I share the following not to call out the individual I spoke to but rather to draw out broader themes that concern me from a single case study…
I recently had a discussion with a young person who told me about the concept of the “Resource Based Economy” from something called "The Venus Project."
The conversation occurred because he had messaged me, claiming that he had a big idea that he wanted to talk to me about.
He was rightly very distressed about the state of the world. War, hunger, corruption, etc.
Aren’t we all?
He pointed me to the Venus Project video attached below.
According to him, it would be an awesome idea for all of humanity to collectively decide to contribute their resources to a global commons and then have some kind of artificial intelligence allocate those resources as it sees fit. He also advocated for the end of money and politics.
Confused, I asked him, “OK, assuming all of this is true and desirable, what is your idea for a product, service, institution, project, or action that might move us toward this goal?”
His answer “well, I think we first need to change the global operating system and switch to this resource-based economy.”
Here are my concerns with all of the above.
Many people - particularly young people - don’t seem to understand…
1. How to affect change in their environment
His plan to change the world was “Step 1: change the world”. When pressed for an actionable initiative, he seemed very confused.
2. The dangers and history of the old “isms”
It seems to me that very old and very bad ideas are in vogue right now. They just go by new, more palatable names.
The individual I was speaking to even argued that we just need new names and narratives to sell his ideas to everyone.
Concepts like “The Venus Project, “The Resource Based Economy,” and even “Trumpism” or “MAGA” are simply rebranded Socialism or Facism respectively.
Even woke-ism has become - for many - a way to silence or control speech.
Young people are looking at failing democratic processes, and some are wondering why we don’t act in a more unified way, like China.
They don’t understand it’s the institutions that need to be fixed and that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
They don’t understand that a failure to provide good social programs within a capitalist system is the issue - rather than the fanciful and dangerous idea of abolishing capitalism itself.
They don’t understand that well-regulated global capitalism incentivizes the creation of ever-improving products and services at a scale and scope never before seen in human history.
Also, having resource allocation by AI? Have people not seen iRobot and Westworld?
3. The purpose and value of money as a medium for exchanging value
It’s been a common prevailing feeling that money is the root of all evil.
Money is simply a means to store and transfer value.
I have thoroughly explored ideas of reputation, economies, attention economies, and trading economies. They simply don’t work.
Money enables capitalism and civilization to occur.
Abolishing money would send us back to the stone age.
4. The purpose and value of politics
Differences of opinion and conflict between humans are inevitable.
It is difficult enough to understand oneself and maintain alignment with one’s partner, much less maintain agreement with your neighbor or "tribes" in other lands.
Prior to good functioning political systems and foreign diplomacy, we used to kill neighbors and go to war at the drop of a hat.
Politics is war without guns and bullets.
It allows the debate of ideas and minimizes – to the degree possible - control by a physically powerful minority.
5. Quality content and thinking vs. nonsense
The video below is silly. And yet it captures people's attention. People of all ages and intellects, it seems.
Why?
When there's so much high-quality, deep thinking, it's concerning that many of us can't tell a scam from the truth, true insight from cynicism or magical thinking.
With AI deep-fakes coming fast on the horizon, we are doomed if we can't find a way to educate people to discern fact from fiction. Ground truth from nonsense.
6. Overall, the world is fundamentally getting better all the time.
All the signals of global social cohesion and peace are trending in the right direction.
Of course, there are bumps along the road, but generally speaking, we are in a multi-decade, broad-based slope of improvement.
Very few people seem to know this.
7. I feel old.