4 posts tagged “nonsense”

It seems to me that there are no catastrophes in the second subgroup: there are no catastrophes that loom before us which cannot be avoided; there is nothing that threatens us with imminent destruction in such a fashion that we are helpless to do something about it. If we behave rationally and humanely; if we concentrate coolly on the problems that face all of humanity, rather than emotionally on such nineteenth century matters as national security and local pride; if we recognize that it is not one’s neighbours who are the enemy, but misery, ignorance, and the cold indifference of natural law – then we can solve all the problems that faces us. We can deliberately choose to have no catastrophes at all.

And if we do that over the next century, we can spread into space and lose our vulnerabilities. We will no longer be dependent on one planet or one star. And the humanity, or its intelligent descendants and allies, can live past the end of the Earth, past the end of the sun, past (who knows?) even the end of the universe.

It is that which is, and should be, our goal. May we gain it.

Isaac Asimow in A Choice of Catastrophes, 1979

Mutual growth is possible with respect to all global issues and opportunities. Security can be improved for all nations and not limited to some at the expense of others. If all agree to disarm, to reduce their defense expenditures, and to institute effective peacekeeping systems, global security can be improved without resultant insecurity fo any nation. More food can be produced for all people through a proper use of existing technologies and development of new methods for the distribution of produce. The better diet of some need not mean deprivation for others. The world population can likewise be stabilized without having to pay for reductions in the birthrate of one population with increases in that of another. Economic growth can be selectively achieved for all nations and populations, and higher levels of development can be assured for the poor without reducing by the corresponding amount the standard of living of the rich. ..

Ervin Laszlo et al in Goals For Mankind, A Report to The Club of Rome, 1977

You may very appropriately want to ask me how we are going to resolve the ever-acceleratingly dangerous impasse of world-opposed politician and ideological dogmas.

I answer, it will be resolved by the computer. Man has ever-increasing confidence in the computer; witness his unconcerned landings as air transport passengers coming in for landing in the combined invisibility of fog and night. While no politician or political system can ever afford to yield understandably and enthusiastically to their adversaries and opposers, all politicians can and will yield enthusiastically to the computers safe flight-controlling capabilities in bringing all of humanity in for happy landing.

So, planners, architects, and engineers take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don’t hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergistic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us. They are not man-made laws. They are the infinitely accommodative laws of the intellectual integrity governing universe.

         Richard Buckminster Fuller: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1969

If we behave rationally and humanely; if we concentrate coolly on the problems that face all of humanity, rather than emotionally on such nineteenth century matters as national security and local pride; if we recognize that it is not one’s neighbors who are the enemy, but misery, ignorance, and the cold indifference of natural law – then we can solve all problems that face us. We can deliberately choose to have no catastrophes at all.

And if we do that over the next century, we can spread into space and lose our vulnerabilities. We will no longer be dependent on one planet or one star. And then humanity, or its intelligent descendants and allies, can live past the end of the Earth, past the end of the sun, past (who knows?) even the end of the universe.

It is that which is, and should be, our goal.

May we gain it!

            Isaac Asimov: A Choice of Catastrophes, 1979