Looking Forward
KENNETH S. KEYES, JR.
and
JACQUE FRESCO
Designs and Illustrations by Jacque Fresco
Dedicated to the youth of the world who must meet the challenge of the twenty-first century.
About the Authors
Kenneth S. Keyes, Jr., is a multi-faceted man. He attended Duke University and obtained a BA from the University of Miami, majoring in psychology and minoring in music. His interests include art, symphonic music, yachting—he lives aboard a 71-foot yacht named Caprice—and writing—he is the author of How to Develop Your Thinking Ability and How to Live Longer-Stronger-Slimmer. He has taught in the Evening Division of the University of Miami.
Jacque Fresco worked as an industrial designer for thirty years, designing all types of equipment from prefabricated houses to automobiles, electronic and medical equipment, human factors systems, and hundreds of commercial products and inventions. He has designed and patented such varying items as a radical aircraft wing structure patented by the USAAF and three-dimensional motion pictures not requiring the use of viewers. Numerous articles and photographs have been published about his work in many magazines and newspapers. He has served as technical advisor in a number of motion pictures, including one of the first on space stations and a journey to the moon called Project Moon Base. He lives in Miami.
Annotation
Looking Forward is an imaginative and fascinating book in which the authors take you on a journey into the culture and technology of the twenty-first century. After an introductory section that discusses the Things that Shape Your Future, you will explore the whys and wherefores of the unfamiliar, alarming, but exciting world of a hundred years from now.
You will see this society through the eyes of Scott and Hella, a couple of the next century. Their living quarters are equipped with a cybernator, a seemingly magical computer device, but one that is based on scientific principles now known. It regulates sleeping hours, communications throughout the world, an incredible underwater living complex, and even the daily caloric intake of the “young” couple. (They are in their forties but can expect to live 200 years.)
The world that Scott and Hella live in is a world that has achieved full weather control, has developed a finger-sized computer that is implanted in the brain of every baby at birth (and the babies are scientifically incubated—the women of the twenty-first century need not go through the pains of childbirth), and that has perfected genetic manipulation that allows the human race to be improved by means of science.
Economically, the world is Utopian by our standards. Jobs, wages, and money have long since been phased out. Nothing has a price tag, and personal possessions are not needed. Nationalism has been surpassed, and total disarmament has been achieved; educational technology has made schools and teachers obsolete. The children learn by doing, and are independent in this friendly world by the time they are five.
The chief source of this greater society is the Correlation Center, “Corcen,” a gigantic complex of computers that serves but never enslaves mankind. Corcen regulates production, communication, transportation and all other burdensome and monotonous tasks of the past. This frees men and women to achieve creative challenging experiences rather than empty lives of meaningless leisure.
Obviously this book is speculative, but it is soundly based upon scientific developments that are now known. And as the authors state:
“You will understand this book best if you are one who sees today only as a stepping stone between yesterday and tomorrow. You will need a sensitivity to the injustices, lost opportunities for happiness, and searing conflicts that characterize our twentieth-century civilization. If your mind can weigh new ideas and evaluate them with insight, this book is for you.
“We have no crystal ball. ... We want you to feed our ideas into your own computer, so that you can find even better ideas that may play a part in molding the future of our civilization.”
Designs and Illustrations by Jacque Fresco
South Brunswick and New York: A. S. Barnes and Company
London: Thomas Yoseloff Ltd
© 1969 by Kenneth S. Keyes, Jr. and Jacque Fresco
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 68-27189
A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc.
Cranbury, New Jersey 08512
Thomas Yoseloff Ltd
108 New Bond Street
London W1Y OQX, England
SBN 498 06752 1
L.C. 68-27189
Printed in U.S.A.
Other Books by
Kenneth S. Keyes, Jr.
Member of the Authors League of America
How to Develop Your Thinking Ability
How to Live Longer—Stronger—Slimmer
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part I. THINGS THAT SHAPE OUR FUTURE
1. The Leap from the Jungle
2. The Confusion of Our Times
3. Predicting the Future
4. Our Values Chart Our Course
5. The Scientific Method
6. Cybernated Technology
7. Away We Go!
Part II. A PROJECTION OF OUR FUTURE
8. At Home in the Twenty-first Century
9. A Multi-Dimensional Life
10. Designing the New Generation
11. A Visit to Corcen
12. The Cultural Center
13. The Cybernated Industrial Complex
14. The Limitless Frontiers of Space
15. The New Personality
Part III. LOOKING FORWARD
16. Education for Change
Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to countless people for the ideas and encouragement that have made this book possible. Most of those who reviewed the manuscript felt that these enormous changes in man and his environment might happen in 1,000 years but not in the next century as we suggest. The authors, however, have wondered whether the future society they describe may be partially in existence by the time the book is published. We see so many of our predictions of things to come being discussed, developed and tried that we suspect we have been too conservative in estimating the time.
The following kind friends have read the manuscript and offered excellent suggestions—some of which were used: Anne Ammirati, John Bethea, Louise Boches, Janice Burr, Charles Kimball, Shirley Lewis, William A. McCall, Gretchen McCall, Graham Miller, Joe Prospero, Charles Ray, Christie Ray, Arden Richards, Velma Richards, Marjofie Sherrill, and Anitra Thorhaug. We are indebted to Herbert Wallach, Jr., for suggesting our title—Looking Forward. Bonita Bennett listened to these “far-out” ideas, typed them studiously, and still had the stamina to assist greatly in editing and revising. Shirley Rosichan offered many excellent editorial suggestions. Others who helped with various phases
