Jacque Fresco: Quotes about the world

“So, "normal" is really what society dictates as normal and if we're born in that world, we would see that as normal. But if you think about it for a second, is it really?”

“Our times demand the declaration of the world's resources as the common heritage of all people.”

“You know that you can't go out there and change the world tomorrow morning. It just takes time, and the realization of that does not produce frustration. What produces frustration, is when you expect the world to join with your cause it's so reasonable. It is not reasonable to unreasonable people.”

“You can play a role in the shaping of tomorrow’s world by asking yourself questions like, “What kind of world do I want to live in?” and “What does democracy mean to me?””

“We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us.”

“All people are brought up by cultures and every culture says 'You live in the greatest country in the world' 'I'm American and proud of it', 'I'm Canadian. I'm proud of it' That separates people. Now, if you were brought up in Ireland, you'd say, 'The Irish people are fine, there's a fine Irish lad sitting there'. Well, even your dialect, your facial expressions, you pick up from your country or the area you come from. If you still don't understand that, if you were brought up in Australia, you'd say, 'How are ya, Mate? Yeah Yeah Yeah'. That's normal in Australia. If a Filipino baby was brought up in Australia, that's the way it speaks.”

“Whatever happens in the world is real, what one thinks should have happened is projection. We suffer more from our fictitious illusion and expectations of reality.”

“Conditions of misery, suffering, war, and war profiteering were the incentive and inspiration for my work. I was also motivated by the seeming incompetence of governments, the academic world, and a lack of solutions from scientists. Many fail as generalists because of their over-specialization on limited aspects of social problems. Scientists, politicians, and academicians see problems from inside the system they’re in, which is what’s responsible for the problems in the first place. I am disappointed with those who worry about terra-forming other planets while our own is still full of war, poverty, hunger, and environmental neglect.”

“If you think we can’t change the world, It just means you're not one of those that will.”

“At the beginning of World War II the U. S. had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.”

“Politics was good a hundred years ago. Today, politicians have no ability to solve any problems because they are not students of behavior. They are not students of agriculture, oceanography, they know nothing about the factors that operate the world. So, they say things that people like to hear. And that gets them elected. Now scientists on the other hand are not concerned with public approval. What they do, even if everybody on earth believe the earth was flat, they would say: 'You're wrong, this is the evidence we have to support the fact that the earth is round' but they don't say: 'it's a little round and a little flat' - that's politicians.”