THE MIAMI HERALD
Sunday, April 29, 1973; p. 10H

LIVING SHOULD BE EASIER SAYS SYSTEMS ADVOCATE
by Marie Anderson
Herald Staff Writer


To all us old-timers whose mental picture of the ideal life is a rose-covered cottage with Molly and me and baby making three being happy in My Blue Heaven, even the reality of ending our days in a condominium high rise is hard to accept.

The possibility of living in a Total Enclosure System is like living on another planet.

You don't know what a Total Enclosure System is? Neither did I until an earnest young man named Joe
Fasculo, who is an artisan in the electronics field, came over one afternoon when he got off work to talk about it and all its ramifications.

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JOE is one of a small group of dedicated disciples of Jacque Fresco, who has been the centrifugal force for 30 years of the concept of sociocybernetics, which is applying systems engineering to our social problems.

Fresco has doctorates in human factors engineering and general science from Sierra State University, which doesn't exist now. The concept of sociocybernetics does, however, and local workers in that vineyard do not challenge Fresco's dedication to the fruit.

They do say that his is a non-technical approach. It produces dedicated disciples, however.

Joe Fasculo can talk knowledgeably on subjects that range from religion to science; from dual metallic air conditioning and automatic window washers (they're safer) to concern about the habitat of older people and their place in the scheme of things to furniture for children that will have no sharp edges (again, a safety measure).

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SOCIOCYBERNEERS believe that all the modern developments in engineering, science, and technology are just so much hogwash unless they are used to give men and women the opportunity to set higher goals of achievement.

If you don't have to worry about making it on the job merry-go-round, keeping up the mortgage payments and repairing the car, the television or the plumbing, you can solve some of the bigger problems, they say.

Joe and his cohorts, who are a small collection of students, housewives, a lawyer, a policeman – they could be any group of concerned citizens, attend weekly discussions and are out to try to get a small segment of Jacque Fresco's Total Enclosure System built on ten acres down in South County.

"I'm sure the minute anyone saw· how it works he would believe in it," said Joe. "Everybody laughed at Henry Ford's first car. Well, this is the Model T of city planning. Home and apartments should cost about one-fifth their present prices. Alexander Bell had the same problem with the telephone and the hydroplane is just now being accepted although the concept is years old."


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SOCIOCYBERNEERS are non-profit. Even so, to try to develop just a portion of one of Fresco's Total Enclosure Systems would take money that isn't forthcoming at the moment. Even the zoning has to be ironed out but they do have a lawyer working on that.

The actual construction probably could be done by volunteers like the young groups that are working with Paolo Soleri to build his beehive buildings in Arcosanti, Ariz.

But Soleri has had national exposure and some subsidy from manufacturers and still his planned habitat isn't finished after almost a generation of young visionaries have toiled on it.

After talking with Joe Fasculo, I wish he could get Fresco's Total Enclosure System off the ground. I'm ready to live in a city that puts all the planning, coordinating, and administrative activities in the center.

Energy is geothermal, sewage and inorganic waste are broken into reusable components. Farmers don't have to worry about the weather or bugs, which are repelled by ultrasonic devices instead of insecticides.

There will be no traffic jams because there will be no traffic. People movers will take you safely wherever you want to go. Goods and services will arrive when you expect them.

Outside there will be green areas available to all and all will have time to enjoy them.

Will there be incentive in this Utopia? Fasculo says yes. Your education will provide you with incentive.

It's all there waiting for some Henry Ford to come along. If he isn't too late I may still be able to dream about that rose-covered cottage. I just have to connect it up with the system.