In a sense, Jacque Fresco has always lived in the future.
After all, the 72-year-old inventor, industrial engineer and social innovator who now makes his homes in Venus — just south of Lake Placid — counts among his creations systems for noiseless and pollution-free aircraft, an electrostatic system to eliminate sonic boom and electrodynamic transit methods that would eliminate the need for elevators.
Among his designs is an ovalshaped, three-wheel car that consists of only 32 parts and is surrounded by a bumper system to lessen collisions. He designed it when he was only nine years old.
The car, which includes a shock absorber system that automatically cools the vehicle's brakes, resembles those found in futuristic magazines. The entire engine can be slipped out of the vehicle as if it were a drawer, so mechanical work can be easily performed.
Some of his inventions, such as electronic surgical instruments, have been patented and are in use. But others were too far advanced or too low in cost to be accepted, he said.
The pre-fabricated house he designed over 40 years ago and took 10 men only eight hours to assemble, "could have been built for only about $8 to $14 per square foot," he said. Investors, however, were not enthusiastic about the low-cost housing concept, because it would have offset the booming construction industry of the post WWII era.
Fresco is the founder of Sociocyberneering, Inc., which he describes as the use of technology for the betterment of mankind. "We must learn to use the whole planet to harness energy, grow enough food for everyone and create safety devices against floods and other natural disasters," he said.
The basic philosophy of Sociocyberneering, may be soon explained in a movie Fresco wants to make in his own studio, which is replete with models of futuristic looking cars, airplanes and houses. According to his master plan for the future, technology takes over.
The movie, for which Fresco is hoping to get financial backing soon, would be about six people who return to planet Earth 80 years into the future. What they find, Fresco said, is "a world in which poverty, war, pollution and discrimination have been surpassed and in which all of Earth's inhabitants have engaged in a joint venture toward the brotherhood of humanity."
It is a world in which new forms of energy abound. There is electricity harnessed from the Van Allen Belt, volcanic and tidal power.
In essence, a miniature of that world exists in the 24-acre tract that Fresco shares with his assistant, Roxanne Meadows. Four dome-shaped buildings are located among well-manicured lawns, although the property's natural habitat has been left undisturbed. There is even a wading pool with a cascade and background of mountains and clouds, in which Fresco expects to film a city under the sea.
"All this is not far fetched, it can be accomplished if all the people of the world helped one another, but we have to start soon.
"Nationalities and religions have been used to divide people, science is the common bridge between nations," he said.
One of Fresco's main concerns is the complacency and the lack of creativity that has plagued the United States. "We used to be first in inventions and now we are not even in the top 10. We keep saying that are the greatest nation in the world and meanwhile several countries have surpassed us."