THE WONDERFUL WORLD TOMORROW
What It Will Be Like
by Herbert W. Armstrong
Contents:
1. Three World Views -- Only One Is Going to Happen!
2. One Last
"Obituary" Look at Today's World
3. The
Cause of All World Troubles
4. The
New World Government
5.
Education and Religion Tomorrow
6. Now
Picture Tomorrow's World!
7. ...
And All Speaking the Same Language
CHAPTER 1
Three World Views -- Only One is Going to Happen!
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE IT! It will happen, regardless. It is sure
-- the world's only sure hope. This advance good news of tomorrow is as
certain as the rising of tomorrow's sun. Humanity won't bring it about
-- it is going to be done to us. Humanity is going to be forced to be
happy -- to enjoy world peace -- to see universal abundance and joy fill
the earth. Utopia? Why not. Why should it be an imaginary or impossible
pipe-dream? There is a cause for today's world chaos and threat of human
extinction. That cause will be supplanted by that which will bring a
utopia that is real, that is successfully functioning! Why today's world
evils? How will they be ended? What will cause this world to erupt into
peace, and plenty? How will such incredible changeover be brought about?
And what will this world tomorrow be like? How will it be governed? Who
will rule? You are going to take a sober look at the conditions, facts,
causes and trends in today's sick, sick world. You are going to read
what world leaders, scientists, technologists and educators say about
today's trends, and what they envision for the next decade or two. And
then you will be given a surprising, excited look into what is certain
in the transformed world tomorrow, what really is ahead -- and why.
Today there are three views -- two widely held by world leaders. Only
one is going to happen. And it's the best big news ever reported in the
history of mankind. What is actually going to be the outcome of all
this, for our frenetic, entertainment-crazed, gadget-buying, yet
chaotic, divided and sick world, is something totally unseen by
statesmen, scientists, educators, and world leaders.
What World Leaders Expect
The two most widely held views are divergent ones -- paradoxically
pointing in opposite directions. Many world leaders now expect -- though
they probably don't dwell on the thought -- that nuclear destruction
eventually, perhaps soon, will erase human life from this earth. Besides
nuclear annihilation, there are at least five other means by which
mankind could be destroyed from off the face of the globe: chemical
warfare, biological warfare, overpopulation and resulting famine,
disease epidemics, and environmental pollution. Consider these facts:
Human life is sustained by air, water, and food. Today man is polluting
his life-sustaining supply of these three necessities at a
fast-accelerating rate. Air pollution, filling the air with gasses,
smoke, smog, fallout from nuclear test explosions, and fluorocarbons
from aerosol spray cans, not only threatens man, but renders plant life
sick. Many rivers and lakes worldwide have been so seriously polluted
that the water supply in many places is reaching a crisis stage. Man has
depleted and ruined the soil out of which food must grow. Artificial
fertilizers, poisonous sprays, and erosion caused by floods have robbed
vegetables, grains and fruits of life-sustaining minerals and vitamins.
Food factories have further extracted these vital elements out of
grains, rice, sugar, in the greed for profits. Add to these the
worldwide revolution in the weather -- droughts and floods -- resulting
in mass starvations in some parts of the world, and widespread epidemics
of disease. During the past 50 years in Africa, India and South America
alone, weather and environmental damage has caused the loss of over one
million square kilometers of agricultural land. If all these
fast-accelerating evils do not destroy humanity soon, the experts say
the population explosion will. According to United Nations studies,
world population at the end of this century will increase another 1.8
billion over the present four billion, bringing the total to nearly six
billion people! At that time -- just two decades from now -- China and
India will each have populations of over one billion. Statistics further
reveal that world population is increasing by some 76 million annually,
which would lead to a doubling of world population to over 8 billion by
the year 2013. And projections say that a century from now, a full 12
billion people would be crowding the earth. Even now, with our
population of 4 billion, nearly 500 million are gravely undernourished.
As global population soars, the imbalance of human numbers and rapidly
dwindling resources threatens to become even further aggravated. If the
world cannot now adequately care for 4 billion, just how will it cope
with 6 billion ... or 8 billion ... or 12 billion? Leading scientists
look at this world picture, and say they are frankly frightened. They
warn us that man's only hope lies in the admittedly impossible -- that
the nations form a super world government, capable of unitedly acting on
these problems on a global scale before it is too late. But the nations,
hostile against one another, could never form such a government. And the
humans then in authority would be no more able to cope with all these
nonmilitary evils that threaten the extinction of mankind than present
leaders. This widely held view of the future offers no hope.
The Magic World of Science
Then, paradoxically, science and technology has dangled before our
eyes a glittering, glamour-world of their making. It was to be a
fantastic, push-button dreamworld of "the three L's" --
leisure, luxury and license. They have been working to produce
unbelievable material devices they believe would convert this world into
a glorified heaven. Ignoring the stark reality of conditions described
just above, that is!
-------------------- PHOTO CAPTION: AIR POLLUTION not only threatens
man, but renders plant life sick. Leading scientists look at this world
and say they are frankly frightened. Yet, paradoxically, science and
technology dangle before our eyes a fantastic world of lasers and
luxury. They produce unbelievable material devices in the hope of
converting this world into a glorified dreamland. Left, a view of the
real world; above, laser technology with laser beam passing thorough two
Quantel lenses. --------------------
Aldous Huxley said, "Most prophecy tends to oscillate between an
extreme of gloom and the wildest optimism! The world, according to one
set of seers, is headed for disaster; according to the other, the world
is destined -- within a generation or two -- to become a kind of
gigantic Disneyland, in which the human race will find perpetual
happiness playing with an endless assortment of ever more ingenious
mechanical toys." How true. And also how ironic, that those voicing
the most glamorous predictions of science and industry seem to totally
exclude the stark reality of world conditions -- and, for that matter,
seem unable to comprehend the additional snarls and problems their own
predictions would bring. However, leaving the facts aside, let us take a
look at some of the speculations for our future. In his book, "The
Next 200 Years" (1976), futurist Herman Kahn -- Director of the
Hudson Institute "think tank" in New York -- suggests that the
world economy will continue to grow well into the next century, bringing
a growing standard of living and increasing affluence to the majority of
the world's population. He paints a picture of a prosperous global
utopia by the year 2176, brought about by continuing technology advances
-- with plenty of energy, food and raw materials for all. "Two
hundred years from now, we believe, people almost everywhere will be
rich, numerous and in control of the forces of nature," Kahn
predicts. In his scenario, the world two centuries from now will contain
some 15 billion people, with a staggering per-capita income of some
$20,000, compared with only about $1,300 today. In a previous study
focusing on life in the United States in the years to A.D. 2000, Kahn
forecasts a glittering utopia coming a great deal sooner than the world
at large. He predicted that in the years just ahead, Americans would be
enjoying "three-day weekends, three-or four-month vacations,
Southern California-type living with the emphasis on family and home,
high income, an abundance of material things ...." He asserted that
people will live in ten-room houses, earn a disposable income (after
taxes) of multiple tens of thousands of dollars, and enjoy a four-hour
work day, five days per week -- or maybe even a six-hour work day and a
three-day week, with a four-day weekend. In essence, we are to look
forward to a life of almost complete idleness and leisure -- the
"good life" day after day after day. In short, a perpetual
vacation!
But Is This Utopia?
But does this kind of a society sound truly good to you? Think about
these glowing predictions. Then think of the utter impracticability, and
of the many problems they would create, rather than solve. Yet multiple
millions, especially in the United States, anticipate such developments,
hopefully in their own lifetimes, while turning a blind eye to the
ominous warnings by other respected scientists who see instead impending
doom for large segments of the world through famine, pestilence and war.
Can a tiny segment of the population of one nation expect to succeed in
achieving ever more dizzying heights of material wealth, playing with an
ever more dazzling assortment of mechanical gadgets, and ignore the
awesome problems of the rest of the world? Reporting on the paradoxes
posed by the projected advancements in store for future society, a
science writer of a leading newspaper asked a few years ago "What
sort of world in 20 years?" The answers were interesting. He first
told of new knowledge in biological science applied to medicine, giving
new insight into, and partial control of, aging, heredity, mental
illness, heart disease, cancer and virus infections. Whole hosts of
ingenious devices in the fields of applied physics and advanced
engineering would provide super-sophisticated computers, communication
satellites, novel transportation techniques, space exploration probes,
and a newer and more glittering array of medical instruments and
techniques. He envisioned bigger crowds at bigger stadiums watching
bigger athletic contests. Recreation, physical pleasure, fun, would be
widespread. More golf courses, more swimming pools, tennis courts, dance
halls, bowling alleys, color television sets -- these were predicted to
aid society in seeking ever more heightened pleasures. But, he said, the
years ahead "will have increased crime, gambling, sexual
promiscuity, riots, air and water pollution, traffic congestion, noise,
and lack of solitude." "More and more," continued the
prediction, "there will be 'no place to hide.'" Even Dr. Kahn,
in his study of the United States of the future, admits that the
"utopian" changes in life-styles and work patterns could carry
with them some traumatic consequences. "Many," he explains,
will be satisfied but others will find such a life meaningless and
purposeless, and they will look for something to fulfill them. Kahn
suggests that we may see more riots and irrational movements, along with
a turn to mysticism, cults and drugs as a means for such fulfillment. We
have seen an upsurge in drug usage, with certain drugs -- notably
marijuana and cocaine -- becoming increasingly accepted by large numbers
seeking escape from modern society, with the use of the latest popular
drug, "angel dust" (phencyclidine, also called PCP), becoming
a crisis of epidemic proportions in the U.S., according to police and
hospital officials. Accidents, suicides, homicides -- all have been the
end result of using angel dust. Yet multiple thousands continue to
"find reality" through its use. After drugs ... then what?
What other forms of escapism would the supposedly affluent, leisurely
utopian life of tomorrow bring with it, assuming it comes about at all?
Reading such reports of the "bad news," as well as the
"good news," we may well have doubts about whether we want to
be around in such an age.
Would We Really Want It?
But how about looking at society in general? The same report adds
that, because of intensified social, ethnic and racial problems, the
cities of the future will be "seething centers of periodically
great turmoil and confusion.
-------------------- PHOTO CAPTION: AN UPSURGE in gambling and drug
and alcohol usage is increasingly accepted by large numbers seeking
escape from modern social problems -- all the while believing they are
"finding reality". Others stand patiently in unemployment
lines. --------------------
"For the underdeveloped world ... , the 'plight of the average
man' will have deteriorated. People will be more poorly fed and there
will be fewer goods per person. Every attempt to improve the situation
will be wiped out by the continued population growth. Hunger, starvation
and famine periodically and continuously will stalk major portions of
the planet ...." Then, almost incredibly, the report said probably
"for the first time in history, every child everywhere will be at
school -- if they are not starving in a famine"(!). And so go the
paradoxical and often conflicting prognostications of science, industry,
and technology. Not very happy predictions, are they? Other
prognostications abound, even about our personal futures. Some include:
Choosing the sex of children before they are conceived -- 1980.
Artificial plastic and electronic organs for humans -- 1982. (Wouldn't
you far rather avoid getting sick, and keep healthy organs of your own?)
Artificial heart implantations; brain linked to computer -- 1985.
Chemical synthesis of inexpensive, nutritious food; cancer conquered --
1990. First human clone; brain transplants commonplace -- 1995.
Transplantation of almost all organs of the body -- 2000. Alteration of
the processes of aging -- 2005. Biochemicals to aid the growth of new
organs and limbs -- 2007. Widespread use of artificial insemination to
produce genetically superior offspring -- 2010. Drugs to raise the level
of intelligence -- 2012. Fetuses grown in artificial wombs -- 2015.
Genetic engineering in humans by chemically modifying their DNA chains;
human brain linked with computer to enlarge man's intellect -- 2020.
Total mastery of human genetics and heredity -- 2030. Suspended
animation of life -- 2040. Complete control of the aging process;
man-made immortality -- 2050. The above prognostications were adapted in
part from "The Post-Physician Era: Medicine in the 21st
Century", by Jerrold Maxmen (1976). The predictions are almost
endless. Economists, sociologists, geneticists, psychiatrists, even
zoologists and anthropologists, are having a hand at predicting the
varicolored and kaleidoscopic never-never land of tomorrow -- glittering
and glamorous for the few; filled with grisly spectres of horror for the
many.
It Won't Happen
So there you have the two opposite, divergent views of scientists,
statesmen, educators, world leaders -- one glowingly optimistic about
the progress of society; the other utterly hopeless. But both of these
concepts are false! Man wants desperately to save the society he has
established upon this earth. But this society -- this civilization can't
be saved! Man, himself, is bringing this world to destruction. God
Almighty will soon step in, and create a new, peaceful, and happy
society -- the world tomorrow.
CHAPTER 2
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