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I know not with what
weapons World War III will be fought, but World War
IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein
We hold these
truths to be self evident:
That
all men are created equal;
That
they are endowed by their Creator with
inherent and unalienable
rights;
That
among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit
of Happiness;
That
to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving
their just powers from the
consent of the governed.
U.S. Declaration
of Independence
If you had the power, and it
were possible, would you choose to bring peace, prosperity,
and freedom to the world?
This book examines some of the main problems
facing humanity in the 21st Century and offers technological
solutions for conquering global poverty and wealth disparity,
the major driving forces for war and terrorism. Other
areas we will address include employment, education,
health care, crime, retirement security, sustainable
energy, climate change, the environment and government.
Some of these solutions are hardware;
some are software. Hardware refers to actual physical
objects and inventions. Software refers to procedures
for organizing activities better.
Many of the solutions can be implemented
immediately; others will take several years to put in
place. Almost all of the proposed solutions rely on
technology that exists today.
These solutions are not ideological. They
are not religious. They do not require that you join
our group, political party, or vote our way. Instead,
they are a blueprint for building a sustainable planet
with an adequate standard of living for everyone, based
simply on inventions and technology. The solutions we
propose show that there is a definite, realistic path
for a transition to a free and prosperous world.
Our solution is not to put us in charge;
it is to put you in charge.
Humanity's first transition was from hunter-gatherer
to farmer and pushed largely by climate change. About
20,000 years ago, glaciers covered much of the Earth.
The glacier over what is now Chicago was more than a
mile thick. At the end of the last Ice Age, the glaciers
began to melt and the oceans rose more than 300 feet
around the world, flooding one fifth of the earth's
land area, equal to the current size of Africa . The
habitat became more crowded. People likely killed off
and ate many of the largest animals, already stressed
by climate change, and then fought each other. Eventually,
our hunter-gatherer ancestors became herders and farmers,
inventing new ways to use resources in order to survive
more effectively.
Farmers moved into forts for self-protection
that were built on high ground better suited for defense,
sleeping and safety. Irrigation and warfare often led
to agricultural empires with class structures that included
slavery. This new organization required the use of tools
in larger activities, which were coordinated by record-keeping
priests and eventually supported a population about
40 times larger than before. Large cities, states, empires
and religions supplemented and changed smaller and local
family, tribe and deity orientations.
The second transition resulted from capturing
energy and harnessing it in machines, which put the
Industrial Revolution in motion a little over two hundred
years ago. First, steam engines and then internal combustion
engines and electricity, moved us into a transportation
and communications revolution that gave us trains, steamships,
telegraphs, automobiles, airplanes, lights, telephones,
motors, radios, televisions, rockets, computers and
satellites.
That revolution is now forcing the world
into the third transition to become one large village
or ship that we all share. We are approaching seven
billion people on our planet, tripled in the lifetime
of many of us. Increasing population, pollution, greenhouse
gases and shortages of water, energy, cropland and food
resources are driving this third transition. Weapons
of mass destruction, impoverished youth facing a bleak
and hopeless future, and ideological and religious conflict
are shoving the world toward increasing violence.
Everywhere on our planet is downstream
from some other place and technology is bringing us
ever closer. No place is isolated. New infectious diseases
such as AIDS, SARS and avian flu virus threaten everyone:
They are just a few hours away by airplane.
We all watch TV and see starving people
around the globe. We see those begging on our streets.
We see the smog and can't escape it. We see our water
supplies being polluted. We live with crime in our schools,
on our streets and in our banks and corporations. We
are concerned about the potential for climate change
that could threaten our world. We are worried about
our children and our children's children. Yet we see
our governments being increasingly driven by money and
special interest politics.
It is natural to question if anything
can be done. What can an individual person do about
these huge issues and problems? In the past people often
assumed their kings, queens or leaders would take care
of the big problems. Today at the beginning of the 21st
Century it is increasingly obvious that these problems
are getting worse and something effective has to be
done soon before it is too late. Some people claim that
it is the end of the world and their God wants it that
way. Others point out that we have brains and it is
up to us to use them to invent new solutions just as
our ancestors did.
It is up to us regular people to change
things. The future belongs to all of us. We are the
people of the planet and have a right and a responsibility
to speak and to help. Each and every one of us has a
right to have a say in what will happen. Are we going
to destroy the world or turn it into a garden with plenty
to go around? Peace with prosperity and happiness can
await us. It is our decision. It is time for us to wake
up and take control of this third transition, the change
to citizens of a global spaceship Earth.
Our planet, full of human beings and all
its life forms, is a ship moving through space and time
carrying its precious cargo into the future. It can
either be a cruise ship where we freely choose the destination,
captain and crew, or it will be a totalitarian slave
ship run by dictators using secret police states.
Spaceship Earth refers to the vantage
point of seeing Planet Earth from outer space, the view
humans first saw when rockets and satellites sent back
actual pictures of our blue planet covered with beautiful
white clouds. The planet had no map lines, no boundaries,
no designations to tell us which nation was different
from any other or where an American river flowed from
Canada or into Mexico . It was a planet with no borders.
Wiring up Spaceship Earth refers to the
concept of wiring up a building with electricity and
installing communication and life support systems. It
allows light, heat, electricity, motors, engines, air
conditioning and plumbing to function. The building
itself without being wired up is just a dead shell;
it can only take care of a few people. But when you
wire it up you can communicate and coordinate the movements
of the people, goods, and services within it. You can
cycle and recycle materials, use time and services more
efficiently and allow the building to be habitable,
useable, comfortable, and function for a large number
of people who can live and work inside it.
The Great Depression and World War II
taught us we could control economic forces, get people
to work productively and create prosperity. During World
War II, the United States doubled its real annual production
in five years. The “unemployables” of the depression
years actually were able to work and be productive once
there were jobs available. After World War II, the USA
realized that if it did not make the public choice to
help rebuild Europe through the Marshall Plan, Europe
would slide into chaos, dictatorship, and communism.
So, the USA aided Europe , then Japan , and later did
the same for South Korea and others.
In WWII, the American government created
the atomic bomb; in two years it built an industrial
complex as large as the entire automotive industry.
The US government made the decision to go to the moon
and got there by bidding out much of the job to private
companies. Future projects of these and larger scales
can be done by the public or private sectors or some
combination, but the large decisions of what to build
should be made by the public sector.
In the world's first book on free market
economics, The Wealth of Nations , Adam Smith
said there were three reasons for government: to provide
for national defense, justice and projects too large
for any one individual or private group of individuals
to accomplish by themselves.
What is needed today is to bring the entire
world up to the middle class as quickly as possible.
This is the best guarantee for the survival of freedom.
What are the activities that will give the people of
the planet the greatest amount of benefit and lead to
the maximum sustainable wealth for us all? What will
bring the greatest good for the greatest number of people?
How can we best use the resources we have for ourselves,
our children, and our children's children? This is an
economic question to answer. It's a question of technology,
not of ideology. It's a question of what to build and
how fast.
The world is becoming ever more aware
of the need to combat global climate change and use
energy more efficiently. The Pulsing Traffic solution
in the first chapter will show how we can make significant
progress against this problem around the world almost
immediately at little cost and using existing technology.
The ensuing chapters will go on to show
how to further this progress, achieve abundant, sustainable
energy, govern democratically and ensure freedom, use
human resources, and coordinate our economic activities
using a free market approach.
Let's begin.
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