The tree begins as a seed. How do you know the seed is the beginning?

How do you know it's not the end product?

Now you don't get that in school;

they have to make you alike, then they can control you.

When war comes they make you patriotic.

The Venus Project Tour

There is no 'you'. People say "What about individuality?"

That's all bullshit. When you're very young, they pump crap into your head:

Cinderella, Christianity.

I want to tell you something about infants.

They can learn technology right away: electronics,

continental drift, agriculture. Kids can learn anything,

just as soon as they can learn 'Jack and the Beanstalk'.

On the way, he met a cow "Moo moo," said the cow, "Bah bah," said the sheep.

You fill kid's heads with that shit, and you want them to grow up sane?

Whatever they pump into your head,

then they say to you as a baby

"Who loves you more than anyone in the world? " "I don't know."

"Your mommy and daddy!"

"What is the greatest country in the world? " "I don't know." "This country!"

Creativity is taking known elements,

and putting them together in unique ways.

I'm trying to give you back your brain,

which they took away from you in schools and in your upbringing.

I'm trying to show you how the world works.

If you want a better world, you have to

get up off your ass and make it better.

The future is going to be very different than what it is today.

The Venus Project

is not about new cities or new architecture. It's about a way of thinking.

I want you to understand that man reflects his culture, his language.

No Chinese baby was ever born speaking Chinese

without being exposed to the language.

We found out that you can't pass on acquired things like bigotry,

prejudice or greed. That's all learned in your culture or your subculture.

The difference between a serial killer and a saint is environment.

That's a very hard thing to accept because that raises lots of questions.

We have no natural instincts.

All that's bullshit. It's learned.

It's hard to believe because I feel I make my own decisions.

I don't feel I've been conditioned to make them

because it's happened ever since I was this high;

I don't even know what I'm doing.

I asked myself years ago, I said "Gee, how are we going to change the world

with all these different values, different people thinking differently?"

I said "I don't know."

That's the first thing you have to learn how to say: I don't know.

[If] we don't know how to get to different people,

how we going to build a saner world?

I realized that the rules of the game, the way society operates,

didn't make sense, because there was products

and people wanted things, but they didn't have the money.

I figured it was the old rules of the game

that were at fault, that were aberrated,

so I began to work on the redesign of society.

Reason and logic is not the way to get to people.

You have to get to them in a way they understand,

and if you fail, come at it in another way.

If you demonstrate it, they know what you're talking about.

So, I began to say "How do you know what you think is true?

That maybe your own projection. You have to look at the whole picture."

They say "God put the fingernails on so if insects get on, you can scratch."

Why did He make the goddamn insects? Then He wouldn't have to make the fingernails.

You understand? It becomes confusing.

They say "I believe in nature. Nature is harmonious."

Every big fish is eating every smaller fish.

Every organ in your body is fighting constantly invading bacteria.

Is that what you mean by harmony?

There are planets that are exploding out there,

meteorites that hit one another and blow up. What's the purpose of that?

What's the purpose of floods? To drown people?

In other words, if you start looking for purpose,

you've got to look all over, take in the whole picture.

So, man projects his own values into nature.

It's hard to be decent in a money world.

We want to shut down all repetitious jobs, automate it,

free people. That's the government of the future.

No people, because people fucked up every time they were in government.

They all become corrupt. They get payed off. They go to war again.

You have depression. It'd never put an end to anything.

A machine has no ambition.

It doesn't want to take over. It doesn't have a gut reaction,

because it's the only thing that can handle a global system. Man can't.

It would take 10 years to change the Earth into a second Garden of Eden,

if you get rid of hand labor.

Politicians do that; they speak to win approval.

The scientist: If everybody believes the Earth is flat, they move right in.

They say "You're wrong. It's round, and this is the evidence."

So, don't speak to win approval.

When you learn to surrender your ego for sharing ideas,

that's the beginning of real progress.

They don't want you to be smarter than they are.

Don't forget when you run into an egotist (what they call an 'egotist')

they try to maintain their position of leadership.

When you say "I'm just a plain, old American and I love this country,

if you don't like it, get the fuck out!"

See it's easy to understand, isn't it?

That's why most people are simplistic, because it is easy to grasp.

"Do the right thing; that's all. " What's the right thing?

A guy said "Every time I ask you a question, I get a lecture!

I want an answer!"

There are no answers. It's very complex, every question a person asks.

"How come some people work really hard, and others don't work at all?"

"It's because he is lazy. " "Ah OK, that's clear,"

but if you go into the background of a person, how he gets to be that way,

why he avoids work,

you go into the nature of the factors that shape human behavior.

You know what I mean? That's too complicated.

Do you know what I mean?