Designs for a Better Future, already made
A design for a Better Future consists of a large selection of Better Alternatives. All major topics should be included, such as:
room for recreation, relaxing fun and parties, nature and human areas, learning about life and living together, learning about life on earth, about the earth itself and this enormous universe we are in, government structure and rules, freedom and limitations, taxes and support, education and healthcare, companies for products and services, architecture and city planning, transport and infrastructure, water and food, energy, resources waste recycle, import and export, police and military, financials, and so on.
Making a design for a Better Future is a very large task, and remember this is not supposed to be SF, just S, all should be together possible in this universe. Nobody and nothing can predict how a certain design for a Better Future is going to run in reality, especially on the long term. As soon as we start making a desig real, things will go in unexpected ways, and we should adjust accordingly. This stuff is complex.
So, what Designs for a Better Future have already been made?
I know of only three:
- The Venus Project, by Jacque Fresco
- Zicht op de toekomst, by Robbert and Rudolf Das
- Das Kapital, by Karl Marx
- The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT), by Walt Disney
Aren't there more? If you know about other designs, please let me know.
There are a lot of SF books and movies that depict a different kind of world, but in general I don't count those as serious designs for a better future. They are incomplete designs for an entertaining story really.
What Design for a Better Future is the best so far?
There are not enough designs made yet. To me it is hard to believe that there are only 3. Is this not one of the most important things people should be busy with?! What matters now is to learn from these 3 and make more of them, better ones. Is the design by Karl Marx the only one that has was been realized? Wow, and that didn't work well, but we need to know why it went wrong, we need many more and much better designs!
What we can also look at; all countries in all times. These grew naturally so not started by design, but a lot can be learned from them. Often after a revolution, a country re-starts with a new plan, let's call such plans revolutionary designs.
Zicht op de toekomst, by Robbert and Rudolf Das
(both from 1929-01-23)
This is the first one I found, as a child in our house, my parents had a lot of books. Title: "Zicht op de toekomst, de wereld 80 jaar verder" translates to: "looking at the future, the world 80 years from now". A Dutch book, first printed in 1983. It is of course first about how terrible the world can become if we continue on the same path, and then about their design for a better future. Robbert and Rudolf (brothers) describe how beautiful the world can become in 80 years from there now if their better alternatives have been applied in the meantime, that would be in the year 2063. Great about Robbert and Rudolf Das, is that they made many gorgeous drawings, not just text.
The book: Zicht op de toekomst (1983) Elsevier ISBN 9010047938
Their website: www.rudolfdas.nl
On Wikipedia: nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbert_en_Rudolf_Das
The Venus Project, by Jacque Fresco (1916 – 2017)
"Byond politics poverty and war"
"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."
Visit his site here:
www.thevenusproject.com
On YouTube: The Venus Project
Wikipedia: Jacque Fresco
EPCOT, by Walt Disney (1901 – 1966)
"The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow"
EPCOT is an (unfinished) concept for a planned community, that was created by Walt Disney in collaboration with the designers at Walt Disney Imagineering in the 1960s. Based on ideas stemming from modernism and futurism, and inspired by architectural literature about city planning, Disney intended EPCOT to be a utopian autocratic company town. One of the primary stated aims of EPCOT was to replace urban sprawl as the organizing force of community planning in the United States in the 1960s. Disney intended EPCOT to be a real city, and it was planned to feature commercial, residential, industrial and recreational centers, connected by a mass multimodal transportation system
Visit his site here:
www.thevenusproject.com
Walt Disney's E.P.C.O.T film (1966) on YouTube: The Venus Project
Wikipedia: EPCOT (concept)
Das Kapital, by Karl Marx
"Beyond politics poverty and war"
So yes: Das Kapital, by Karl Marx (published in 1867). For everyone who reacts negative right away: I want to make a list of all serious designs for a better future. Point is to learn from all of them, the good and the bad. I must say that I didn't read it yet. The original goal of his book and communism was a serious design for a better future, aiming to improve the quality of life for most everyone. Not all was bad but it turned out that his design was no good fit for this reality. It has been introduced in many countries, and always ended in tears. One can argue that his design has never been applied as was meant to, but to me is seems fundamentaly flawed, looking at the results. But anyhow and again: you don't need to like it. Goal is to learn from all designs.
Giesbert Nijhuis