“When an 18-year-old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up and in the process kills a 17-year-old Israeli girl, the future itself is dying” –George W. Bush
Timothy Wilken, MD
Today, the United States of America, the primary beneficiary of Institutional Neutrality and Time-binding is bankrupt. Neutrality was a welcome reprieve from the adversary world, but to work it requires unlimited resources. We have reached the end of unlimited resources and that means the return to a world of scarcity. This change brings increased indifference and conflict.
Declining Quality of Life – All American citizens are experiencing declining quality of life. Declining compensation for all workers has forced both parents to work just to pay the bills, this force is deteriorating the nuclear family. Ever increasing percentages of families are unable to afford the cost of buying or maintaining a home. There are currently 50,000,000 Americans without health insurance. Ever increasing percentages of American youths are unable to afford college or higher education or anything more than the deteriorating public schools. American schools once the best in the world now graduate illiterate high school seniors. Many young adults are without goals or even an interest in the future. Growing numbers of teenagers are pregnant without husbands, drug and alcohol dependent, and victims of evergrowing teenage crime and suicide rates.
Homelessness has now become an institution found in every city and town in America. Large numbers of Americans live out their brief lives completely ignored. Every week, hundreds of children disappear from American streets in our cities and towns – many without notice.
And the rest of the world today is still dominated by Adversary Relationships. There things are even worse.
Human Conflict – Conflict and warfare are natural resultants of the adversary way and are not new to human life. What is new is that with human progress, the tools of warfare are growing evermore destructive and deadly.
“And, most alarming in a world as dangerous and well armed as ours, there are currently over 79 armed conflicts going on around the world, 65 of which are in the developing world. There have been over 123 million people killed in 149 wars since World War II.” (1)
Today, there are 100,000+ weapons of mass destruction on our planet These include nuclear, chemical, and biological warheads. These weapons are located in numerous nations including America, Russia, England, France, India, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and who knows where else. For decades these weapons of mass destruction were tightly held by the super powers, but now with the breakup and breakdown of the Soviet Block, tens of thousands of these weapons are no longer well controlled. All to soon these weapons will fall in to the hands of terrorists. Some of these weapons are light enough to be carried by a single man inside a backpack, and yet are still capable of killing tens of thousands of humans.
Conventional warfare continues to flare in dozens of nations including Bosnia, Ireland, Iran, Iraq, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Viet Nam, Cambodia, South Africa, the Philippines, and elsewhere and anywhere. These so called smaller conflicts are very deadly in themselves with widespread use of automatic weapons, mortars, artillery, mines, grenades, and plastic explosives. As Hazel Henderson explains:
“Of the eighty-two conflicts in the world between 1989 and 1992, all but three had been within nations. In these domestic wars, civilians were 90 percent of the casualties. By 1993, there were 18.2 million refugees and 24 million internally displaced people. By October 1994, these figures had increased to 23 million and 26 million, respectively. Meanwhile, the world’s debt trap persisted in most heavily indebted poor countries, which still owed $230 billion at the end of 1993. Budget deficits in industrial countries grew; only Norway, one nation out of the twenty-nine members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, had a surplus in 1995.” (2)
High tech conflict is now found on the streets of most cities and towns. criminals and terrorists make use of cell phones, computers, automatic weapons and high explosives. Today no human – adult or child is safe from mechanized violence.
Human Indifference – Today hundreds of millions of adults and children throughout the world are suffering from abject poverty and starvation. Millions die from causes that could easily prevented or eliminated, but nothing is done. Their bodies are often not even buried. We have enormous conflict, economic inequity, violence, illness, starvation, suffering, and pain. As Medard Gabel explains:
“Our global problems may seem insurmountable, even inconceivable to some. Globally between 13 and 18 million people die each year due to starvation or starvation-related causes. That is nearly as many people dying each day as Americans who died in the entire Vietnam War. More than 800 million people are malnourished in the world and routinely go without enough food to live in optimal health. Despite monumental strides in medical science which have improved the longevity and quality of life for the average human, large segments of the world’s population continue to suffer from preventable diseases and lack access to even basic health care. For example:
- Some 20% of the world’s children go without basic immunization, most of whom live in remote and often impoverished areas where infection is more likely to lead to death.
- Over 9 million children die each year from preventable causes, most of them from dehydration, routine infections, or one of several major diseases for which vaccines are available.
- Some 500,000 women die in childbirth each year while over 3 million infants die from dehydrating diseases that could be eliminated through breast feeding or Oral Rehydration Therapy, a simple and cheap mixture of clean water, sugar and salts.
- Over 17 million people die each year from curable infectious and parasitic diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis.
- Over 500 million people are infected with tropical diseases such as malaria, sleeping sickness, river blindness, and schistomiasis, all of which are now preventable.
- Over 18 million people are infected with the AIDS virus.
- More than a billion people lack access to any health care.
- There are 1.75 billion people without adequate drinking water.
- A billion people are without adequate housing, and 100 million are homeless.
- Nearly a billion people, mostly women, are illiterate, and about 130 million children at primary school age and 275 million at secondary level are not enrolled in school.
- There are over 53 million uprooted people or refugees in the world, 80% of which are women and children.
- There are over 110 million landmines scattered in 64 countries killing and maiming over 9,000 children, women and civilians of all ages each year, and over one million since 1975.
“The developing world is at least $618 billion in debt to the developed world and the gap between the rich and poor grows alarmingly larger each year. The richest 20% of the world now have 85% of the world’s income, while the poorest 20% share 1.4%.” (3)
Ecological Crisis – Acid Rain, Ozone Depletion, Water and Air Pollution, Toxic Buildup, Strip Mining, Deforestation, Erosion & Topsoil Depletion; Greenhouse Effect, Ice Age, Nuclear Winter, Asteroids threatening the Planet. Gabel continues:
“On top of these outrageous conditions are layered the alarming environmental problems confronting the world:
- Around the planet, 26 billion tons of topsoil are being eroded per year from the world’s farmland. That’s 3 million tons per hour.
- Deserts advance at a rate of nearly 15 million acres per year.
- 10 million acres of rain forest are destroyed annually.
- Over 200 million tons of waste are added to the atmosphere each year.
- Over six billion tons of carbon from fossil fuel burning were added to the atmosphere last year.
- There is a 6 million square mile hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, and a 4.5 to 5% loss of ozone over the Northern Hemisphere.
- The planet has warmed at least 1∞ C in the last century, and given the annual carbon, CO2, CFC, and methane transmissions into the atmosphere, it will rise another 2.5∞ to 5.5∞ in the coming century.
- There are over 31,000 hazardous waste sites in the US alone, while in Europe, Estonia, and Lithuania acid rain has damaged over 122.6 million acres of forest.
- There are over 130,000 tons of known nuclear waste in the world, some of which will remain poisonous to the planet for another 100,000 years.
“And, last but not least, keeping the pressure on humanity to produce as much as possible from the Earth-driving the juggernaut described above-is the world’s population which is increasing by about 90 million people each year, or about the population of all of Mexico.” (4)
Today, our human ignorance is creating conflict and indifference leveraged with the power of time-binding. This is the source of our human crisis. Conflict and indifference mixed with ever more powerful technology is resulting in a formula for human extinction. Ours is not a crisis of high technology, but of low humanology.
We, the People, – That’s us, you and me, and ~6,000,000,000 others as well. We are the real victims of the present adversary-neutral culture and our adversary-neutral governments. We the People is where the buck really stops in modern culture. It is we the People who will lose our lives and our childrens’ future in a high-technological war/accident made probable by massive high-technological weapon buildup and the continuing global dissemination of these weapons.
It is we the People who will lose our jobs, our businesses, our homes, and possessions in a global economic collapse made probable by continually increasing federal and trade deficits by our adversary-neutral governments.
It is we the People that have the least power of all the players, and paradoxically the most power. When we the People are united, we become the strongest force in human culture for change. But, presently we the People are in a state of confusion and disorganization. Presently, we the People are influenced heavily by the diverse rhetoric bombarded us from all directions, not to mention the powerful lobbying of the all the special interests. Presently, most of we the People are unaware of the relationship between our overwhelming problems and the adversary-neutral mechanisms that have dominated our human history. And so today we the People find ourselves helpless and ineffective.
Today we the People are embedded in crisis,and paradox, and we find ourselves facing the end times. As our President has so eloquently put it:
The Future Itself is Dying
We humans must take action. We humans must change.
The truth is especially hard to believe if it requires that we take action – if it requires that we change. If humanity is to have a future, we must take action – we must change. If humanity is to have a future, we must believe the truth.
Examination of the human condition today reveals little to no existence of synergic relationships. The only games in town are adversary or neutral. If we humans are to transcend our adversary and neutral pasts, we must change.
I believe with change a co-Operative human species can solve our human crisis – a co-Operative humans species can solve our human problems – a co-Operative human species can make the world work for everyone.
But we must change. To prepare for that change we humans can learn much by studying all forms of life and how they are related. By studying the history and past developmental paths of other life forms, we can learn to understand our human predicament and plan a safe passage to our future – a safe passage through our human crisis.
If we are successful, we will discover that this is not the end times, but a time of transformation – in fact a new beginning.
A New Beginning
Life discovered billions of years ago that the best method to escape the old ways, was to transcend them. To transcend means to change the rules. When you change the rules problems can become opportunities. To put away war, to put away conflict and indifference, we must change. We humans can change and United we can change our world.
Humans are Time-binders. Ours is the power to know and that knowledge grows without limits. If we remain in our childhood as a species, our conflict and indifference will continue injuring us until we eventually we produce such unlimited weapons that must by definition destroy us. If we are to enter our adulthood as a species we must put away childish things. We must put away the conflict of the adversary way. We must put away the indifference of the neutral way. And, we must put away not only nuclear weapons, but in fact we must put away all weapons. And then and only then will it truly be safe.
We do have the intelligence necessary to organize ourselves into a synergic community. If we kill our brother we can understand the effect on the community of man. Our actions are either responsible or irresponsible. We lost our innocence not with the bite of an apple in the Garden of Eden, but with a bite of our first kill on the African Savannah.
If we choose to act adversarily ours is not an act of innocence. We humans have choice – the ultimate choice – we can choose in time, space and energy.
We humans are part of a larger whole. We are a part of the community of humankind. Our time-binding power – the power to understand allows us to produce unlimited knowledge. If we use our knowledge to kill – if we use our knowledge the adversary way, we will produce unlimited weapons – we will produce unlimited death.
Looking Back
Recall from our earlier discussions, the Earth is believed to have formed four and one-half billion years ago. Life emerged ~3.4 billion years ago in our oceans in the form of simple plants – Energy-binders. About 700 million years ago, the first single celled animals – Space-binders emerged in the Earth’s oceans to join the Energy-binders.
The land plants first appeared ~400 million years ago, and the first land animals arose from the freshwater fish about 360 million years ago. These amphibians and later reptiles would be joined by the first mammals 200 million years ago. Approximately 65 million years ago, the giant reptiles became extinct, as the mammals flourished.
Approximately 12 million years ago we see the emergence of first primitive apelike mammals. The first man-like apes are seen ~4 million years ago, and recognizable humanity begins with the emergence of the genus Homo erectus – the first ape-like men between 1.5 and 2 million years ago.
Between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens – primitive man. Time-binding must have been present at this time, but we have no documentation for it. Modern man – Homo sapiens sapiens first appears ~90,000 years ago. Time-binding is first documented with sculptures dated at over 30,000 years old. Wall paintings and engravings have been found in more than 200 caves, largely in Spain and France, dating from 25,000 to 10,000 years ago. Written mathematics and language are not documented until ~3500 BC. This is finally proof of the existence of Time-binding and coincides with the beginning of human ‘civilization’.
Gaining Some Perspective
Life has existed on Earth for ~3.4 billion years. If that time span were represented by a yearly calendar with the beginning of life occurring on January 1st, then humanity does not appear until one minute before midnight on December 31st.
We humans were born of Space-binding, and the Space-binding way of Adversity has dominated our lives for most of our history. If we mark our beginning with Homo erectus then that is nearly 2,000,000 years of Adversity. If we mark our beginning with Homo sapiens then it is 250,000 years of Adversity. Even if we wait and mark the beginning with Homo sapiens sapiens it is still 90,000 years of Adversity.
The first neutral mechanisms – money and local markets will not invented until 700 BC. We won’t see the creation of national markets until 1600 AD, and the institutionalization of Neutrality will not occur until 1776. And even today in 1999, while Neutrality is strongly present in the Western free world, the rest of the world – the majority of humanity still lives in Adversity.
By facing up to the truth
If we humans are to survive as a species let alone as individuals, we must give up the adversary way, we must put away plunder, we must reclaim the land and natural resources for the common good of all humanity.
We must help those who are the present adversary-neutral “winners” – those who ìwin” by just making money – to see what’s in it for them to give up the adversary-neutral mechanisms. Fortunately, there is something in it for them. Synergic mechanisms promise solutions to problems that cannot be solved in our present world no matter how powerful or rich you are.
We must put away our obsolete forms of government. They are tragically flawed with adversary-neutral mechanisms, and can not carry us safely into the future.
And, finally, we must put away war, crime, and punishment.
If we humans choose to use our knowledge to heal and help each other – if we use our knowledge in the synergic way, we can solve our problems–we can produce wealth and prosperity for all humans on planet Earth. Then, we can choose the future we want for we are time-binders.
Will you choose a synergic future ?
Sources:
1) UNICEF, State of the World’s Children 1996, Oxford University Press, New York, 1996 http://www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/what-b.html
2) Hazel Henderson, Building a Win-Win World, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 1996
3) Medard Gabel, et al, What We Have and What We Want–Section 1: The World Problem State, World Game Institute, Philadelphia PA, 1997, Internet Reference: http://www.worldgame.org/
4) Medard Gabel, et al, ibid