Understanding the whole picture

How did all this happen in The Venus Project organization? Completing the picture with the missing puzzle pieces. 

Simon Michaux’s research on the impossibility of switching to renewable energy, which was the main reason for the radical change in The Venus Project program

Associate Professor Simon Michaux’s research on the impossibility of switching to renewable energy, replacing all cars with electric cars, due to the scarcity of resources on Earth.*

This research is the basis for the transformation of The Venus Project’s entire program.

*Our note: By this, we mean maintaining the same culture of consumption, production and distribution, based on the materials used for 2022 and the key common technologies used to generate energy and produce electric cars.
Presentation with explanations from Simon Michaux himself: https://youtu.be/MBVmnKuBocc

Criticism of Simon Michaux’s research 

Associate Professor Simon Michaux’s research, which was the main reason for the Venus Project’s change of course, has already begun to grow in criticism.  We suggest you read at least the first one.

1. Michael Bernard, Article “How Many Things Must One Analyst Get Wrong In Order To Proclaim A Convenient Decarbonization Minerals Shortage?“ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/04/how-many-things-must-one-analyst-get-wrong-in-order-to-proclaim-a-convenient-decarbonization-minerals-shortage

2. Video analysis “Do we have enough resources?” https://youtu.be/Kr_JjO9YWOo 

3. Auke Hoekstra with a series of posts on Twitter https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/1594084375972712448?s=20 , University of Technology Eindhoven 

4. Article by Nafiz Ahmed in The Age of Transformation https://ageoftransformation.org/energy-transformation-wont-be-derailed-by-lack-of-raw-materials

Judging from the presentation, from the video that was published in 2013, Simon promoted the same theses before his 1000 page study, which, let me remind you (if you read the criticism), after more than a year of its existence, has not been peer-reviewed, has not been subject to any substantive discussion in scientific circles, has not been published in peer-reviewed journals, was not included in the recent UN report on the transition to renewable sources – but the study is already garnering the very real criticisms listed above, and is being promoted largely by the circles in which it validates their own agenda and course.

By the way, maybe you didn’t know about The Venus Project’s board of directors? Who are they? Where are the directors from? 

Shortly before Jacque Fresco’s death, after the 100 Years of Jacque conference, the ‘Resource Based Economy’ organization was created with directors drawn from the movement, the initiator and first “director” being Stanislav (Stan) Aizin, who, when he came to the director’s chair (by claiming credit for our team’s accomplishments, which at the time were the most significant in the world), began to centralize the movement: simply sweeping away everything that had been achieved before, taking away groups, resources from volunteer groups, introducing strict rules, bureaucracy and a strict vertical of power, introducing non-disclosure agreements with the point that everything you do does not belong to you. At this time there are a dozen letters of resignation of people from key performance teams, established organizations around the world, etc.

Our team got hit too, and barely survived after that, but not with the same team, not with all the capabilities and not with the same motivation – practically killing the movement both in our country and around the world. Our warnings on the length of a small book had no effect at the time, but have already been fully realized. Later, Roxanne Meadows recognized that Stan had made a mess of things, he had divided everyone – a lot of initiatives, teams, projects, momentum, etc. had been lost. But later, Nate Dinwiddie and Theophilos Chaldezos were invited to the board of directors, which continued to view the movement as unnecessary chaos, interfering with work, which needed to be cleaned up. Indeed, not too long ago, even the most dedicated activist David Medina claimed that TVPsupport (simmilar to the “The Venus Project movement”, and that was created during the Stan times) simply didn’t exist anymore.

So in 2018, the Resource Based Economy organization absorbs the Venus Project organization (in every sense), going over its name. That’s where the directors come from now. Who showed up, in idea, so that Roxanne could pass it on, to continue the course set by Jacque. But what is there to pass on, when the archive of Jacques’ lectures is under the 7 seals and no one is allowed to use it, distribute, or revise them into new material (we have a 1.5 million subscriber themed channel called ” Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project” – we were not given access to the archive even when I was there, and now they want to take away the ability to distribute Jacque Fresco’s lectures), when the movement has been destroyed (like 2 or 3 times now), and when the course has changed almost 180 degrees? Is this what Jacque Fresco, and then tens of thousands of people around the world, have worked for, investing time, energy, finances, and entrusting the organization The Venus Project with the transition to the proposals? One last crowdfunding before it completely closes?

First director

Meet Stanislav Aisin, since 2016 the “first director” on the first board of directors of the Resource Based Economy organization, which later, in 2018, absorbed the original The Venus Project organization, with a new board of directors in the persons of Nate, Teo, and Bo.

The man that basically dismantled the global movement and many of The Venus Project’s initiatives, setting it back decades, nearly threatened our team and our resources – now a consultant on building, promoting and managing social movements. He is the author of ‘SOCIAL INNOVATION: A Global Experience’ book!

..Yes, Stanislav was in our team, but as a communicator, for several years, because he spoke good English, lived nearby in Florida and could quickly resolve issues, get through to Jaque and Roxanne, help to quickly organize interviews at the request of the media. But he got to the point that he wrote down all our merits (as it turned out) on himself, and decided to sweep us out, to take away our groups and channels, and to turn Roxanne against us, and it took for us more than couple years to establish relations with her after. And he still attributes our merits to himself, like the one about “self-sufficient Russian-speaking team” and “businessman from Ukraine”.

About this starting at 14:30: https://youtu.be/kaFpWM6Uu5U

It is in this interview that he says that a city in Ukraine is the most promising proposal in the entire existence of The Venus Project.

It’s funny the circumstances under which this organization was organized and how destructive the consequences have been and continue to be. It emerged out of our negotiations for a city in Ukraine, seemingly continuing the work, but in their own way. The mistakes of Stanislav were not corrected after his banishment, not even attempted, although Roxana recognized the destructive effect of Stanislav, but one can see how the new board of directors picked up the baton, and continued the cause, and we have now what we have.

And the fact that then we were not allowed to criticize Stanislav, allegedly “for personal reasons”, that now is a very good excuse not to accept any criticism to Nate. Time will judge again, of course, but the consequences will not go away.

Conspiracy against green energy 

The memes on the topic, the jokes in the presentations, Simon’s research, what channels the interviews are on. And you can see that both Simon Michax and Nate and Theo (“The Venus Project’s” board of directors) are in this.

And this can be traced throughout the world, and has its primary sources.

About the conspiracy against green energy
Exposed: The smear tactics against wind and solar 

About all these overblown problems with wind turbines

Wind power’s unsolved problem

Actually, it is not surprising that so many conspiracy theories merge into one huge force of disbelief in everything. And even to science.

Moldova vs. USA!

Which country will win 100 to 6, based on queries in English for “Jacque Fresco”?

Google Trends shows the real picture: there is stagnation where there is no work to promote Jacque Fresco/The Venus Project, where there is no support and movement, where public and work on criticism is missing. The work of our team (since 2011) is visible to the naked eye, and many have wondered what’s the matter.

If you pick from 2004  – shows the whole history in a single graph (see photo). There is a steady decline in popularity, except where our team has been working, despite more and more restrictions from The Venus Project organization.

If you select the last 5 years , or last 12 months  – things become even more interesting: “Jacque Fresco” in RU (Жак Фреско) is searched 10 times more than in English “The Venus Project”, “Jacque Fresco”, and in a number of countries, seemingly not the Russian-speaking, the query “Jacque Fresco” in Ru is in the first positions, sometimes with a big gap. Keep in mind that there are 10 times more native English speakers.

Search for “Jacque Fresco” in English over the past 5 years – in the top list are all former CIS countries. Ratio of searches in Moldova and the USA: Moldova wins with a score of 100 to 6! Remind me, what is the population ratio?

We continue to develop the Jacque Fresco channels, work on popularization, and, due to a sharp change in the course of the Venus Project organization, we will continue the work begun on the original proposals of Jacques Fresco and the Venus Project – but a big question HOW will it be possible afterwards?

Perhaps the declining enrollment was the deciding factor in getting the directors of The Venus Project to revise the original course and program. However, the question remains, what was done to prevent this?

Comparing the success of our region, and the attitude toward the lectures themselves, the information in them, and Jacques Fresco’s proposals as a key element of The Venus Project, we wonder why the lectures and materials with Jacque are being moved under a separate organization, the ” Jacque Fresco Foundation” (but with the same board of directors).

It is only in our region that so many of Jacques’ materials are available publicly (without SMS and registration), in one place, conveniently structured, with clear sound, restored picture, subtitles and support of people with their questions in comments under the video, and in general with feedback to the audience.

The official social media accounts of The Venus Project don’t even post Jacque Fresco lectures at all, except for the occasional posting by other volunteers in the volunteer group. So they have 1-2 minute to 10-15 minute excerpts that appear in publications, but the full lectures have to be purchased: as a lecture series, a tour, additional hour-long lectures, and whatever else they are transcribing now.  

Interviews and additional videos are never published by them either, and on YouTube they are scattered across channels. And even on those channels where they were collected – there are 500 views, at best a few thousand.

The emphasis on learning materials is given only to the 16-part lecture series, Jacques’ books, the Venus Project documentaries, a tour with Jacques Fresco, and a set of classic lectures from the 70’s – and this is an in-depth study, not for everyone, involving the purchase of a set of disks. There used to be study sessions on this set, where a group of people would buy a set for the group and discuss what they had read/heard, but now these sessions are available to only a few people a year, and are conducted by Theo, who is on the board of directors of The Venus Project.

We also ran a similar course in Teamspeak (a Discord-like program) from 2011-2016, and added more General Semantics, English on Materials courses, and so on – but decided to focus on working with masses of people rather than individuals. As a result, we sometimes have millions of views on lectures that are only pay-only on The Venus Project, we have Jacques’ audiobooks and recommended reading lists, and subscribers are already familiar with a wide range of suggestions and additional topics, individual nuances of questions, and are retelling our answers to them from comments/personal interactions.

I’ve made the proposals more than once to Roxanne to change the lecture policy, utilizing our expertise in other monetization ways. I have suggested payback options, like YouTube in our case – but the proposals, although she liked them at first, were not approved by the board of directors, as they have a different vision and plans for it. It is worth waiting for the launch of the site “Jacques Fresco Foundation”, but already now we can see that some subscription is planned in order to have access to Jacques’ archived lectures and other materials, and again, it is not for the masses of people, which in my opinion is extremely negative for the promotion of ideas in the world.

Analysis of the new list of recommended literature 

The analysis of a new list of recommended literature on The Venus Project website https://www.thevenusproject.com/learn/recommended-books-films-and-videos/

There are only 5 books included, out of 78 from the previous list. Jacque Fresco’s books now are excluded.

The main topics are now: about resources, thinking in systems, energy, about the world with lack of resources and energy, personal survival with minimum resources, creation of educational organizations, permaculture, growth limits, anticipation of future catastrophes, philosophy and so on. It is noticed that books on the topics “Abundance”, “Options for a better future for mankind”, “Utopias”, “General Semantics”, “Fight against obscurantism”, “Automation” have disappeared from the new list. On the contrary – added about “Resource Scarcity”, “Collapse”, “Limits to Technology Growth”, “Survival”, “Organic Farming”, “Philosophy”. On mechanistic theory, or behaviorism – right now only one, recently released book by Sapolsky, instead of a whole list (haven’t read the new one yet, but probably missing a whole layer of application of the method to society here).

👉 Comparison table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/114WkG35osQzbAK05qExG4Hi-cUtVQloK6onZdqTzahY/edit?usp=sharing 

There is a mention of Jacque’s original reading list, but in the wording “Outdated Literature”, with a redirect to the “Jacque Fresco Foundation” website, https://www.frescofoundation.org/library  ie. The Venus Project still does not recommend Jacques’ recommended books or considers them outdated (5 of 78 remain), and Jacques’ own books, such as Designing the Future, and The Best That Money Can’t Buy, are not on the list, not even on the Jacques Fresco Foundation website yet.

Roxanne’s environment has changed significantly with Jacques’ passing. Now, the main participant is Nate, who lives nearby, he is the initiator of this new course, giving Roxanne materials to study (books, podcasts) and the appropriate people, and presenting entire personal presentations on projector on the necessary topics, even every day, for years.

How Roxanne trusted Nate is a separate topic. But he lives right there in the Venus Project on the grounds in a dome, and has been able to influence her effectively for about 9 years, especially when there is nothing left of the movement, when everything is secret and no one knows what’s going on there, can’t criticize on the matter or give advice from the outside. And now the idea that the survival of human civilization depends on the new course of The Venus Project is being pushed, inflating the importance of this transformation and Nate’s irreplaceability to the skies, willing to make any sacrifice, and to overlook any criticism.

Most of the reasonable people in the movement have either fallen away/dissolved under the many reforms of the movement (which no longer exists by the way) or even died, or are unaware to this day (thanks to non-disclosure and secrecy agreements). Nate said he was mopping up the movement – just mopping up the remaining ones who can tell the truth to him and Roxanne – there are fewer and fewer, or hardly any left. This effort, me and my team is probably the Venus Project’s last chance to get back to its original course.

And the response to criticism is very harsh, and is either cut off with “you’re out of touch/not a scientist/you don’t understand everything” or forcefully pushed down, even with a blackmail. Criticism and uncomfortable questions are not something that can be posted, even in seemingly independent volunteer groups that are somewhat near TVP.

Maybe that’s why there are still no podcasts from Nate (he’s been promising them since 2020). Nate, like Simon, fears criticism like fire and reacts to it violently, even if I would say unhealthily, losing his temper and throwing ultimatums and threats at a moment’s notice.

The pillars of belief standing on disbelief

Probably every rational person who is going over the facts about the new The Venus Project, their partners, and the city’s future project is a little shocked. And will try to find some rational way out of the situation, or have a deep cognitive dissonance, where you can’t believe it and it doesn’t add up, but your brain is trying to mentally put a toad on an elephant.

Most likely, the problem here has formed in much the same way that conspiracy theories form and take hold (especially when the pillars of the new concepts are the conspiracy theories themselves). Logic can’t explain it, can’t beat it. I tried all this 2023 to save the situation, to make a detailed analysis of partners, new ideas, consequences, risks, impact on the original proposals, reputation and future of the organization, gave facts, documents from the registers, offered alternative approaches and adaptation of their solutions – but without success. And the discussion fails because it goes on without reference to facts (excluding anything that doesn’t support the direction), and in addition, is covered from above with appropriate Jacques quotes, philosophical turns and examples, and polished with logical fallacies.

This is because the problem seems to be on a whole other level, and is anchored in the same way as those who believe in a Flat Earth, or any kind of conspiracy theory. The process is very similar, and there aren’t many solutions, and it’s not a given that anything will work – at least the arguments against it are immediately dismissed.

Simon Michaux has already revealed that all of this stands on the pillars of Conspiracy Theories, and it’s like a funnel, where one conspiracy theory spawns and reinforces another, even more rigid one, and so on and so on.

This book is about the funnel of disbelief into which anyone can fall, especially on a wave of stress, mistrust for institutions and loneliness (like in Covid everyone started to escalate), reinforced by logical fallacies and false perceptions, overlaid with personal characteristics of the personality, and practically fixed by social factors, getting into a group of the same believers, getting a place and approval, and even more so taking a leadership role.

Another book that can help you understand the topic of conspiracy theories and to get rid of the belief in some:

“Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational” by Michael Shermer.
(And there are also lectures on YouTube)

His book explains some conspiracy theories in detail, where they came from, how they affect individuals and society, how and why people’s thinking and perceptions change, examples of experiments on the topic and explanations of their results, and statistical information.

Michael Shermer, the author of this book, by the way, believes that the original program of The Venus Project by Jacques Fresco is quite feasible in the future, and spoke of it as a post-scarcity economy, or “Star Trek economy”: https://youtu.be/IT19VCyc7iM 

With the new program, the Venus Project will attract a completely different type of people.

Like Simon Michaux, I, the cornocopian, can also practice labeling – it’s fun and makes complex explanations easier to present:

If you look at who concentrated all the power in their hands, misleading Roxann, everything will become clear: a hippie philosopher, a pseudoscientific conspiracy theorist with faith in his mission to transition to the civilization of eco-settlers, a crypto-fraudster-metaphysicist with a fake biography of the director of an oil company. A couple of wicked stories, faith in the mission on which the fate of humanity depends – and here you have an explosive mixture of something that destroys decades of work, like a house of cards, sacrificing everything that is needed..

And now in your head the whole picture is packaged into a couple of colorful sentences. But the world is much more complex: there are many shades of gray. I hope you have the right questions in your head, and actions are already emerging.

If you want to see the work of Jacque Fresco alive, developing, promoting professionally, accessible to everyone around the world, in all languages ​​and without locked archives and paid subscriptions, having a professional team for the development of proposals in the real world and a global effective movement, productively interacting with international foundations, states, at least inspiring and giving the right ideas, setting the course for the entire industry of smart cities, AI, automation, both for individuals and for all humanity – and at the same time not associated with rigid conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, fraud , secrets, witchcraft, eco-villages and more…
– then accept your own responsibility for this course!

Our task is to explain the situation to the entire community and everyone who has ever supported the original direction of The Venus Project, especially reporters, sponsors/philanthropists and stars, to help open Roxanne’s eyes and rid her of the bad influences from within. This could return The Venus Project to the original course set by Jacque Fresco: when people she knows come to Roxann and twirl their fingers at their head, maybe something will change.

But if this doesn’t work out, we need to unite and create our own organization, the way it should always have been, having missed tons of opportunities around the world over the years. We have experience, we have you – we just need to combine all our efforts and become a real, independent force capable of changing this world!

Thank you!
Please share and make your move

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