The Venus Project, since the death of Jacque Fresco and the appointment of a board of directors made up of former volunteers, has become an information citadel, with non-disclosure agreements, no news and no feedback. It became the perfect breeding ground for corruption and manipulation, the deliberate destruction of the movement, and of anyone who could freely express disagreement. In this brew pot, a wide variety of ideas and thoughts were digested and fostered behind the scenes. Nathanael Dinwiddie, living in The Venus Project’s guest house with Jacque Fresco’s colleague Roxanne Meadows next door for the past 9 years, did his best to introduce Roxanne to the new world of conspiracies, alternative scientists, and the survivalist subculture with books, podcasts, and the proper people. Information has begun to leak out to the public from the directors themselves and their new Jacque Fresco, Simon Michaux. Strange wording and goals are becoming clearer on The Venus Project’s completely revamped website.

From the recently released “Building a State from scratch” podcast, we learn new details about the planned Venus Arantas city in the desert, and most notably, the political system is finally being addressed as well.

The Venus Project is playing politics (or religion)

The main governing body turns out to be meeting on “Game Theory Lab” where 40 scientists and philosophers will play (debate) for hours and days long about the optimal social order, fantasizing how you can live better taking the best of all social systems, including fascism, feudal system, etc.

The Venus Project’s board of directors, Nate, Theo, a philosopher and a pilot, and Simon Michaux, a pseudo-scientist survivalist and conspiracy theorist. And judging from other podcasts, there could be some pretty odious personalities, pseudoscientists, and maybe even tribal shamans (I’m serious). They will make sure that the whole endeavor “doesn’t go the wrong way”, and will determine the way of life not only for the supposed 10.000 people that will live in Venus Arantas, but at the same time, not clear how, set the trend for the rest of the mankind.

What kind of political regime would it be if you have a certain ruling group, and everyone else separately? Feudalism with a nobility? A dictatorship with a ruling party? Or just an apocalyptic cult with all-knowing priests? (Nate stipulated that he would be a “monk” on this board).

I can’t recall any peaceful groups of people that have long existed, or ever existed, who play “let’s create our own state in an existing state”, except for religious communities, which are protected by laws – after all, they are the only ones who can make weirdo inner rules.

And then we find out that the introduced social order in the city can be changed (!) at any minute at the will of the members of “Game Theory Lab”, and if something fails – to roll back to purely corporate relations “employer-employee”, and then think what else to invent.

A mining settlement with traditional medicine

Well, it’s not exactly Jacque Fresco’s utopian, highly automated city. Utopia? No, what we have here is a harsh reality and a game of survival. And you’re going to have to get your hands dirty, both in the mine and in the field. Given the claims of technology rollback, and the specifics of the climate, with the need to desalinate water, it’s going to be a hell of a place.

Having embellished with words from Jacque Fresco’s dictionary and high aspirations to save humanity, we will actually get a kind of mining settlement, a recycling station for used tires, an eco-village with garden plots in the desert and water desalination, and a testing ground where tests will be conducted, including tests on people, both socially and medically – and it is a pity that this topic is not touched upon. Perhaps on purpose. And after all, the medicine is a big part of the idea of this city. I saw this super-secret slide, and there are the same pseudo-scientific researches, but not of free energy, but in this case of medications, traditional healing remedies, energy healing, and methods dating back thousands of years – and you, it turns out, are just a lab guinea pig.

Simon’s quote from a podcast on AccidentalGods: “One of the segues, is this a school of thought that the modern pharmaceutical medicine can now no longer be trusted as an institution, as a science and everything like that. The whole thing will have to be reinvented, and this is going to make you laugh. Let’s go to South America and we’ll get Chinese herbal medicine to meet with the Amazon Shaman methods.”

The Prometheus Institute is a magnet for pseudoscientists and charlatans

An entire institute studying “non-conventional” energy sources will be the heart of this city. The disbelief in “official science” coupled with all the conspiracy theories that Simon Michaux, and apparently all the new directors of The Venus Project, believe in, has evolved into a hybrid of the scientific method with philosophy, New Age, to the new science, and the idea of retesting all the theories and technologies rejected by science, especially free energy and perpetual motion machines.

This is exactly what dozens of teams of “scientists” in the planned Prometheus Institute will be working tirelessly on. This topic deserves a separate article, partly already covered in notes from other podcasts by Simon Michaux.

But if we assume that it will be possible to find money for such a city, then one of the likely sources could be the interest of all kinds of charlatans with magic stones, perpetual motion machines and New Age methodologies, to have a place called a research center, conducting “independent research”. To loudly announce on websites, in videos and from the stage that there is “real science” confirming the efficacy of miracle pills and perpetual motion machines, and not the corporate-bought “official science” – and thereby collect even more money in exchange for feeding crap into the ears of gullible clients and followers.

They promise a multi-hour podcast on the Prometheus Institute coming soon. Can’t wait. Could you please mention on it about the same institute of unconventional medicine that will be standing right there nearby?

Money, culture, and your own anti-utopia novel

Money? What money? Remember, you’re working for an idea here. Simon had repeatedly mentioned that there would be no paychecks, at least not until some high level of profit reached and the investors had become satisfied with the return on investment. But it will be up to management to decide when they have enough to share the hard earned pennies with the workers. You signed up for a cashless society – work and don’t worry, give all the power to the 40 philosophers and don’t think about anything else, just work.

Let’s remember that the place was chosen far away from all civilization. Getting somewhere in urgent need will be a challenge, leaving all the cultural life and connection to civilization behind. The developers want to compete with corporations, but remember what Google offices look like and the conditions in which their employees work.

Medicine, dental care, safe childbirth, education, music concerts, hobby clubs, entertainment – leave those things in a former life. Maybe the internet will be allowed there, but I can’t guarantee that. How long can you keep people in such conditions if you don’t brainwash them properly all the time? For example, that the rest of the world is on fire, or is about to be destroyed, and the workers are very lucky to be here – they are the chosen few, to rebuild the entire human civilization. All in all, it’s not going to be easy! The plot is well wrapped up, you can start writing up your own Peruvian dystopia novel.

Preparing for the apocalypse – a safe harbor in Peru

You might have somehow thought what a strange place was chosen for a city: it’s not at all suitable for a starting point, it’s not supportive of agriculture, nuclear power testing, it’s very far and expensive to get to, all civilization is not close either, shipping is expensive, earthquakes, tsunamis, social instability in the region, crime, droughts, the vast empty Andean mountain ridge, etc….

Metacrisis and Polycrisis, dear ladies and gentlemen. You’ve been told about it all over, maybe you haven’t been paying attention. It’s on every podcast, it’s all over The Venus Project’s updated website, everything is in preparation for the end of humanity as we know it in about 10 years. The few will remain, and the cities will turn into scenes from The Walking Dead with the scavengers who survive. Simon and company want to close down in a city from the rest of the world for 10 years, calling it ” Jacques’ Rest” mentioned on several of Simon’s past podcasts, and then go out into the world with a better offer. Having to be outliving that particular apocalypse. Just imagine what will happen inside a locked down city for all those 10 years and what will be told to the residents to keep them in the city.

According to the legend, laced with every possible conspiracy you’ve probably heard of, corporations are hiding the fact that oil has 8 years left, and without it there will be collapse, and, along with global warming, all hope for renewable energy generation will evaporate when it turns out that corporations have been lying to us about the efficacy of wind and solar power. This is according to Simon Michaux, and The Venus Project’s directors repeatedly refer to such literature, and even recommend it now on their website instead of the Jacque Fresco recommended reading.

This topic has been dropped a couple times on this podcast, perhaps because it doesn’t fit the format. But on other podcasts Simon has spoken quite explicitly about this place and its true purpose. And they called themselves the Arcadians, the guardians of the knowledge, the rebuilders of all civilization.

According to Simon, the place is easy to defend, and militarized guards and other points of defense – he does not undertake to discuss publicly, but they are “working hard on them”. Actually, it’s not a new topic for the preppers (survivalist) community, that at all times wait for the global ending under various reasons, but for a person from the outside it can be quite discouraging, that’s why this topic is omitted in many interviews, although it is the only logical explanation for the choice of the place.

Simon has covered this in a number of other podcasts – here are the notes from 5 of those podcasts gathered separately here, if you’re interested.

Recycling tires and living in an eco-village

Another source of income and goods for the city. But has anyone thought about what it’s like to live next to a mine and processing plants? What’s the point if you want to be one with nature, in harmony, but at the same time, you choose the dirtiest jobs, which will obviously affect your health.

You should think twice about how such a community would be better than the blooming gardens of the local eco-village, in more viable latitudes, whose inhabitants are not subjected to all sorts of experiments. In an ordinary eco-village, everything is as simple and clear as a rake that you will use to plow a vegetable patch. And you don’t even need to build anything – there are thousands of them. Choose the most successful ones that are closer to you ideologically/spiritually, and go forward. You will be free to make jokes around the campfire, sing songs, be able to visit your relatives at a reasonable distance, have some money in your pocket, have influence in the village decision making, and you can always change your priorities in life and easily move to a new job in a neighboring city or a state without risking anything.

A Thorium nuclear powered city in your crypto wallet

The centerpiece of the city of Venus Arantas, the thorium nuclear reactor, is mentioned everywhere. “We’ll put up a tent and next to it a thorium reactor” is how Simon Michaux sees the beginning of this settlement, even before the mine and the tire recycling.

Is it worth mentioning that everything related to nuclear power is subject to the most severe procedures of inspections, approvals and permits at the highest level? The region where the city of Venus Arantas is planned is a rocky area where earthquakes are not rare, even 7-8 magnitude, and tsunamis are not uncommon. The question to ask: will a bunch of ideological people, philosophers, be allowed to build their eco-village with a nuclear reactor in such a region?

It took about 5-10 years for real countries like China to get approval for the first test load of a thorium reactor that is still in development, a real thorium reactor. And we haven’t talked about the fact that this technology simply doesn’t exist for anyone but laboratories, that they are still developing it – there is no finished product. We don’t see countries ordering reactors, even for the distant future, but The Venus Project, along with Simon Michaux, are already planning crowdfunding for this project.

And if it were actually feasible, and the technology was sufficiently developed – imagine a number of countries and corporations waiting for a scarce supply of cheap energy. What number in that queue would Simon Michaux and The Venus Project’s board of directors be? Will they set up their initial camp tent 50-100 years from now? Will the developer be eager to prioritize sending his reactors to a region with earthquakes, corruption, and high crime to people with questionable reputations whose podcasts get a few thousand views? One accident and a loud headline about the accident and the queue will be significantly reduced.

This whole thorium reactor thing is very speculative. And, please pay attention, the issue is not the technology itself, although you will be moved to this angle if you try to argue.

The Venus Project’s secret partner, The Thorium Network, which was recently listed as a partner on The Venus Project’s website, is pushing thorium reactors as if they were already on the market and greedy corporations were hiding them from us.

I did a whole study on The Thorium Network and its director, Jeremiah Josey, as part of a larger investigation, “The Venus Project’s End”, in a nutshell – they are a bunch of fraudsters, with a fake biography of an oil director, dummy companies shut down by the courts every few years, scammed investors, creating cryptocurrency bullshit coins with fake stories and promises: supposedly based on gold and thorium resources.

Jeremiah chose thorium as the key topic, and like a real info gypsy, he is hooked into the topic, broadcasting all possible news and fakes on this part, making up his own stories. He has a fictional company with millions of dollars in turnover. He even finds real researchers and scientists, fooling them with loud slogans, a story about his company being oppressed by corporations, and the presence of other like minded scientists in the citations. The real, few scientists, serve as a perfect image for the new investors in “promising technologies” and the next cryptocurrency.

It was Jeremiah Josey who promised to organize the thorium reactors, the financing, the land in Peru where they plan to build. And although, after our investigations, this partnership is being tried to hide it in every way possible – for example, by replacing the partners in the block with a real organization with an almost identical name – this persona is not so easily taken out of the equation. Either Roxanne Meadows, the original head of The Venus Project, still believes him, or the whole company is starting to play a fraudulent game, mimicking Jeremiah Jossey’s cheating ways, except it’s not a one-day firm that’s at risk, and they’re not moving to another country to escape angry investors and the courts.

Corporations and a devil’s contract

Corporations supposedly obstructed Jacque Fresco, corporations are hiding unfavorable technologies, conspiring around the switch to renewable sources, and lying to us about the efficiency of solar panels and wind power (all from the same words of the new The Venus Project team led by Simon Michaux). Corporations are even drawing up the plans for new types of cities, and will dictate how you live! “You won’t own anything, but you’ll be happy” – No way! We’ll create our own mini corporation, a mining city, with money from investors, and we’ll be the ones to tell you how to live!

Do you know what you’re signing up for? By reposting, auto-liking, or donating to The Venus Project of Nathanael Dinwiddie and Simon Michaux. Where is there even a hint of connection to Jacque Fresco’s proposals or approach? This time, Nate gave an extensive presentation on the life and work of Jacque Fresco to emphasize that Jacque’s ideas are outdated, and that the ones giving them “evolution” are self-proclaimed adopters Nathanael Dinwiddie and Simon Michaux.

If you just fantasize about the fact that it was possible to realize such a city – what can it look like in reality, not in your rainbow perception and associations? What is really behind generalized slogans, streamlined formulations and promises?

How seriously can one take all this when even simple projects like the Jacque Fresco Foundation website, Jacque Fresco lecture transcripts, Major Motion Picture announced as completed and launched, have been non-functional for years? And much smaller amounts of $220,000, $110,000 in crowdfunding, not backed up by the promised realization of The Venus Project three times out of four?

What else is interesting from the podcast? Synopsis

The podcast was planned to be a conversation format, and this was a separate cut-in added by the interviewer, with a suggestion to skip ahead about an hour or so. But Nate had prepared a lengthy presentation on Jacque with an excursus into his biography, trying each time to make a ghostly connection to what they were doing now, drawing parallels that weren’t obvious.

It started with Jacque Fresco in order to legalize themselves, to show continuity, and it does not matter that the case itself does not relate to Jacque. This is done in order to bring the established audience and all the resources, generally everything that has been gathered and developed through Jacque Fresco, into a new endeavor, the “Evolution of Venus”. In this part, Nate compares past movements of techno-optimism about a better future, etc., but as it turns out, corporations have taken over the world, shifting the focus to a dystopian future, and Fresco simply continued to carry on that old, “no longer relevant”, vision from the early 20th century.

Nate reports that Jacques’ inventions were rejected, suppressing the emergence of certain technologies – “this is where you’ll see that our case with Simon is about the same thing” – referring to the Prometheus Institute for Energy Sources, which was rejected by science, as well as Simon’s research, which was not accepted by the scientific community. Jacque Fresco was upsetting corporations with his inventions, the example of prefabricated houses made of aluminum being cited.

Roxanne Meadows: “I want to show you how Simon Michaux fits into all of this, and how it relates to the coming Metacrisis!” and further… “Some of the Board of Directors (and who else but Nate) have been diligently researching the reasons why we’re in this tight situation” – and essentially digging more and more into the prepper (survivalist) community and literature, and the Degrowth Movement – which is how they found Simon. “We saw that Simon had done a lot of research on the lack of resources for the green energy transition”

• We won’t focus on this “research” for now, just to let you know that for 3 years of its existence it has never received positive reviews, it has not been published in scientific journals, but it has received well-justified criticism from real scientists in the field, and there are directly opposite peer-reviewed studies. Oh, and since Simon did what Jacque didn’t – counted all the planet’s resources – Simon is in charge now.

Nate: “The green transition won’t work – it’s too late. We found Simon, who was ahead of everyone else with his research. We had to stop further looking for options because of Simon Michaux’s research, and Simon was already familiar with The Venus Project.” “Now we have the concept of The Venus Project Evolution – to adapt what Jacque Fresco was saying to the limitations that we have.” “Jacque was asked how to get to the realization, he kind of gave a couple of ideas, but Simon came up with a better solution.”

Simon: “We’ll set up a camp far away from civilization, make a mining camp, and then it will grow into an industrial mine and organize a city around it.” “The philosophy of Degrowth Movement is a very useful one.” “I’m combining the paradigms of Degrowth + circular economy + permaculture + elements of very old technologies”

“In 2008 I saw the Zeitgeist movie and it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, but at the time I was learning about growth limits and didn’t understand how to achieve it” – Simon was living in a survivalist community in Australia preparing for the apocalypse and promoting the same ideas, and now he’s written himself a 1000 page ‘research’ that he refers to all the time. “…The Venus Project was lacking in steps to realization, but now I can give that realization, and do it in the right way!”.

“We’re going to build a city of 10,000 people. It will take 1-3 billion dollars” – other podcasts have quoted both 5 and 10 billion dollars, and it seems like the number is just pulled from nothing. “…the settlement itself will cost 800 million or 1-2 billion.”

Sources of funding: Grassroots funding – mobilizing local budgets and people (good luck in Peru). “We will attract capital. There are people that would like to be associated with the progress we will propose.” “We may have a different problem, that we get too much money too fast.” “The second type of investor – they want a return on investment.” “Industrial permaculture.” “We take used tires and recycle them into diesel, and we also make different other things from local materials.” “Everyone is working, getting everything they need, after a while we’ll give a paycheck so they can travel out.”

The hosts asked how many people are working on this right now? Our heroes got off topic – in fact there are several people: three people from The Venus Project’s board of directors, Simon Michaux and Jeremiah Josey. There are a few more volunteers who don’t know what they’re doing, and it turns out they’re not working on this project – they’ve been left with an aquaponic greenhouse project in India to keep them busy, and the volunteers have organized a discussion club, meeting once a week, pretending to be working on something important.

Simon: we’ll pitch a tent and put a thorium reactor next to it and it will change the world. “Hippie communes didn’t last long together, but there are some good communes – like the Amish” and a couple others, clearly religious, they’re being held up as an example. What a good example.

The Game Theory Laboratory, wanted to be headed by Viktor Sheuberger – there will be 40 people of scientists and philosophers that will discuss and imagine how we should all live better.

3-4 office buildings, there will be residential buildings all around, and then factories and fields. “It’s going to be a little mining town.”

“We are not looking for new -isms” – but here they lie, as they did not give any alternative to the political system, except that they tried to camouflage their political system in some way. “A community of enlightened individuals.”

The interviewee is from Chechnya, and worries that whenever someone proposes something utopian, it turns into a dictatorship like Stalinism and similar systems.

“What kind of social contract is gonna allow a sustainable existence? One visionary person leads a project, then they step away and the social contract collapses.” – If ours collapses, Simon says, we’ll roll back simply to a state of “we’re a company and we have some work to do.”

Nate: there’s tension in many groups since Jacques’ death, and we’re trying to bring them together, to explain what we’re doing. (Yes, of course, and the main tool is total silence, closure, non-disclosure agreements, making threats and logical manipulations in the few announcements we’ve had)

“A research institute for 2,000 scientists, engineers, etc.”

There was a good question from the hosts – who would want to stay there, what about personal life, activities, culture, etc.? What is available only in big cities, what do those who got out far away suffer from. – They were unable to answer in any meaningful way.

“The Hype Cycle” is what Nate calls the period of The Venus Project’s popularity and the development of movements based on it.

Roxanne: The movement was great, inspiring – but we now need different kind of people to make it happen.

Nate: Metacrisis dictates everything.

Roxanne: The city will be dedicated to the survival of human civilization. We should strive to make sure it doesn’t go back to where we started… (she was interrupted in her response)

Nate: We want to be advisors – members of the board of directors. Our job is to be monks… (the answer was cut off at this point, because Nate was starting to give out more than necessary).

Michaux: We’re gonna have a university later. Nate wants to build a library.

Toward the end, Simon read from a sheet of paper: “This is an evolution of The Venus Project powered by an unorthodox but mature energy source operating to a new resources management paradigm. We are proposing to develop a way with a more responsible relationship with a planetary environment and a new paradigm in social contract and how we might live. We will construct a technology innovation hub in an unconventional city to the purpose of developing a new energy, a new raw materials and a new manufacture paradigm operated by a more socially mature kind of society.”

Bottom line

Well, you can draw your own conclusions. I tried to quote directly what I heard here or on other podcasts. I didn’t make that up, but you can hear it from the main heroes of this article. The Venus Project was previously associated with the scientific method, the evolution of society to a moneyless society through the creation of high-tech automated cities, social design and the unlocking of each person’s potential, the automation of all boring and dangerous jobs, the dramatic reduction of crime and the abandonment of the political system, a global focus on improving the lives of all mankind and, as a result, ending wars and conflicts, and many other things that resonated with millions of people around the world.

It’s a shame that such great ideas have fallen into the wrong hands, hands that are burying both the ideas themselves and their reputation under layers of pseudoscience, conspiracies, and even public manipulation and outright fraud. Which is something we’ve partially succeeded in putting on hold – after all, the million-dollar crowdfunding for this city was promised back in December 2023, planned to be about to go live in the coming week, in conjunction with the launch of the cryptocurrency on Thorium. At the very least, the disruption of this big hoax is already being considered an accomplishment for us.

It’s still not clear how to promote Jacque Fresco’s original ideas and work towards their realization when the materials, names and everything worked on for decades have ended up in the ownership of a few people who no longer see any point in them except to squeeze all the juices in the crudest and most dishonest way into their new endeavor.

Yevhen Sliuzko

I have been at the center of all this dirrection for over 13 years and can tell you a lot of things, from detailed explanation of Jacque Fresco’s original proposals, to experience of working with the movement, to little known and insider information.

I have organized the most successful and effective team of The Venus Project movement, now represented by Designing The Future, as well as the 1.5 million subscriber Jacque Fresco channel, small and large events, radio and TV interviews, working with universities and schools, organizing events, running a network of groups in 60 cities with regular meetings, and much more. Exposed and fought fraudulent companies and initiatives to protect The Venus Project’s reputation.

Organized and negotiated the construction of The Venus Project’s smart city, with the then living Jacque Fresco, which was their best chance. This has now evolved into a full-fledged smart city project and test site for the development of the entire industry of smart cities, called “Mission on Earth”, which will be launched soon, late 2024-early 2025, and we’re directly involved.

After the new directors of The Venus Project changed course, I strongly opposed it without hesitation, especially knowing the details of the gamble – taking the side of Jacque Fresco’s original ideas. Whatever the outcomes, I will continue what I have started, with the goal of giving humanity a chance to move toward a resource-based economy, or at least to point society in the right direction. I hope you will join us.

sluzko.com

The post From Utopia to Dystopia. What happened to The Venus Project after Jacque Fresco died? appeared first on Designing The Future.

The “Mission on Earth” project itself involves the creation of an experimental site and a smart city, where joined IT and technology companies will work on the development of smart city direction, aiming to present it all as a single system, rethinking many things we are used to, including economic and political models of society. All of this is planned with the support of major foundations, cities that have signed on as part of the Oxygen Summit initiative, and recognizable players in the market. In theory, this will give us a good opportunity to set the right direction: to influence the evolution of our cities into highly automated city-systems, which will be the transition to a post-scarcity sustainable world.

Everything looks promising, but we can’t give 100% assurance yet about what exactly we will see at launch, and whether it will be as we tell you. The format of our involvement and participation is not fully understood. There are certain fears and risks that we will present it in the wrong way and the realization will be completely different, because there is no information about this project on the Internet yet.

We are freezing the public work in this direction until everything is clearer and we see more official details about the project in public sources, media and on the project website – to understand where this is going, and our answers would be based on verified publicly available information. We wouldn’t want to mislead anyone, or give the wrong expectations.

So don’t expect any news yet. Although the work in this direction will continue outside the public plane. We’ll be putting the whole picture together piece by piece, and when the time comes, new articles, videos and podcasts on the topic will be released.

This is the project on which we have put the main stakes, fit into a program. It remains the main option for how we could have a significant impact on the development of world society, with a minimum of resources on our part – but in no way defining or limiting the work of our organization Designing The Future. We have about six months left until the official launch, maybe more – and during this time we will be more active in the basic areas that will help us to remain independent and adhere to the basic principles of the original direction – popularizing and implementing Jacque Fresco’s proposals about the prospects of transition to a post-scarcity system already in our lifetime.

Yevhen Sliuzko

I have been at the center of all this dirrection for over 13 years and can tell you a lot of things, from detailed explanation of Jacque Fresco’s original proposals, to experience of working with the movement, to little known and insider information.

I have organized the most successful and effective team of The Venus Project movement, now represented by Designing The Future, as well as the 1.5 million subscriber Jacque Fresco channel, small and large events, radio and TV interviews, working with universities and schools, organizing events, running a network of groups in 60 cities with regular meetings, and much more. Exposed and fought fraudulent companies and initiatives to protect The Venus Project’s reputation.

Organized and negotiated the construction of The Venus Project’s smart city, with the then living Jacque Fresco, which was their best chance. This has now evolved into a full-fledged smart city project and test site for the development of the entire industry of smart cities, called “Mission on Earth”, which will be launched soon, late 2024-early 2025, and we’re directly involved.

After the new directors of The Venus Project changed course, I strongly opposed it without hesitation, especially knowing the details of the gamble – taking the side of Jacque Fresco’s original ideas. Whatever the outcomes, I will continue what I have started, with the goal of giving humanity a chance to move toward a resource-based economy, or at least to point society in the right direction. I hope you will join us.

sluzko.com

The post Mission on Earth Project: pausing the public campaign appeared first on Designing The Future.

The invitation to the events came just in time. Things had been going from bad to worse in our 13 years of operation, from Russia’s large-scale war with Ukraine, which led to a severe reduction in our budget and consequently in studio and freelance orders, layoffs, loss of valuable volunteers on our team, and to a dramatic change of course by The Venus Project, an organization we had previously promoted as much as we could, instead of fully developing our own.

We needed an opportunity to put the locomotive back on its own tracks, and the opportunity came!

Smart City Expo and OXYGEN Summit

May 22-23, 2024, New York City

Smart City Expo USA The event brought together industry leaders, presented smart city technologies, and held a number of lectures and panel discussions. It is not so easy to get here from the outside for a person not directly related to this topic – a standard ticket cost $1,049.

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OXYGEN Summit was held on the first day of the Expo in a separate zone, where only a few people could get in by invitation only. Participants: delegations from more than 10 countries, heads of funds, venture capital and project institutes. At the event, discussions were held on the development of Smart Cities, where I was able to participate from the Ukrainian delegation.

In the framework of the summit, an agreement was signed on the beginning of the implementation of test sites, with the help and allocation of resources from more than 20 major cities and metropolitan areas around the world, where thousands of IT-companies, organizations will be able to get support and unification point, and cities – a direct exchange of experience, with the opportunity to apply the results themselves.

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What can we offer?

The ideas we promoted in Jacque Fresco’s original ” The Venus Project” fit well with the latest trends, as well as technology, automation and robotization. This is especially true with the rapid development of artificial intelligence and the growing realization that the current order of things is outdated and out of step with modern scientific and technological progress, and with the very capabilities of our planet. These ideas help us to envision an inspiring future where many things work in new ways. Where are we going and what is appropriate to strive for? Participants in the smart city market do not yet have a common understanding of the ultimate goal, a desire to join forces for a realistically achievable bright future – and it would be great to give them this picture.

The evolutionary transition to a post-scarcity economy described by Jacque Fresco fits well with the concept of smart city development as a starting point.

Communicating on these topics with participants, speakers, representatives of foundations, companies, etc., I saw how it resonated with their company missions, technologies presented, and personal position. There is an understanding that the world is going to change, and our option, whoever I talked to – was enthusiastic, interesting and supportive. It was clear and eye-opening to many people to imagine the future city as a single highly automated system, controlled by AI, which produces, distributes, provides services, intelligently using resources, freeing people from boring and monotonous work, giving them everything they need to live a full life and realize their potential, without any additional conditions.

Where there are discrepancies – the ever-changing world will soon correct this. For example, not everyone believes in significant automation and mass replacement of humans in jobs. Directly working on products that do this, as in Microsoft calling AI, neural networks – “assistant”, explicitly saying from the stage that the goal is “not to replace people” but to “improve their capabilities”. Maybe such a speech looks better for the public image, but such tech giants should already realize where this is going and start adapting in advance, not clinging to the past and accepted patterns, like the work just for the sake of work. A lawyer on the panel suggested introducing a law requiring companies to hire people even if there’s nothing there for them to do. – What’s the point? Faced closely with the thinking of lawmakers, there is wild dissonance. We live in a monstrously inefficient world, clinging to outdated systems.

On discussion panels, it was often mentioned that after the Covid times, the work has changed. Conditions changed it, forced it to adapt. And when everything seemed to have returned to normal, it became much more difficult to get people to go to offices. Office buildings remain idle, new ones are hardly ever built, and heads of companies come up with various tricks to encourage people to work from the office. Shake-ups and putting new methods into practice is a recipe for change. And we’re in for more of that in the future. The world has not stopped, and we and our grandchildren will live in a completely different system – it is up to us to decide in which one.

I was pleasantly surprised by the panelists, where my question about technological unemployment and the mismatch between the level of development and our system was answered by a man, Corey Gray, head of the Smart City Consil Foundation, who told his colleagues on stage everything as it is and where it’s going, in our own words – and I, of course, recorded it all on video! We exchanged contacts, and Andrey Kolodyuk later discussed “Mission on Earth” with him.

«Mission On Earth» Project

The day before the Expo, we managed to hold a separate working meeting with Andrey Kolodyuk, where we went straight to practical things.

Andrey Kolodyuk – head of a venture fund, ambassador of Ukrainian business, has created and managed large companies, etc. You can just Google his name to understand the scale of the man. It was with him that we had been planning the construction of a new smart city near Kyiv since 2013, negotiating with then still alive Jacque Fresco ( Andrey flew to him twice) – and the project could have gone ahead in those years, if the circumstances had turned out a little differently.

Andrey spoke at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute – at that time my team and I managed to gather 1,700 people in record time for the premiere of the movie “The Choice is Ours”, with a live broadcast with Jacque Fresco. That was in 2015. We also did an interview with him on Hromadske (see photo below).

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In addition to negotiating with Jacque Fresco, I was even part of the working group and board that planned it all. I have experience in the family construction business, designing almost any kind of structure and organizing the whole process on a turnkey basis. For example, part of the plan was to create a design institute from scratch, that would create a city, and then go on to work in the city itself on other cities, and similar projects. This would have been much cheaper than a third party: a design bureau from the U.S., which Roxanne Meadows, the head of The Venus Project, referred us to, because they, at The Venus Project, to our surprise, had nothing to offer but a concept and a brand. And this despite the fact that “this was the best opportunity to build something,” as said by Stanislav Aizin, the first director on The Venus Project’s newly-formed board of directors, who held the position from 2016-2018, before today’s woeful directors came along.

What about this city project today? Andrew has all along continued to organize this endeavor despite the challenges, building all the necessary groundwork: from land, to funding, to negotiating potential expanded permits and authority for the territories, and has been gathering influential and necessary people from politics, business, and the non-profit sector for over 10 years.

Andrey organized the “Ukrainian House” in Davos, which like a magnet gathers all the influential and active part of society from politics, business and public organizations – and he told me that the ideas proposed by Jacque Fresco are in great demand, and the time for these ideas is just around the corner, but there is still a vague understanding of possible implementation. We met recently in London, and before that we were always in contact. The period of active work with Andrey was in 2013-2018, when we held dozens of working meetings, traveled to potential construction sites and developed conceptual proposal and presentations.

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Photos and article about the Ukrainian House in Davos 2018: https://mc.today/vpervye-ukraina-vyzyvala-ne-zhalost-a-uvazhenie-andrej-kolodyuk-ob-organizatsii-ukrainskogo-doma-v-davose/

What’s this all about?

The pilot name for the planned city is Mission on Earth, and the public company and the actual launch will begin later this year or next year. But I can already share some insights and great news with you!

Straight away to the good news – we, our organization Designing the Future, have already been invited as direct participants! Partnering in this endeavor brings us a large-scale, serious hands-on project to our account, opening up new perspectives, opportunities and contacts. The puzzle of our proposals, new trends, this partnership and potential opportunities is coming together very well.

The concept of “Mission on Earth” is to become a test site and cluster campus, a working hub and expo, a conference site, a center of attraction and a launching pad for many companies in the smart city field.

Unlike other smart cities – to offer a change in the social structure of society, to introduce new types of economies, social experiments in clusters, to give more freedom to participants and less regulation by the state. As an example, a much expanded sharing economy, where you can use many things just by borrowing them “from the library” – similar to the Resource Center in Jacque Fresco’s cities.

The purpose of the city is to set new tendencies, and drive forward human civilization, to present the construction of a smart city as a single product that can be easily ordered, pulling up all the accumulated experience, practices and the required companies at once. And by the way, it is not so far from this to planning the city as one big highly automated system with advanced AI – which, in my opinion, is the key to the transition to that post-scarcity world that Jacque Fresco was talking about.

We have an interview with Andrey Kolodyuk where he will give more details about the planned city.

Everything is very promising and will allow us to start working on our own reputation, achievements and practical projects in an accelerated mode. Finally, our path will be opened and artificial obstacles will be removed, which have been holding back our development for a long time, throwing us off the achieved heights for the umpteenth time in a very harsh way. But we have adapted, achieved new successes. And if we have coped in such conditions – it will be easier to do it now!

Would you like to join us?

Crowdfundings

There was only a couple of weeks to organize everything for the trip, but a few social media and sponsor chat announcements were enough to raise a sizable crowdfunding budget of $2,000, 75% of which was raised in just over 24 hours! An additional goal for equipment was quickly covered too.

Special thanks from all of us for the substantial contribution: Mikhail Sobolev, Vadim Rotary, Anatoly Karpov, Ilya Terentyev, Oleksandr T, Moonkiss.

The New Beginnings crowdfunding was launched shortly before we knew we were flying to New York. It is still relevant. The main goal hasn’t changed – to raise a fund or regular contributions for team salaries and development, building a solid base, reaching self-sustainability, moving forward with the Plan. With this journey in mind, we will rewrite the Plan a bit, but now in a more positive and practical way.

Thank you!
Join us, support, spread the word.

Yevhen Sliuzko

I have been at the center of all this dirrection for over 13 years and can tell you a lot of things, from detailed explanation of Jacque Fresco’s original proposals, to experience of working with the movement, to little known and insider information.

I have organized the most successful and effective team of The Venus Project movement, now represented by Designing The Future, as well as the 1.5 million subscriber Jacque Fresco channel, small and large events, radio and TV interviews, working with universities and schools, organizing events, running a network of groups in 60 cities with regular meetings, and much more. Exposed and fought fraudulent companies and initiatives to protect The Venus Project’s reputation.

Organized and negotiated the construction of The Venus Project’s smart city, with the then living Jacque Fresco, which was their best chance. This has now evolved into a full-fledged smart city project and test site for the development of the entire industry of smart cities, called “Mission on Earth”, which will be launched soon, late 2024-early 2025, and we’re directly involved.

After the new directors of The Venus Project changed course, I strongly opposed it without hesitation, especially knowing the details of the gamble – taking the side of Jacque Fresco’s original ideas. Whatever the outcomes, I will continue what I have started, with the goal of giving humanity a chance to move toward a resource-based economy, or at least to point society in the right direction. I hope you will join us.

sluzko.com

The post Now we will be directly involved in the construction of smart cities appeared first on Designing The Future.

This interview confirms our research with direct official responses. Jacques Fresco’s “The Venus Project” really doesn’t exist anymore and it’s all considered “obsolete” in favour of eco-villages, permaculture, local self-sufficiency, and Nate and Simon Michaux’s vision of a conspiracy theories in science and energy, in preparation for the coming “apocalypse” or as they call it, Polycrisis.

Every other sentence they convince us that they haven’t deviated from Jacques Fresco, but it felt like a search for excuses with quotes taken out of context rather than a matter-of-fact explanation.

As Nate says, “The new The Venus Project, it’s just another level of abstraction, of a higher order than Jacques.” The transformation into a philosophy club is becoming more and more pronounced. You can now spend months arguing about things that don’t exist and never will, going through endless options and sub-options. Leaving the role of judge to the directors.

Simon Michaux (as well as his non-peer-reviewed, 3 year old, study) is highly praised and talked about as a defining piece of work for the new The Venus Project! … – well, Simon’s podcasts expose the pseudoscience, conspiracies, and flimsy research in their plans. Perhaps by emphasizing uncertainty and many options, there is a desire to hide the real plan they are working on now with Simon Michaux, which is uncomfortable for the established public on whose support and donations they depend.

Read our research to find out the details. Two and a half months after this document was published, we still haven’t seen any responses from Nate. Why? There are only their own quotes there, and what can be denied in their own words?

Our research “The Death of Jacque Fresco’s The Venus Project”

Yevhen Sliuzko

I have been at the center of all this dirrection for over 13 years and can tell you a lot of things, from detailed explanation of Jacque Fresco’s original proposals, to experience of working with the movement, to little known and insider information.

I have organized the most successful and effective team of The Venus Project movement, now represented by Designing The Future, as well as the 1.5 million subscriber Jacque Fresco channel, small and large events, radio and TV interviews, working with universities and schools, organizing events, running a network of groups in 60 cities with regular meetings, and much more. Exposed and fought fraudulent companies and initiatives to protect The Venus Project’s reputation.

Organized and negotiated the construction of The Venus Project’s smart city, with the then living Jacque Fresco, which was their best chance. This has now evolved into a full-fledged smart city project and test site for the development of the entire industry of smart cities, called “Mission on Earth”, which will be launched soon, late 2024-early 2025, and we’re directly involved.

After the new directors of The Venus Project changed course, I strongly opposed it without hesitation, especially knowing the details of the gamble – taking the side of Jacque Fresco’s original ideas. Whatever the outcomes, I will continue what I have started, with the goal of giving humanity a chance to move toward a resource-based economy, or at least to point society in the right direction. I hope you will join us.

sluzko.com

The post The Venus Project is no longer has a clear proposal and plan, but rather countless options appeared first on Designing The Future.

We are talking about The Thorium Network and MECi Group. You can still find The Thorium Network in the partner block on The Venus Project website, in a Facebook repost to The Venus Project’s group “The Thorium Newsletter” where they talk about working closely together to build the city.

It was our investigation of the fraudulent trails of Jeremiah Josey, a director of these companies, and his entire chain of shell companies, including a fake oil and gas company, that started the most tension with The Venus Project’s board of directors, with Simon Michaux promising to sue for slander, twice.

It seems it was our research-including on The Venus Project’s secret plans – that delayed the crowdfunding for City in the Desert that we kept a lot of The Venus Project and Jacque Fresco fans out of trouble. Or have we not yet?

What excuse will they come up with this time?

Yevhen Sliuzko

I have been at the center of all this dirrection for over 13 years and can tell you a lot of things, from detailed explanation of Jacque Fresco’s original proposals, to experience of working with the movement, to little known and insider information.

I have organized the most successful and effective team of The Venus Project movement, now represented by Designing The Future, as well as the 1.5 million subscriber Jacque Fresco channel, small and large events, radio and TV interviews, working with universities and schools, organizing events, running a network of groups in 60 cities with regular meetings, and much more. Exposed and fought fraudulent companies and initiatives to protect The Venus Project’s reputation.

Organized and negotiated the construction of The Venus Project’s smart city, with the then living Jacque Fresco, which was their best chance. This has now evolved into a full-fledged smart city project and test site for the development of the entire industry of smart cities, called “Mission on Earth”, which will be launched soon, late 2024-early 2025, and we’re directly involved.

After the new directors of The Venus Project changed course, I strongly opposed it without hesitation, especially knowing the details of the gamble – taking the side of Jacque Fresco’s original ideas. Whatever the outcomes, I will continue what I have started, with the goal of giving humanity a chance to move toward a resource-based economy, or at least to point society in the right direction. I hope you will join us.

sluzko.com

The post SHUT DOWN BY COURT ORDER! appeared first on Designing The Future.

The directors of The Venus Project claims that RBE vision used to be a global approach, but not now: “We’ve started to look at it as a localized economy. The Venus Evolution is working on the transition. Many groups are developing their approaches, we are working with those groups or trying to.”

This interview, in over a month, has only been viewed by 100 people. It’s amazing how they don’t already talk about it on all their channels. What’s the reason for keeping it from the public?

Nathanael Dinwiddie adds: “We can’t rely on wind and solar anymore, especially on a global scale. Thorium reactor and geothermal, ammonia engine – is our future.” – Supporting the narrative about the low efficiency of renewable energy, and the ubiquitous corporate conspiracy to promote solar and wind power to distract attention. This has been mentioned on podcasts by their new senior advisor and leader of the whole endeavor, Simon Michaux.

The Venus Project wants to raise 1 million dollars through crowdfunding to build a remote city in the desert. But wait, turns out that’s going for travel costs and to convincing people to invest most of the money (which is $10 billion by the way) – so not for the construction itself. They want to “catch the Big Fish”. Simon Michaux has mentioned it more than once on podcasts: “Crowdfunding will help me get out of work and catch Big Fish”. What are the chances of this to succeed and where are the guarantees?

And it looks like crowdfunding has been planned for a long time, and it’s about to start.

Let’s note that to start with crowdfunding would be an obvious outlaw! The supportive audience still has the image presented by Jacque Fresco and the original The Venus Project in their minds because of decades of presenting ideas through lectures, interviews, books and movies. What was done to bring these people up to date? Absolutely nothing. The new ideas and suggestions differ in significant ways, you can read about this on Insider’s chapter on this website, where we have notes from Simon Michaux’s podcasts.

Then Nathanael Dinwiddie went on to justify that they’ve been accused of moving away from Jacques’ ideas, and that it’s hard to get along with individual groups and people, but they’re trying: “These people are fulfilling their needs, but we’re not interested and we don’t need that anymore.”

But like Nate says, The Venus Project is a vision. So please leave the original names and the website behind the original ideas put forth by Jacques Fresco – and that will clear up any misunderstandings and disagreements. Allow those who want to continue on the path to follow it, not put up obstacles.

So.. what impressions does this almost exclusive interview, which was done for the first time in 4 years, leaves you with? Avoiding specifics and discussing topics vaguely without mentioning names, titles, or details: responses lacked depth and failed to provide substantial information. Such an answers leaves us with much more questions.

And final word from Nate: “Get you ready for Metacrisis and Polycrisis!” (whatever that means)

Looking forward to more interviews!

Interview, January 17, 2024: https://www.facebook.com/ed.gold.5621/videos/410477214752721

Yevhen Sliuzko

I have been at the center of all this dirrection for over 13 years and can tell you a lot of things, from detailed explanation of Jacque Fresco’s original proposals, to experience of working with the movement, to little known and insider information.

I have organized the most successful and effective team of The Venus Project movement, now represented by Designing The Future, as well as the 1.5 million subscriber Jacque Fresco channel, small and large events, radio and TV interviews, working with universities and schools, organizing events, running a network of groups in 60 cities with regular meetings, and much more. Exposed and fought fraudulent companies and initiatives to protect The Venus Project’s reputation.

Organized and negotiated the construction of The Venus Project’s smart city, with the then living Jacque Fresco, which was their best chance. This has now evolved into a full-fledged smart city project and test site for the development of the entire industry of smart cities, called “Mission on Earth”, which will be launched soon, late 2024-early 2025, and we’re directly involved.

After the new directors of The Venus Project changed course, I strongly opposed it without hesitation, especially knowing the details of the gamble – taking the side of Jacque Fresco’s original ideas. Whatever the outcomes, I will continue what I have started, with the goal of giving humanity a chance to move toward a resource-based economy, or at least to point society in the right direction. I hope you will join us.

sluzko.com

The post The Venus Project’s 1 million dollar crowdfunding for Simon Michaux! appeared first on Designing The Future.

The author of the article has conducted his own investigation and provides additional arguments and evidence, correspondence with an unknown key member of the team that has shared secret snippets from upcoming presentations.

Some points from the article:

In summary, the claims made in the ‘The Death of Jacque Fresco’s The Venus Project‘ investigation are highly likely to be true based on the presented context. These claims indicate that The Venus Project has strayed far from Fresco’s vision of a future free from politics, poverty, and war, instead descending into an apocalyptic cult led by a con-man and his followers. As a result, The Venus Project has forfeited its once significant role in human evolution and cannot be endorsed by anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of science.

The Jacque Fresco Education Network
Read the whole article here: https://jacque-fresco-edu.net/blog/32

Yevhen Sliuzko

I have been at the center of all this dirrection for over 13 years and can tell you a lot of things, from detailed explanation of Jacque Fresco’s original proposals, to experience of working with the movement, to little known and insider information.

I have organized the most successful and effective team of The Venus Project movement, now represented by Designing The Future, as well as the 1.5 million subscriber Jacque Fresco channel, small and large events, radio and TV interviews, working with universities and schools, organizing events, running a network of groups in 60 cities with regular meetings, and much more. Exposed and fought fraudulent companies and initiatives to protect The Venus Project’s reputation.

Organized and negotiated the construction of The Venus Project’s smart city, with the then living Jacque Fresco, which was their best chance. This has now evolved into a full-fledged smart city project and test site for the development of the entire industry of smart cities, called “Mission on Earth”, which will be launched soon, late 2024-early 2025, and we’re directly involved.

After the new directors of The Venus Project changed course, I strongly opposed it without hesitation, especially knowing the details of the gamble – taking the side of Jacque Fresco’s original ideas. Whatever the outcomes, I will continue what I have started, with the goal of giving humanity a chance to move toward a resource-based economy, or at least to point society in the right direction. I hope you will join us.

sluzko.com

The post The first article to double-check our claims appeared first on Designing The Future.