Educational Media Reviews Online

Welcome to the Future is an interesting, well-thought, and intellectually fascinating viewpoint on a vision of the future according to one knowledgeable person. Jacque Fresco, who is the creator and innovator of The Venus Project, which is a 25-acre site in Venus, Florida where Mr. Fresco has constructed a research and development center based on his future-oriented environment. The video is an introduction to the concepts, ideas, opinions, and vision of Mr. Fresco, who is a futurist and a forerunner in the field of industrial design and human factors engineering. In short, the goals of the Venus Project, as stated in the 16 page study guide that accompanies the video, are: 1) to introduce the advantages of a resource based economy in which all of the resources of Planet Earth are held as the common heritage of all nations, 2) to eventually transcend the need for all of the artificial boundaries that separate nations, 3) to reclaim and restore the natural environment, 4) to encourage the widest range of individuality, constructive endeavor and creativity directed toward cooperation rather than competition, 5) to design a balanced-load economy and to produce goods and services of the highest quality, 6) to redesign our cities, transportation systems, and industrial plants so that they are energy efficient, clean, and serve the needs of all residents, 7) to apply clean, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and others, and 8) to assist in stabilizing the world's population through education and voluntary birth control. Most of these goals have been the vision of a number of groups throughout time, including political, religious, and philosophical organizations.

The video is divided into three parts: Probe the Future, The Shape of Tomorrow's Culture, and Visions of the Future. The video incorporates 3-D graphics and models, and videography, and is wonderful to watch and listen to. The ideas presented, however enlightened, require the user to suspend belief in all current political systems and Western ideals in order to glimpse this "vision of the future." Just a few of the ideas include: a resource-based economy instead of the current monetary system; artificial intelligence will replace people in almost all jobs; cities would have to be torn down and reconstructed according to Mr. Fresco's circular design motif; and everyone in the world would have as their life's goal the object of self-growth and self-realization. The video would be of interest to futurists, technologists, and utopianists. Recommended because of its high-tech and interesting ideas, Welcome to the Future does portray a rather naive and simplistic viewpoint regarding human nature.