The Choice is Ours (2015) Parts I & II trailer

The Choice is Ours parts 1 & 2 is part of a 3 part series. Interviews by a variety of scientists, media professionals, and other thinkers explores a variety of issues that are of social, economic, and technical interest. As a species we presently command a vast arsenal of technologies that few of us can comprehend. We hope that these episodes are informative and compels the viewer the rethink what's possible in our world.

For the first time, we have the capability,

the technology, and the knowledge

to achieve a global society of abundance for all.

The question is:

What kind of world do we want to live in?

If we continue as we are,

the consequences will surely be dire.

We are presently depleting natural resources

50% faster than the planet can renew.

Are we incapable of anticipating and planning for our future?

Are politicians competent to manage the world around us?

Are we innately flawed in ways we can't change?

We often hear our worst qualities are inborn.

- Only human nature!
- The culture doesn't know any better.

They don't what forces are involved in shaping human behavior.

Therefore they say "That's human nature."

That's where they're wrong.

So the science of behavior needs to be applied

like the sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology have been.

That's the one missing ingredient in our culture.

And that's the toughest one because it opposes

the way that most people think about themselves.

If the surroundings that establish our values remain unaltered,

the same behaviors will persist.

If you made a movie of the present day culture,

in the future, it would be a horror film.

- Savage? - Savage!

- Saving the planet? They want their money!

Every institution that we live in is corrupted by money.

It's a fiat system that we operate under and

it's actually someone punching numbers on a computer somewhere.

That is how we manufacture money today.

You have what is effectively a criminal enterprise

based on the manipulation of people's attention, resources, and time

in order to extract value from them.

They're stealing money from us that way.

They're stealing the results of our efforts and our labor.

The media's morphed into just peddling the corporate interest of

the money masters that control the political establishment.

Those interests are going to be served first

and everything is going to be secondary.

And that's the sad reality of it.

Up to 40 to 50 percent of the people

in our criminal justice system are black men.

And black men make up roughly five percent of the nation's population.

And I think people can discuss and debate the causes for that,

and this goes for everything from institutional racism,

policing practices, and that; but I think at the end of the day

it all boils down to class, as I think that the reason racial minorities

are disproportionally incarcerated

is because they're also disproportionally poor.

The current energy infrastructure,

which has been going on for a long time,

has resulted in the accumulation of greenhouse gasses and particles

that cause warming of the earth's climate.

And the earth's climate is warming at a rate faster than any time

since deglaciation from the last Ice Age.

We're seeing this environmental damage

on the earth, created by humans,

but we see it from a cosmic perspective,

means that it's just not something that we can ignore.

The planet is responding to the presence of humanity.

If you were to integrate the cost of war, the cost of pollution,

the cost of environmental disruption, a gallon of gasoline

would cost between 15 and 20 dollars a gallon.

We have to realize our planet does have a certain amount of

regenerative power. There is a limiting carrying capacity though.

There's no end to the possibilities of the civilized world.

It hasn't even begun yet.

There's no limit to the possibilities of science and technology

in the near future. We have to reclaim the environment,

and human beings as well.

That's what The Venus Project is about.

documentary film by Roxanne Meadows and Joel Holt

Original Score by Kat Epple, katepple.com

(c) 2015 The Venus Project