Growing
up in rural Ohio and being the youngest of three children, I was exposed to a
set of rather unique circumstances that has in at least some ways led to my
current philosophical purview. I can remember spending much of my time either
at my grandmother’s house—she lived right next door—working on puzzles; playing
scrabble; watching Matlock, MacGyver, and Murder She Wrote; or being outdoors
exploring the seemingly endless woods. The neighbors on the other side had a
dog kennel while the neighbors across the road were an older couple named the
Kovach’s. Mr. Kovach was a veteran and what could likely be considered a master
craftsman. He was almost always working on something in his garage that was set
up for woodworking. My father worked for the telephone company and was also
frequently working on or building something. One of the things I helped with
for most of my life was baling hay. My family was heavily involved in the 4H
program and the county fair so I was generally around hard-working people that
cared about teaching young people how to self-sustain. I was never forced to
attend church so my thought processes weren’t restricted to unnecessary,
untenable claims and unquestionable truths. It left my mind mostly open to
explore the workings of the world free from the threat of eternal damnation—something
I find utterly ridiculous now. But, it wasn’t until I began my college endeavor
almost 8 years ago that I realized I knew very little about the world and that
the philosophy I had grown up with—certainly worthwhile in several aspects—was still
rather flawed. Interestingly, it was outside of school where I was introduced to
the lifework of a man that quickly piqued my interest: Jacque Fresco. And it
was then, in 2009, that I began to seriously consider examining a philosophical
outlook by which to live. Much of my general decision-making since that time
has been influenced by the countless hours I spent watching interviews of and
listening to lectures given by Fresco. Therefore, it is safe to say that I have
arrived at a philosophy, which I will attempt to explain below, by aligning my
values, as far as I have been capable, with those of Mr. Fresco.
Perhaps
the most controversial concept that I have grown to embrace—the one that is
certainly most difficult for people to even consider as plausible—is that of a global
society that transcends the supposed necessity of an economic model based upon
money. I’ve come to realize that the immediate rejection of this idea is easily
understood as normal to us since
everyone currently living on the planet, regardless of social status or
geographic location, has known only a monetary based economic system and others
like it. (Of course, it’s ridiculous
because there can only be a system based upon money…right?!) But history is
replete with instances proving that normal isn’t always correct. As Fresco
states1, “Everybody once believed the Earth was flat, but that
didn’t make it so.” However, it should be noted that taking the idea of going
against the norm to one extreme can also lead to the pockets of people nowadays
that still believe the Earth is flat
despite having an abundance of readily-accessible evidence and the ability to easily produce even more by performing their own
version of an experiment Eratosthenes developed over 2000 years ago! And just
as those people staunchly believe the Earth is flat and NASA is just a
conspiracy mill churning out endless streams of CGI videos and pictures made in
Photoshop, virtually the entire human population of Earth staunchly believes
that economies are just not possible without some form of money or bartering.
Lest we forget our massive technological achievements! Lest we forget that we
were exposed to no other types of systems! To me, this is utterly bad science. But, what would a good philosophy of science say of such
concepts as money? How would such a philosophy address several key issues such
as experimentation, ethics, and asking
the right questions?
I
feel that a good philosophy of science should become completely detached from
the idea of monetary economics. While I admit that money is in some ways a
motivator of human behavior in our current society, it certainly is not the
only possible one; nor can it be called the best since we haven’t fully and
exclusively implemented any others to test outcomes. In today’s economy,
nothing happens unless the movement of money occurs. Nothing! This means that
any type of scientific exploration must survive a gauntlet of
investment-related inquiry to be even remotely considered a worthy endeavor. In
other words, funding, in a significant, perhaps unsettling, way, now dictates
the direction of discovery. In my opinion, science should lead the economy—not
the other way around. That is, anything that can be automated should be automated
as quickly as possible. This has not
been the case since displacing workers through automation without a replacement
for income would cause the house of cards that is the current economic model to
collapse. And if something is
designed to better our lives, through mechanisms of the current economic model,
such as intrinsic obsolescence, it is technically impossible for the final product to be the best, most efficient,
most reliable product. The system itself will not allow it since a company must
remain competitive and cannot do so by utilizing the most state-of-the-art
designs, technology, and materials. Frankly, it would cost too much to be
profitable—which, by the way, is the only
real motivation of the current economic model. Irrespective of the amount
of resources we have available on this planet, the motivation for companies has
been to continually grow and produce more. But how can infinite growth happen
on a finite planet? Simply, it cannot. So, the practice of monetary exchange is
far more inhibitive, wasteful, and dangerous than it is motivating. Without the
constraints of an unnecessary exchange medium, we could be freed from
pointless, mundane “occupations”—most of which only exist as a direct
consequence of a monetary system itself.
Fig. 1: A graphic from the site www.thevenusproject.com2.
Sparing a long exploration of the
transition to a moneyless society, which is far
beyond the scope of this paper, the underlying philosophy of what Fresco calls
a Resource Based Economy is based upon ideas and technologies we already have
available to us today. In fact, we’ve had most of the technology required to
manage such a society for about half a century. And that technology was
developed through ongoing experimentation and improvement in design. But
without money to influence the direction of research, as was undeniably the
case up to now, how would we choose which experimental endeavors are
worthwhile? The short answer is that no
one chooses.
One of the most fascinating concepts that
I learned from Fresco is that of arriving
at solutions3. Expanding
on the concept of Figure 1, imagine that, rather than starting completely from
scratch, we had all the knowledge and technology of our current society, but
for one reason or another we also had the opportunity to develop a new method
of social organization. What kinds of questions would we examine when money is
no longer the dominant factor affecting all
our decisions? First, the questions would shift from financial to practical
concerns. For example, we might ask, “Do we have the resources and technical
know-how?”, rather than, “Do we have the money?”, as Fresco has often
suggested. Second, the questions regarding the ethics of scientific inquiry, discovery,
and experimentation would be reexamined through a lens focusing on maintaining
the environment which sustains us and the betterment of humankind (Figure 2).
By reorienting our values in a manner that aligns with natural processes—for
example, by recognizing factors such as carrying capacity before developing
residential or industrial areas—we have the highest probability of maintaining
a sustainable economic system for countless generations to come.
Fig. 2: Another graphic from
The Venus Project website.
In
any economic model that embraces scientific discovery, a method of theoretical
development and confirmation must be accepted for cumulative progress to occur.
While some might argue that science, at least
in some areas, fails to present a complete picture of the workings of the
universe, this is easily dismissible both as a logical fallacy, i.e. argument
from ignorance, and by the crucial aspects that set science
apart from every other discipline, i.e. two requirements that must be fulfilled
in order for something to be considered a valid and sound scientific theory: 1. The theory must present
reproducible evidence; and, 2. The theory must be falsifiable. So, science
doesn't strive to discover and present us "the truth". ("The
truth" tends to be un-falsifiable so it begs the question, is
there such a thing?) Science can only give us close
approximations to what we understand about the universe at a given time. As we
refine the apparatus we use to probe the events of our world and the universe,
our understanding, of course, is also refined4. However, we can never reach a state of 100%
understanding about a given phenomenon. The result is an arguably irrelevant
epistemological/linguistic quagmire—one I can accept and move on from since it
is abundantly clear to me that the methods of modern science, which have built
the world around us and expanded our knowledgebase exponentially, works. The question people get hung up
on is whether it will continue to work tomorrow; and the next day; and so on.
My answer? Who the hell cares? The
questions we should be asking deal
with feeding the population of Earth; providing energy to everyone; curing
diseases; reducing unnecessary human suffering; things that matter here and now. Philosophy is a wonderful
endeavor, but as with any intellectual pursuit, even the whole subject runs the
risk of extremes stifling progress. A good philosophy of science would teach
experimenters to recognize this danger and develop ways to avoid it.
A
good philosophy of science would teach us to immediately implement all current
technology capable of feeding and providing clean, fresh drinking water to the
entire human population; and do all we can to reduce human suffering across the
globe as quickly as possible. This can begin today if we truly wanted. While
theoretical models are beautiful and should be given credit when due, we have
to test those theories. According to www.worldhunger.org5,
“the world produces enough food to feed everyone.” But, we don’t feed everyone. Poverty.com tells us that roughly 21,000
people starve to death daily6. So, what’s the problem? Why aren’t we
testing these data that tell us we can feed everyone? Clearly, our economic
models and our general philosophy of science are experiencing some sort of
disconnect. A good philosophy of science would recognize this and work to
improve the system or reject it and develop a new system based upon all refined
knowledge up to that point. (Knowledge, as I describe it, consists of aggregate
data—all things that are and can be known.) It’s simply a matter of applying
knowledge and technology that we already
have. In my opinion, the defining characteristic of a good philosophy of
science is that it, as Fresco says, enhances
all human life.
I truly feel that we are living in the most
pivotal point in humankind’s history. This is a bold statement that I will
continue to make for the rest of my life since the range I have chosen to
define as pivotal begins in the
mid-1800s with the Second Industrial Revolution and will continue until around
the mid-2100s. Three hundred years of exponential technological development;
yet, what have we to say of our social values now that we are at the halfway
point? We have so much potential as a species to build a truly magnificent
civilization. Every great transition in the history of human thought was
accompanied and possibly influenced by a technological revolution; that is,
until the 20th Century. Our technology quickly outpaced an evolution
in social values and left us stuck in a sort of paradigm limbo. The clash of
mostly-stagnant, traditional values with rapidly-updating technology has
culminated in this extremely tumultuous, weird time that is the year 2017. We
have more technical capabilities than ever before; yet, cling to outmoded and
unnecessary concepts because they “make us feel
good or special”. A final point a good philosophy of science addresses is that
when dealing with evidence arrived at through repeated experimentation that may
contradict our current understanding, our personal feelings toward the matter
are mostly irrelevant. Unfortunately, this is perhaps the most difficult part
to accept about what I feel is a good philosophy of science. But, with time and through the application of
known technologies by those that currently have the economic standing to do so
(a long stretch, I admit), perhaps I will
live to see the day that we at least lay the groundwork for a Resource Based
Economy.
Works Cited
2. https://www.thevenusproject.com/
4. This is from the first email I sent you
dated January 18, 2017.
6. http://www.poverty.com/
