Intro: 0:00
Part 1 6:16
Part 2 23:28
Part 3 47:03
Part 4 1:19:09
Produced/Directed by Roxanne Meadows and Joel Holt
Script by Roxanne Meadows
Editor Joel Holt, assisted by Roxanne Meadows & Nathaniel Dinwiddie
Original Score by Kat Apple
This film series explores many aspects of our society. To rethink what is possible in our world, we need to consider what kind of world we want to live in. Although we refer to it as civilization, it is anything but civilized. Visions of global unity & fellowship have long inspired humanity, yet the social arrangements up to the present have largely failed to produce a peaceful and productive world. While we appear to be technically advanced, our values and behaviors are not. The possibility of an optimistic future is in stark contrast to our current social, economic, and environmental dilemmas. The Choice Is Ours includes interviews with notable scientists, media professionals, authors, and other thinkers exploring the difficulties we face.
Part I provides an introduction and overview of cultural & environmental conditions that are untenable for a sustainable world civilization. It explores the determinants of behavior to dispel the myth of “human nature”, while demonstrating how environment shapes behavior. The science of behavior is an important - yet largely missing - ingredient in our culture.
Part II questions the values, behaviors, and consequences of our social structures, and illustrates how our global monetary system is obsolete and increasingly insufficient to meet the needs of most people. Critical consideration of the banking, media, and criminal justice systems reveals these institutions for what they really are: tools of social control managed by the established political and economic elite. If we stay the present course, the familiar cycles of crime, economic booms & busts, war, and further environmental destruction are inevitable.
Part III explains the methods and potential of science. It proposes solutions that we can apply at present to eliminate the use of non-renewable sources of energy. It depicts the vision of The Venus Project to build an entirely new world from the ground up: a “redesign of the culture”, where all enjoy a high standard of living, free of servitude and debt, while also protecting the environment.
Part IV explains how it is not just architecture and a social structure that is in desperate need of change, but our values which have been handed down from centuries ago. They too need to be updated to our technological age, which has the potential to eliminate our scarcity-driven societies of today. Our problems are mostly of our own making, but we can still turn things around before the point of no return. It’s not too late for an optimistic outlook on the fantastic possibilities that lie before us.
Jacque Fresco-Futurist, Industrial Designer, Social Engineer, Founder of The Venus Project
Jeffery A. Hoffman Ph.D - Prof. Aeronautics & Astronautics MIT, Former NASA Astronaut
Henry Schlinger, Ph.D., BCBA-D - Prof. Psychology CAL State University
Abby Martin - Journalist & Host "The Empire Files"
Karen Hudes - Economist, Lawyer, World Bank Whistleblower
Erin Ade - Reporter & Host "Boom Bust" – RT
Paul Wright - Founder & Director of Human Rights Defense Center, Editor of Prison Legal News, Author
Dylan Ratigan - Author & TV Host "The Dylan Ratigan Show"
Mark Jacobson, Ph.d - Prof. Civil & Env. Engineering, Stanford University. www.thesolutionsproject.org
Erik Brynjolfsson, Ph.D - Prof. of Management-MIT Sloan School of Management, Dir. MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, Author
Lawrence M. Krauss, Ph.D - Foundation Prof. School of Earth and Space Exploration, and director of Origins Project, Arizona State University. Author "A Universe from Nothing".
Paul Hewitt - Author "Conceptual Physics"
Roxanne Meadows - Co-Founder The Venus Project
*special thanks also to Alexander "Obraz" ...Obraz.io who created the many 2d motion depictions (plus the sound fx!) of concepts such as the "hamburgers and fried chicken" segment and many others which are Alexander's inimitable work style and atteniton to details where we needed very specific illustrations of key points.
The Venus Project proposes an alternative vision of what the future can be if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new world civilization. It calls for a straightforward redesign of our culture in which the age-old inadequacies of war, poverty, hunger, debt and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but as totally unacceptable. Anything less will result in a continuation of the same catalog of problems inherent in today's world.
Learn more at www.thevenusproject.com