One Million Dollars To Give Away?

I am assuming I have to give it away. I wouldn’t mind keeping a 100K to pay for my daughter’s education 🙂 A million dollars isn’t what it used to be, but, could be quite significant.

If we were talking straight philanthropy, I would have to go with The Venus Project. If you don’t know about The Venus Project, it is a non-profit organization seeking to create a better world through equitable use of technology.

Critics of the organization would say that it would never work for the same reason communism would never work. To which I would say, cell phone technology has given lots of things to people for free, even though tech companies have done their best to make it a for profit enterprise and of course just because communism never did work, does not mean it could not work.

One of the most interesting tenants of communism as articulated by Karl Marx was that:

“No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have developed, and the new higher relations of production never appear before the conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society…the problem itself only arises when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or at least in the process of their formation. (233)
The Thought of Karl Marx

What this means is when higher means of production… think steam engine, the wheel, more efficient agricultural practices, robots, artificial intelligence….become abundant, the “old society” will begin to change, whatever old society it is.

I think it is safe to say we are living in a society that is rapidly changing its productive forces. Not only are production methods improving rapidly, slowly but surely human labor is becoming obsolete in many fields.

Take for example the recent Dockworkers Strike on the East and Southern U.S. coast. One of the central issues was that the shipping companies wanted to automate the docks to improve efficiency and lower costs, while the Dockworkers wanted to preserve their jobs despite being less efficient and a higher cost to the shipping companies.

The Only Real Question Is….Who Will Benefit From Increased Productivity and Lower or Near Zero Marginal Cost For Goods?

The answer right now would be complicated to be sure, but in the next thirty years, there may be no need for a lot of human labor. \

Enter The Venus Project Stage Right

The Venus Project has sought to prepare for this likely eventuality by attempting to make a blueprint for a society that can co-exist with natural world and improve all human life on the planet through judicious and equitable use of technology and the factors of production.

The Venus Project presents the culmination of decades of inquiry into the connection between global resource mismanagement and problems such as war, poverty, crime, climate change, and ecological destruction. In response to these challenges, The Venus Project harnesses a holistic design methodology, including interdisciplinarity and a systems approach, in combination with evolutionary mechanisms to renew human habitats and restore the natural environment. With a philosophy emphasizing connection and integration and prioritizing balance, we present a set of values and objectives that outline the conditions of success for a sustainable civilization.
The Venus Project

Mr. B You Have Been Radicalized By the Far Left!

No not at all. You won’t see me running off to North Korea anytime soon, but as a teacher and lover of the human race, parent, and enthusiast of continuing life on this planet, I think The Venus Project is certainly a worthy cause to help us grapple with the questions we have not even really thought about yet in regards to our incredible technological progression as a species. We have a chance to create a paradise on earth, or our own oblivion. It is our choice.