Chapter 1
Three World Views --
Only One is Going to Happen!
You don't have to believe it! It will happen, regardless. It is sure -- the world's only sure hope. This advance good news of tomorrow is as certain as the rising of tomorrow's sun.
Humanity won't bring it about -- it is going to be done to us. Humanity is going to be forced to be happy -- to enjoy world peace -- to see universal abundance and joy fill the earth.
Utopia? Why not. Why should it be an imaginary or impossible pipe-dream? There is a cause for today's world chaos and threat of human extinction. That cause will be supplanted by that which will bring a utopia that is real, that is successfully functioning!
Why today's world evils? How will they be ended? What will cause this world to erupt into peace, and plenty? How will such incredible changeover be brought about?
And what will this world tomorrow be like? How will it be governed? Who will rule?
You are going to take a sober look at the conditions, facts, causes and trends in today's sick, sick world.
You are going to read what world leaders, scientists, technologists and educators say about today's trends, and what they envision for the next decade or two.
And then you will be given a surprising, excited look into what is certain in the transformed world tomorrow, what really is ahead -- and why.
Today there are three views -- two widely held by world leaders. Only one is going to happen. And it's the best big news ever reported in the history of mankind. What is actually going to be the outcome of all this, for our frenetic, entertainment-crazed, gadget-buying, yet chaotic, divided and sick world, is something totally unseen by statesmen, scientists, educators, and world leaders.
What World Leaders Expect
The two most widely held views are divergent ones -- paradoxically pointing in opposite directions.
Many world leaders now expect -- though they probably don't dwell on the thought -- that nuclear destruction eventually, perhaps soon, will erase human life from this earth.
Besides nuclear annihilation, there are at least five other means by which mankind could be destroyed from off the face of the globe: chemical warfare, biological warfare, overpopulation and resulting famine, disease epidemics, and environmental pollution.
Consider these facts: Human life is sustained by air, water, and food. Today man is polluting his life-sustaining supply of these three necessities at a fast-accelerating rate. Air pollution, filling the air with gasses, smoke, smog, fallout from nuclear test explosions, and fluorocarbons from aerosol spray cans, not only threatens man, but renders plant life sick. Many rivers and lakes worldwide have been so seriously polluted that the water supply in many places is reaching a crisis stage. Man has depleted and ruined the soil out of which food must grow. Artificial fertilizers, poisonous sprays, and erosion caused by floods have robbed vegetables, grains and fruits of life-sustaining minerals and vitamins. Food factories have further extracted these vital elements out of grains, rice, sugar, in the greed for profits. Add to these the worldwide revolution in the weather -- droughts and floods -- resulting in mass starvations in some parts of the world, and widespread epidemics of disease. During the past 50 years in Africa, India and South America alone, weather and environmental damage has caused the loss of over one million square kilometers of agricultural land.
If all these fast-accelerating evils do not destroy humanity soon, the experts say the population explosion will. According to United Nations studies, world population at the end of this century will increase another 1.8 billion over the present four billion, bringing the total to nearly six billion people! At that time -- just two decades from now -- China and India will each have populations of over one billion.
Statistics further reveal that world population is increasing by some 76 million annually, which would lead to a doubling of world population to over 8 billion by the year 2013. And projections say that a century from now, a full 12 billion people would be crowding the earth.
Even now, with our population of 4 billion, nearly 500 million are gravely undernourished. As global population soars, the imbalance of human numbers and rapidly dwindling resources threatens to become even further aggravated. If the world cannot now adequately care for 4 billion, just how will it cope with 6 billion ... or 8 billion ... or 12 billion?
Leading scientists look at this world picture, and say they are frankly frightened. They warn us that man's only hope lies in the admittedly impossible -- that the nations form a super world government, capable of unitedly acting on these problems on a global scale before it is too late. But the nations, hostile against one another, could never form such a government. And the humans then in authority would be no more able to cope with all these nonmilitary evils that threaten the extinction of mankind than present leaders.
This widely held view of the future offers no hope.
The Magic World of Science
Then, paradoxically, science and technology has dangled before our eyes a glittering, glamour-world of their making. It was to be a fantastic, push-button dreamworld of "the three L's" -- leisure, luxury and license. They have been working to produce unbelievable material devices they believe would convert this world into a glorified heaven. Ignoring the stark reality of conditions described just above, that is!
AIR POLLUTION not only threatens man, but renders plant life sick. Leading scientists look at this world and say they are frankly frightened. Yet, paradoxically, science and technology dangle before our eyes a fantastic world of lasers and luxury. They produce unbelievable material devices in the hope of converting this world into a glorified dreamland. Left, a view of the real world; above, laser technology with laser beam passing thorough two Quantel lenses.
Aldous Huxley said, "Most prophecy tends to oscillate between an extreme of gloom and the wildest optimism! The world, according to one set of seers, is headed for disaster; according to the other, the world is destined -- within a generation or two -- to become a kind of gigantic Disneyland, in which the human race will find perpetual happiness playing with an endless assortment of ever more ingenious mechanical toys."
How true. And also how ironic, that those voicing the most glamorous predictions of science and industry seem to totally exclude the stark reality of world conditions -- and, for that matter, seem unable to comprehend the additional snarls and problems their own predictions would bring.
However, leaving the facts aside, let us take a look at some of the speculations for our future.
In his book, "The Next 200 Years" (1976), futurist Herman Kahn -- Director of the Hudson Institute "think tank" in New York -- suggests that the world economy will continue to grow well into the next century, bringing a growing standard of living and increasing affluence to the majority of the world's population. He paints a picture of a prosperous global utopia by the year 2176, brought about by continuing technology advances -- with plenty of energy, food and raw materials for all.
"Two hundred years from now, we believe, people almost everywhere will be rich, numerous and in control of the forces of nature," Kahn predicts. In his scenario, the world two centuries from now will contain some 15 billion people, with a staggering per-capita income of some $20,000, compared with only about $1,300 today.
In a previous study focusing on life in the United States in the years to A.D. 2000, Kahn forecasts a glittering utopia coming a great deal sooner than the world at large. He predicted that in the years just ahead, Americans would be enjoying "three-day weekends, three-or four-month vacations, Southern California-type living with the emphasis on family and home, high income, an abundance of material things ...." He asserted that people will live in ten-room houses, earn a disposable income (after taxes) of multiple tens of thousands of dollars, and enjoy a four-hour work day, five days per week -- or maybe even a six-hour work day and a three-day week, with a four-day weekend.
In essence, we are to look forward to a life of almost complete idleness and leisure -- the "good life" day after day after day. In short, a perpetual vacation!
But Is This Utopia?
But does this kind of a society sound truly good to you? Think about these glowing predictions. Then think of the utter impracticability, and of the many problems they would create, rather than solve. Yet multiple millions, especially in the United States, anticipate such developments, hopefully in their own lifetimes, while turning a blind eye to the ominous warnings by other respected scientists who see instead impending doom for large segments of the world through famine, pestilence and war.
Can a tiny segment of the population of one nation expect to succeed in achieving ever more dizzying heights of material wealth, playing with an ever more dazzling assortment of mechanical gadgets, and ignore the awesome problems of the rest of the world?
Reporting on the paradoxes posed by the projected advancements in store for future society, a science writer of a leading newspaper asked a few years ago "What sort of world in 20 years?"
The answers were interesting. He first told of new knowledge in biological science applied to medicine, giving new insight into, and partial control of, aging, heredity, mental illness, heart disease, cancer and virus infections.
Whole hosts of ingenious devices in the fields of applied physics and advanced engineering would provide super-sophisticated computers, communication satellites, novel transportation techniques, space exploration probes, and a newer and more glittering array of medical instruments and techniques.
He envisioned bigger crowds at bigger stadiums watching bigger athletic contests. Recreation, physical pleasure, fun, would be widespread. More golf courses, more swimming pools, tennis courts, dance halls, bowling alleys, color television sets -- these were predicted to aid society in seeking ever more heightened pleasures.
But, he said, the years ahead "will have increased crime, gambling, sexual promiscuity, riots, air and water pollution, traffic congestion, noise, and lack of solitude." "More and more," continued the prediction, "there will be 'no place to hide.'"
Even Dr. Kahn, in his study of the United States of the future, admits that the "utopian" changes in life-styles and work patterns could carry with them some traumatic consequences. "Many," he explains, will be satisfied but others will find such a life meaningless and purposeless, and they will look for something to fulfill them. Kahn suggests that we may see more riots and irrational movements, along with a turn to mysticism, cults and drugs as a means for such fulfillment.
We have seen an upsurge in drug usage, with certain drugs -- notably marijuana and cocaine -- becoming increasingly accepted by large numbers seeking escape from modern society, with the use of the latest popular drug, "angel dust" (phencyclidine, also called PCP), becoming a crisis of epidemic proportions in the U.S., according to police and hospital officials.
Accidents, suicides, homicides -- all have been the end result of using angel dust. Yet multiple thousands continue to "find reality" through its use.
After drugs ... then what? What other forms of escapism would the supposedly affluent, leisurely utopian life of tomorrow bring with it, assuming it comes about at all?
Reading such reports of the "bad news," as well as the "good news," we may well have doubts about whether we want to be around in such an age.
Would We Really Want It?
But how about looking at society in general? The same report adds that, because of intensified social, ethnic and racial problems, the cities of the future will be "seething centers of periodically great turmoil and confusion.
AN UPSURGE in gambling and drug and alcohol usage is increasingly accepted by large numbers seeking escape from modern social problems -- all the while believing they are "finding reality". Others stand patiently in unemployment lines.
"For the underdeveloped world ... , the 'plight of the average man' will have deteriorated. People will be more poorly fed and there will be fewer goods per person. Every attempt to improve the situation will be wiped out by the continued population growth. Hunger, starvation and famine periodically and continuously will stalk major portions of the planet ...."
Then, almost incredibly, the report said probably "for the first time in history, every child everywhere will be at school -- if they are not starving in a famine"(!).
And so go the paradoxical and often conflicting prognostications of science, industry, and technology.
Not very happy predictions, are they? Other prognostications abound, even about our personal futures. Some include:
Choosing the sex of children before they are conceived -- 1980.
Artificial plastic and electronic organs for humans -- 1982. (Wouldn't you far rather avoid getting sick, and keep healthy organs of your own?)
Artificial heart implantations; brain linked to computer -- 1985.
Chemical synthesis of inexpensive, nutritious food; cancer conquered -- 1990.
First human clone; brain transplants commonplace -- 1995.
Transplantation of almost all organs of the body -- 2000.
Alteration of the processes of aging -- 2005.
Biochemicals to aid the growth of new organs and limbs -- 2007.
Widespread use of artificial insemination to produce genetically superior offspring -- 2010.
Drugs to raise the level of intelligence -- 2012.
Fetuses grown in artificial wombs -- 2015.
Genetic engineering in humans by chemically modifying their DNA chains; human brain linked with computer to enlarge man's intellect -- 2020.
Total mastery of human genetics and heredity -- 2030.
Suspended animation of life -- 2040.
Complete control of the aging process; man-made immortality -- 2050.
The above prognostications were adapted in part from "The Post-Physician Era: Medicine in the 21st Century", by Jerrold Maxmen (1976).
The predictions are almost endless. Economists, sociologists, geneticists, psychiatrists, even zoologists and anthropologists, are having a hand at predicting the varicolored and kaleidoscopic never-never land of tomorrow -- glittering and glamorous for the few; filled with grisly spectres of horror for the many.
It Won't Happen So there you have the two opposite, divergent views of scientists, statesmen, educators, world leaders -- one glowingly optimistic about the progress of society; the other utterly hopeless.
But both of these concepts are false! Man wants desperately to save the society he has established upon this earth. But this society -- this civilization can't be saved! Man, himself, is bringing this world to destruction. God Almighty will soon step in, and create a new, peaceful, and happy society -- the world tomorrow.