Jacque Fresco is one of my heroes. The man lived to 101 and still had more curiosity, imagination and ambition than most people half his age. He was a futurist, a social engineer, and completely self-taught – something I always vibed with as a former self-taught developer.
What I loved most about him was how he approached problems. Fresco didn’t just redesign a product or tweak a system; he’d step back and question the entire framework we were using in the first place. Big picture thinking without the ego. Just clarity.
One of his biggest ideas was that human language is wildly inefficient. And honestly… I massively agree. You can say one sentence to five different people and each one will hear a slightly different version, filtered through their experiences and worldview. By the time it lands, it’s barely what you meant in the first place.
Fresco believed a more scientific, unambiguous approach to language could solve that – the same way a schematic or blueprint doesn’t care what language you speak. A diagram doesn’t argue. It doesn’t misunderstand. It communicates the same thing to everyone.
Imagine if day-to-day communication worked like that. Fewer misunderstandings. Less drama. More clarity. The world could do with that.
But instead of me speaking for him, it’s probably better you hear it from the man himself. There’s a whole library of videos online, but one of my favourites is a short piece called “Think”, which is a perfect snapshot of the way his mind worked.
We need more Jacque Frescos in this world.
You can see more of Jacques work over at the Venus Project.
