always been scarcity.
So most people are out to take care of themselves, and say
"If you don't take care of yourself, no one is going to take care of you"
and so they make us predatory; the system is like that.
If you say "Well, I think it's up to each individual..."
If you really study it, you'll find that each individual
is made to conform to the social institutions that exist.
If they don't conform, they wind up as vagrants in prison
or they have difficulty getting a job if they don't conform.
You are pressed by many different forces to conform.
If you walked around without any clothing
because you don't believe in clothing
you'd be picked up and arrested, put in jail.
If you continue to do that, you might be put in a mental hospital.
It isn't a free country; nothing is free!
In a free country, you are free to make your own decisions.
You never make your own decisions!
If you live in any culture, they will work on you
so that you correspond to the values of that culture.