EXTRAPOLATIONS TO A NEW WORLD
by Charles Mackintosh
In theory my job as an engineer is quite simple. Clients bring me ideas
or concepts, and by the tools of my trade, I turn their ideas into structures
built of concrete, steel, glass, wood or other construction materials.
Some people might think of my work as mechanical or dull. Happily,
I don't. Building things for people is fun. It is one of the most creative
jobs I know of. In the course of 50 years of work, I've been graced
with receiving 54 patents from 9 countries. Probably some of my most
visually striking works are the movable seats of the Superdomes.
No, my job isn't dull. An engineer doesn't design a thing without a
lot of creative imagination, doodling if you like. An engineer loves
to doodle and computers have made doodling even easier and more exciting.
As a child I enjoyed doodling and fortunately I found a profession which
has allowed me to continue doodling and to be paid handsomely for it.
If you enjoy doodling it's hard to stop. And I don't just mean with
a pencil and paper. You also doodle with your mind and intellect. An
engineer becomes curious about the results of his or her designs, like
Dr. Robert Oppenheimer who helped to create the atomic bomb. He wondered
about that invention for the rest of his life.
To me an engineer has to be more than a scientist. He also has to be
a philosopher. You have to ask yourself, "What will happen to the
works I design? Will they be used for good or for ill?" I believe
these are questions that all professionals have to ask themselves. We
have to look at what we are doing and extrapolate or project into the
future the consequences of our continuing to do what we do. The doodlings
of my mind have led me to use the tools and training of engineering
to look deeply at the past, the present, and the future of humanity.
I feel that some engineering tools are very well suited to analyzing
long term trends of human civilization. They offer us a very interesting
tool for peering into the future.
Nowadays, human knowledge is said to double every four years. But many
of us ask, "Are we getting any wiser or any better with all of
this knowledge?" When we see reports on television of doomsday
bombs and space laser death rays, we wonder, "Are we just using
our knowledge to build bigger and more destructive weapons, or can we
use our knowledge to heal the sick, educate the ignorant, and rehabilitate
the criminal?" Is human progress out of control or can we consciously
direct our social progress? I want to share with you my doodlings on
these and related questions.
To answer these questions, I feel it would be helpful to map out some
human trends on graphs. Maybe this method can give us a view of the
big picture beyond the yearly and generational fluctuations we experience
in our own short life times. So let's start with graphing something
very tangible -- the ways in which people and goods have been moved
about -- in a word, transportation.
Before putting our data on a graph, let's walk it through. In the Stone
Age from maybe 20,000 B.C. to 5,000 B.C., people moved goods by packs
and skids. The first great innovation was the invention of the wheel
around 1500 B.C., leading to the development of carts and chariots.
People and goods were definitely moving a lot faster. We had to wait
a full three thousand years for the next breakthrough -- the great sailing
ships. Only 350 years later trains and steam ships again revolutionized
transportation. Only 60 years later, automobiles and trucks ushered
us into our present era. Thirty years passed and we started flying in
great airplanes and 20 years after that air travel became jet travel.
1981 witnessed the first flight of the Space Shuttle.
What will happen next or when is anybody's guess, but from our data
we can see that progress in the field of transportation is accelerating
rapidly. Now, let's plot our data onto a simple graph. This graph corroborates
our conclusion that transportation is progressing at a rapidly increasing
rate. We have found a trend.
Next, let's see if this is an isolated trend or is it duplicated in
other fields, such as communications. Again, let's first walk through
our data. The first people we know of used speech and drums to communicate,
followed by cuneiform writing, and then alphabetic writing. The Chinese
invented printing around 750 A.D. and by 1041 A.D. printers were using
movable type. Europe caught up in 1450 A.D. Newspapers started around
1650 A.D. and began replacing gossip at the water well and pub as a
major means of spreading information.
A picture is worth a thousand words and photography's development between
1840 and 1880 allowed the entire world to start seeing snapshots of
each other. Then, it only took about a decade each for one communication's
breakthrough after another to link up the world into the instantaneous
feedback system we live in today. The telegraph, telephone, silent motion
picture, wireless, radio, sound movies, television, color television,
transistors, and then the amazing satellite relay have made us into
one world family whether we like the intimacy of the relationship or
not.
When the satellite relay was linked to the latest development in transportation
-- space travel -- we got probably the most amazing image of the twentieth
century -- the picture of the earth we live on floating majestically
in space. All of us are in this picture. Communications and transportation
have allowed our present generation to look at ourselves and each other
as never before. In ancient times, every civilization tended to consider
itself the center of the universe, the hub of existence with everyone
outside their country relegated to barbaric status. Progress in transportation
and communications has upturned this ethnocentric applecart and many
of us are still struggling to integrate for ourselves a new and more
inclusive identity.
It appears that technological development is not value-free. Technology
can change us.
Now, let's graph our communications data, but let's add a tool of engineering
to make our graph prettier and more elegant. In our transportation graph,
we have a lot of empty space in the thousands of years when transportation
developed at a slow pace. The same thing is true of our communications
data if we plot it on a uniform time scale. Most of the discoveries
are bunched into the last two centuries. Engineers have a way of handling
data like this so as to spread out the data over a more uniform curve
of time. It's an odd, but useful scale we call "logarithmic."
In it the most recent 90 years of time occupy the same amount of space
as the previous 900 years of time. The next equal unit of space represents
the still previous 9,000 years of time, and so forth.
Let's see what happens when we transpose our communications data from
a uniform time scale to a "logarithmic time scale." Even though
we have spread out the last 90 years to cover the same space as the
previous 900 and 9,000 years, the shape of the curve still indicates
a rapidly increasing rate of development. The logarithmic scale in this
case doesn't distort our data, but is a useful tool to see it accurately
and elegantly. We could duplicate this rapidly evolving trend in many
areas of physical endeavor. No one will question that humanity is making
physical and scientific progress at an increasingly fast rate of speed.
Our next logarithmic graph illustrates that.
Now we must ask ourselves if physical and scientific progress equate
with total human progress. Unfortunately, the answer to this question
isn't that simple to reach because most nations have also focused their
best scientific brains into the production of weapons. So, to help us
look at this issue, let's graph out humanity's development of the tools
of war.
In Antiquity, people fought with clubs end stones. Around 20,000 B.C.,
bows and arrows increased the range from which one warrior could kill
another warrior. It wasn't until 1338 A.D. and the invention of the
gun that we find our next breakthrough in humanity's ability to destroy.
In a way the gun was perfected in 1860 A.D. with the invention of the
machine gun which was used to kill millions of soldiers in World War
I, making the fields of Europe run red with blood. Even in the Korean
War in the early 1950s, the use of the machine gun continued to be devastating.
In the Vietnam War, when used by helicopter gunships, it became even
more so.
Now, to go back to 1860, we find that as in transportation and communications,
what we may call the "logarithmic effect" begins to take place.
Evolution in the field of weapons development rapidly increases. In
1915, bombs start raining down from the sky. Aerial bombardment is born.
In 1935, rocket bombs become feasible which Nazi Germany developed into
the V1 and V2 weapons that pounded London. Then, in 1945, weaponry made
a horrifying breakthrough with the detonation of the atomic bomb. Finally,
in 1965 the cobalt hydrogen-doomsday bomb became feasible and for the
first time in human history, we, the people, had the ability to wipe
out all life from the face of the earth.
Sadly, when we graph weapons development, we find the same basic curve
as in transportation and communications. Humanity's ability to destroy
has evolved as quickly as our ability to move about and to communicate.
If we take all of the data and trends we have looked at so far, I think
we can safely reach three conclusions: one, humanity is progressing
forward in material and scientific development; two, this progress appears
to have built into it a logarithmic effect, that is, at first progress
is slow and tedious, but at some point the evolution rapidly accelerates;
and three, because the development of weapons is part of the preceding
two conclusions, we are not certain whether all of this progress represents
true progress.
Let's put aside for now humanity's material and scientific development
to see if we can graph humanity's social and political development.
Of course, here we cannot in many circumstances establish exact dates
for each major innovation. Slavery, for instance, disappeared earlier
in some parts of the world than in other parts. Still, I feel that we
can graph certain trends.
First of all, let's examine the kind of relationship that governed
the workplace, the most important aspect of adult lives. Since we can't
establish precise dates for innovations in the workplace, let's graph
our data immediately in a more approximate fashion.
In Antiquity, most workers were slaves with precious few or no rights.
Around 1000 A.D., Europe adopted the feudal system. Most workers were
now serfs. Their freedom continued to be severely restricted, but they
had some right to protection and justice. Historians state that "Medieval
Europe was the first complex human society not to have slavery at its
base" -- certainly a great social breakthrough. By 1848 A.D., the
general population of Europe became free individuals (and, of course,
earlier in the United States). Many workers became sharecroppers or
tenants. Exploitation of these free workers during the Industrial Revolution
lead to the rise of the labor union movements. Starting in the latter
half of the 19th century, workers began to have a voice in the conditions
and operation of their workplace, but it was still an adversarial relationship
between employers and workers.
Today, we find the rise of what is called "Industrial Democracy,"
the conception that the workplace is a partnership between management
and workers. Both sides have a right to share in the ownership, direction,
and profit of the workplace. Industrial Democracy is especially strong
in Japan and is partly responsible for Japan's incredible economic success.
If this trend continues, true fraternity may become the guiding principle
of most workplaces.
From this graph we can see the same general trend in humanity's march
to freedom and participation in the workplace as we have seen in humanity's
scientific and physical evolution. At first progress is slow, but then
the logarithmic effect takes hold and progress skyrockets.
Next, let's examine the rights of an average citizen in society. Again,
we'll immediately plot our data onto a logarithmic graph.
In Antiquity the rights of the individual were completely subservient
to society, even to the point of human sacrifice as shown in the story
of Abraham and Isaac. Around 1200 B.C. we find the appearance of Cities
of Refuge. Here, the lucky citizen who escaped the authorities could
find protection from society's harsh and almost omnipotent control.
That individuals had inalienable rights and could not arbitrarily lose
life, freedom, and property were confirmed in writing in the landmark
signing of the Magna Carta by King John of England in 1215 A.D. After
the Magna Carta, parliaments sprang up all over Europe and the individual
had an ally against the state which the monarchies could no longer afford
to ignore. In 1670 A.D., the Habeas Corpus Act prescribed still further
the right of the state to imprison individuals arbitrarily. In 1776,
the individual was declared to have inalienable rights to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. The United States Declaration of Independence
was a megajump in the evolution of the rights of the individual. These
rights were further strengthened from state encroachment by the United
States Bill of Rights in 1791, the same year that France issued her
Declaration of the Rights of Man.
In 1863, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation extended human
rights to all people in the United States. The outlawing of slavery
also occurred in Prussia in 1807, England in 1829, and Russia in 1861.
Slavery ended in the world as an officially sanctioned activity in 1894
with the close of the Belgian-Arab War, which stopped the slave trade
with the Orient. In 1948, the entire world took a stand for the individual
in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. While not universally
enforced, today even dictators and totalitarian regimes prefer to operate
under a legal system affording their citizens full rights. Perhaps lip
service is a prelude to true application.
In the 1970s and 80s, the worldwide environmental and animal liberation
movements have been agitating to include plants and animals under the
protection of law which is a most remarkable expansion of the concept
of protecting life.
When we look at our completed graph, we see the rights of the individual
increasing with the same logarithmic effect as the other areas we have
investigated. From the individual having no rights in Antiquity, we
now find a serious movement towards inalienable rights and reverence
for not only people, but for all life.
The last area I want us to observe is the exercise of justice in society
through the medium of mostly written laws. Saintly rulers and devilish
tyrants have created temporary utopias or hells in the world, but inspecting
the written laws of society will give us the general direction humanity
has been heading.
Justice is perhaps one of the most uniquely human of concerns that
distinguish us from the animal realm. Nowhere in the animal kingdom
do we see courts or jails, judges or reformatories. Only humans seek
to mitigate the pushings of blind instinct with an elaborate justice
system. We concern ourselves profoundly about questions of good and
evil. Ever since the days of Adam and Eve, we've been presented with
choices. We ask ourselves when and whom we should punish or forgive;
exile or refrain; execute or reprieve. These are thorny questions and
we agonize over them and debate back and forth the procedures we ought
to follow in pursuit of justice.
It wasn't always like this. In the Old Stone Age, an offense by an
individual was met by unlimited revenge for as long as the injured party's
allies felt angry. Probably only the demands for food and rest stopped
the slaughter. In the Mid-Stone Age, unlimited revenge was reserved
only for outsiders. Within the tribe, revenge was limited to the guilty
and their immediate associates. Within the tribe, exact retribution
-- an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life -- was
the law, as exemplified by the Mosaic Law and the Code of Hammurabi.
Exact retribution ruled humanity for thousands of years. Idealists
like Jesus counseled forgiveness and even to return good for evil, but
this philosophy didn't begin to creep into law until about 1500 A.D.
Then, forgiveness was prescribed for members of one's own tribe or nation
who accidentally harmed another. In this mood, Alexander Pope wrote
in 1733, "To err is human: to forgive divine."
Well, if forgiveness equates with divinity, then divinity seems to
begin influencing society more and more starting at this time. Around
1850 A.D., it became common to forgive the instigators of major accidents
and lesser crimes of passion. One of the greatest instances of forgiveness
in world history occurred immediately after the close of World War II.
Through the Marshall Plan and other initiatives, the United States helped
to rebuild the social, political, and economic life of its ravaged,
former enemies: Germany, Italy, and Japan. Whereas the spirit of revenge
and retribution after World War I had set the foundation for even more
destructive World War II, the United States' wise policy of forgiveness
and reconstruction fused her former enemies into staunch allies, friends,
and business partners.
This spirit also worked its way into the legal system, and by 1950
we find court probation for major crimes under mitigating circumstances
of youth, unusual temptation, and so forth. Today, in many nations capital
punishment has been eliminated altogether. If we extrapolate this trend
into the future, local citizens may be forgiven "seventy times
seven" as Jesus suggested. Law violators may be put under intensive
care for rehabilitation or retraining. And saints will continue "to
love and care for their enemies," but maybe we'll have more saints.
As we look at our completed Justice graph, we see the same basic trend
as we found in the evolution of the Rights of Workers and Individual
Citizens: slow development and progress followed by the logarithmic
effect. Even in my own lifetime I've seen discipline in schools transform
from the paddle and a swift stick to persuasion and social action. In
penology, we've also grown from the concept of retaliation to rehabilitation.
It seems that humanity's social and political life are progressing,
but still there's that problem of weapons and our ability to destroy
each other. What good is all of this social and political evolution
if we wind up blowing ourselves off the face of the earth? H.G. Wells
also saw this dilemma. He called human history "a race between
education and catastrophe."
To see how even this race is, let's flip flop our DEVELOPMENT OF WEAPONS
graph and put our EVOLUTION OF JUSTICE graph on top of it. From comparing
the graphs, we can see that our ability-to-destroy is growing at practically
the same rate as our willingness to forgive and rehabilitate. So, are
we making any progress or are we spinning our wheels and going nowhere?
If we are quickly going nowhere, then the Undulating Theory and Graph
aptly describe the human condition. In this theory our progress is superficial,
confined only to the trinkets and artifacts of society, while at the
core people improve or backslide without really getting anywhere.
Opposed to this theory is the Spiral Theory. Sure, we seem to be going
in circles, but they are spiraling circles that are bringing us to higher
and higher levels of consciousness and civilization.
Although a case could be made for both of these theories, I feel the
Spiral Theory and Graph better represent the human trends and information
we have examined. And in keeping with the Spiral Theory, I want us to
consider one more theory -- the classroom or School Theory of Life.
No chart or graph can prove it, but when you come to the big questions
of life, lots more than charts and graphs are required. You also need
inspiration and intuition to put all of the pieces of data and trends
together into a coherent whole. So, here is where my doodlings have
led me.
The more I examine life on earth, the more it looks like a school.
Periodically, as individuals and as nations, we are given examinations
and tests. If a nation passes its test, it survives and prospers. If
a nation or government fails, it will struggle or even disappear like
Rome or Nazi Germany.
In Antiquity or in the early grammar school years of humanity, the
tests were basic. For instance, could we learn to limit our thirst for
vengeance only to the guilty party. We didn't have much self-control,
but then again, armed with only bows, arrows, and clubs, our ability
to inflict damage was also limited.
As humanity grew older, the tests got harder, but our ability to meet
challenges also increased. By looking at life in this way, perhaps when
we ask, "Is humanity getting better or worse?" we are asking
the wrong question. Is a fifth grader better or worse than a first grader?
Is a high school freshman better or worse than a fifth grader? Are college
students better or worse than high school students?
I think most of us would agree that these are unfair comparisons. Students
in different grades aren't better or worse than each other; it's just
that the more education you get, the more developed you are. And, in
good schools, the more developed your are, the harder become the tests.
Maybe that's why it sometimes appears that humanity is getting nowhere
-- as our abilities and sense of responsibility mature, the tests get
more difficult. The School of Life is relentless. It always challenges
us to go forward and keeps us on the cutting edge. If you believe that
growth is better than stagnation, then you'll enjoy the School of Life.
If you want to stay put, however, I'm afraid you're in for a bumpy and
uncomfortable ride.
Now in keeping with the "Life as a School" metaphor, we also
notice that each year's graduation is not equal. Graduating from grammar
to high school is certainly a bigger transition than going from the
fourth to the fifth grade. Graduating from high school to college is
another megajump, an educational logarithmic effect, if you will.
When we review all of the trends and graphs we have studied so far,
I believe it's safe to say that Antiquity was humanity's grammar school.
High school took us several thousand years until we encountered the
logarithmic effect, which is humanity entering college or higher education.
Now, I feel humanity is faced with its greatest test so far: Will we
graduate from college or blow up in a laboratory experiment?
We are very proud of our collegiate accomplishments. They represent
a megajump over high school, but like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewy,
and Obi Wan Kanobi in Star Wars, it looks like humanity is now called
to make another megajump innovation or, in Star Wars terminology, a
jump to hyperspace. In college, humanity has learned to appreciate and
practice justice. We may sometimes trip, stumble, and fall, but as we
saw before, even dictators now couch their tyrannies in the mantles
of justice and democracy. While the universal acceptance of justice
as the foundation of society is a wonderful advancement over vengeance,
I feel that the development of nuclear weapons and other superdestructive
weapons like chemical and biological warfare, is now making the concept
of justice inadequate and obsolete.
Just imagine: one crazy or fanatical individual can smuggle a nuclear
device into New York, Los Angeles, or any big city, and wipe out millions
of people, while disrupting the lives of tens of millions of others
in the surrounding areas. If one individual can cause such harm, imagine
what one rogue nation could do, even if it's a tiny one. How could justice
be rendered in these cases? Justice reacts to situations, but the world
has become too dangerous for us to wait for an application of justice.
One of the greatest advocates of the need for love over justice was
Jesus. To transform society, Jesus advised the people to "Love
your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you."
As a social prophet or in contemporary parlance, as a futurist, Jesus
was remarkable. He seemed to be aware of the "logarithmic effect"
in social evolution. It's contained in the Parable of the Mustard Seed
and the Parable of the Yeast. Jesus compared the coming of a perfect
society to the baking of bread. He said, "A woman takes some yeast
and mixes it with a bushel of flour until the whole batch of dough rises."
When my mother used to bake bread in this way, I noted that for a day
nothing appeared to happen, but then the dough rose dramatically on
the second day. The maturation of fruit trees is similar. For many years,
nothing, but then the tree produces abundantly. It seems that the "logarithmic
effect" is a natural law that Jesus and other ancient spiritual
leaders were aware of and they taught its implications to their students
as an essential part of life.
I believe that individuals like Jesus who are conscious or even superconscious
of the workings of nature, have always existed on earth, but now for
society to graduate from college, we must go beyond just having conscious
individuals to having a conscious society which directs its own development
with far more awareness than ever before. The self conscious society
is yet to emerge. It realizes it has toes and is wiggling them towards
health and abundance. If we are to survive on earth, then soon the self-conscious
society must decide to walk away from violence and war.
The great historian Arnold Toynbee also concluded that only unconditional
love could save humanity: "We have to take the whole human race
into the fold of our kith and kin, behaving to all men as we have behaved
in the past only to members of our own minority groups, our family,
our nation, our church . . . The destiny of the human race hangs on
the answer to this question, and the answer still hangs in the balance."
Let's graphically illustrate Toynbee's point. The circle of love must
expand from self-love to include all life. It is my firm belief that
only unconditional love can counter-balance humanity's also expanding
power to destroy.
The subject of love unnerves a lot of physical and social scientists
because it is so hard to quantify and reduce to a neat formula or equation.
Dr. Abraham H. Maslow, one of the Twentieth Century's greatest psychologists,
considered research into the nature of love to be absolutely essential
for human progress, even scientific progress. In his book, The Psychology
of Science, Maslow states: "Love for the object seems likely to
enhance experiential knowledge of the object, with lack of love diminishing
experiential knowledge. " Later in the same book, Maslow adds:
"It is meaningful to expect better work from the one who loves
his work and his problem. This is why I think it will help us, even
as scientists in the strictest sense, to study carefully the paradigm
of 'knowledge through love' that we can see most purely in lovers or
in the parent-child relationship or . . . in theological and mystical
literature."
Isn't it ironic that humanity's greatest scientific discovery -- the
unleashing of nuclear energy -- is pushing us to study anew the insights
and methods of our prophets, seers, saints, and mystics. These are the
people who have experienced and transmitted unconditional, universal
love. Today, this love is a practical necessity, and, in order for us
to graduate from the College of Life, I believe we must make our love
unconditional. But what is love and how can we tap into it?
I hope that each one of us at some point in our lives has felt the
loving thoughts of another person who wasn't physically present with
us. I'm sure many of us have also felt the angry or negative thoughts
of others. Thought does seem to be a radiation which can be transmitted
and received like television and radio waves. If thought is a radiation,
then every human mind's thoughts are helping to create reality as the
world experiences it. In a more real sense, our present thoughts are
creating our future. Our minds are powerful instruments and we need
to learn how to direct our thoughts into positive and constructive channels.
If thought is a radiation, I want to suggest to you that we live in
a cosmic ocean of thought and the finest and subtlest ingredient of
this cosmic ocean of thought is love. Religious people call this cosmic
ocean God. The philosophically-minded might call it a higher power or
divine law. Humanists and secularists might just call it Nature or,
as in Russia, Bioplasm. But whatever our world views, the vast majority
of people in history have conceded that there is something in existence
which is greater or at least more than ourselves and is the foundation
of life.
Describing this higher power in religious language, the remarkable
Swedish mystic and author, Emanuel Swedenborg, wrote in the 18th century,
"In heaven the Lord is seen as a sun, for the reason that He is
Divine love, from which all spiritual things . . . have their existence.
That love is what shines as a sun."
I feel that the sun is as good a symbol for unconditional love as we
can find in the universe. The sun shines down impartially on the good,
the bad, and the indifferent. The sun's energy is available equally
to all of us. Yet, it's also up to each one of us to take advantage
of the sun's energy or to ignore it. Outside it's a perfectly clear,
sunny, and warm Southern California day, but if I chose to live in a
cold, dank, and dark cellar, I'd never know it. I'd grow as pale and
weak and maybe as dark in spirit as this basement is devoid of light
and fresh air. How can an individual open the door to get out of the
basement to enjoy his or her birthright in the sun?
Throughout the ages, mystics of all religions and traditions have advised
the seeker of unconditional love to practice stillness, openness, and
receptivity. In a sense, we don't have to do anything to tap into the
cosmic ocean of unconditional love, but to allow it into our minds and
hearts. We have to desire it and then permit nature to take its course.
But stillness and receptivity seem to run counter to the hectic pace
of our times. Yet, if we don't make a collective decision to tune our
receivers to the unconditional love channel, then what's to stop the
nuclear genie from consuming us?
Being receptive to the cosmic ocean of unconditional love is like starting
any discipline. It's hard in the beginning. Unfamiliar territory must
be covered. But the more we practice, the easier it becomes. If we grow
quiet and attentive, a flood of joy begins flowing through us. We can
start hearing an intuitive voice. We can tap into a new source of knowledge
and guidance. Synchronicity can become a way of life. We start meeting
the right people at the right time. The words we need to say, the things
we need to do, the thoughts and affirmations we need to transmit all
begin happening naturally and spontaneously. The logarithmic effect
begins to aid our personal evolution and we make a personal jump to
hyperspace.
Of course, the jump to hyperspace requires that we put into practice
the good guidance we receive and that we start practicing unconditional
love and forgiveness in our personal lives. It just makes good psychological
sense to me. When we forgive and even do good to our enemies, we tune
our receivers to the highest and purest frequency and receive the most
loving transmissions the universe has to offer.
Let's face it. It's hard being a young person or an older adult today.
The temptations of money, sex, drugs, power, and pleasures of all varieties
have never been as easily available as they are right now. If a person
doesn't tune his or her receiver to the cosmic ocean of unconditional
love, there are many other powerful, compelling, and ultimately enslaving
transmitters looking for an audience.
And dogmatism won't help. If humanity is to make the next jump, then
I feel the increasing interface of religion and spirituality with modern
sciences like physics, psychology, behavioral sciences, and psychic
research will be at the heart of the leap. To me, both physics and metaphysics
can only enhance the mutual and deeper understanding of each field.
I predict that religion will be the next major area of humanity that
will begin to experience the logarithmic effect -- and we shall all
be the better for it.
In our doodlings together we have covered a lot of territory. In conclusion
I want to extrapolate a sketch of a new world which is coming. Right
now, top military experts for the Pentagon realize that all-out conventional
or nuclear war are both so destructive as to make them too costly to
fight for either superpower. Total war is obsolete.
I don't know if it's going to take another World War for everyone to
accept once and for all that the jig is up. I hope not, but in the coming
decades, the people of the world will demand and achieve the outlawing
of war and the major weapons systems needed to conduct war. Governmental
departments dedicated to promote peace will begin to outnumber and outspend
departments dedicated to a military response to conflict. The police
and courts will remain in action, but more comprehensive rehabilitation
programs will replace punishment. When one crazy individual can kill
millions with a nuclear device, we can't afford to let pathological
people just fester in our jails. Our survival requires forgiveness and
retraining.
Our schools and workplaces will share in this humanizing trend. Centuries
from now "the lion will lie down with the lamb," and sickness,
ignorance, and crime will have been erased. Just as the physical artifacts
of society have been almost totally transformed in the past 200 years,
the future will see the total transformation of our economic, social,
and political environments.
The choice of whether or not these changes come easily or with great
pain is up to each one of us. Humanity is learning. The "logarithmic
effect" is taking place. But the more each one of us consciously
and actively takes part in this process, the smoother the transition
will be.
An engineer's job is to solve problems, to apply science to meeting
the everyday needs of our neighbors. At first, we had to build roofs
that wouldn't collapse and wells that wouldn't cave in. We graduated
to building large ships that wouldn't easily capsize. We went on to
build wagons, bridges, and crossbows. Now we build airplanes, factories,
printing presses, television networks, nuclear bombs, and satellites.
But most engineers, including myself, would rather build bridges than
bombs.
Engineers have great faith in education. In a sense, our field is very
objective and we learn from each other's failures and achievements.
In general, we are a happy fraternity. We get new problems, make a design,
and then test it out to see if it is applicable. Education definitely
works in our field. You see the amazing advances of engineering all
around you. But how do we keep the terrorist or insane from blowing
up our bridges and our world?
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