Visionary

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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