One generation all that is left to save world. What do you think?

Anthony Booth <abooth@IEE.ORG> has sent me the following, I would say
not only sensible but also VERY CONSTRUCTIVE message:

Dear elohimjl,

Your thesis is interesting, but your presentation shows too much fear.

Humans fear many things, but high on the list is fear itself ... fear in
others that is. These monologues deal with important matters. However
they come over in a shrill tone of voice, as though the hand guiding the
pen is shaking (please forgive my metaphors). If such encyclopaedic
fearfulness is presented to a person whose normal ambit is a cheerful
everyday round, even perhaps a person intoxicated to some degree by the
sweetness of their life, then the prospect presented is repugnant and
creates an immediate revulsion. Down that road is merely an alienation of
the greater readership of such arguments.

Instead it falls to the presenter of such arguments to display (or at least
to fake) a courageous and statesmanlike stance. The inclusion of pivotal
positive arguments is crucial. That is the style which is likely to hold
the attention of and draw toward it those in whom a change of mental model
is needed. Fear tends to drive people back into using their tried and
proven existing models without further thought. At best it brings about
disruption of existing social concepts to allow competition amongst new
ones, but that is just the same mechanism as war.

It is fair to expect that a community of persons with a cybernetics
interest are unlikely to be fools enough to reject outright the totality of
what you are saying, but nevertheless a message of this sort needs
transformation into a courageous and stylish presentation with rigour and
strength of expression. It is good that you have the opportunity to
present your message in this primordial form within the restricted channels
of such a cybernetics network. However, I suspect that even cyberneticians
are subject to feelings of fear, just as is anybody else. So these issues
even matter here.

How does cybernetics deal with this issue of fear ... in theory and,
perhaps more importantly just now, in practice?

His question could be extended to other domains saying

How does cybernetics, systems, information, organization, science,
management, behavioral concern,... deal with this issue of fear ...
in theory and, perhaps more importantly just now, in practice?

So far so difficult, complicated and nearly to be impossible if the
scientific community does not support the masses in their
willingness to STOP all kinds of WARRING which continue being
organized by - you know WHO - intelligent specimens wh have developed
an effective expertise for inventing and using all kinds of military,
economic, cultural and political weapons.

Many of us are quite inclined to perform pragmatically supported by
common sense decorated with some scientific information. Such a kind
of attitude may help some individuals and even groups of them to
escape from the frightening reality while encouraging themselves to
attend immediately one or another symptom of the serious illness that
suffers humankind at present. They may even claim that they have
very successfully save their souls.

I am inclined to think differently, assuming that I put my feet on
the terrestrial soul but my brain willing at least to notice
something else of the whole reality in addition to what I have
managed to comprehend.

Humans have been increasingly ill since those days when rather few of
our ancestors started to organize the civilized way of life by means
of a generalized and unilateral utilitarianism for the sake of making
profit and taking advantage of everything instead of learning to
develop our intrinsic gregariousness

Once again I dare to argue that we need URGeNTLY to create the
required circumstances for updating continuously a holistic view of
our suffering Wholeness (our homosphere located in our biosphere
located as well in our ecosphere, bearing in mind that these three
spheres are ours only for the time being because the three belong
always the following generation).

How? Sorry to repeat again that our unique option is to develop the
Bertalanffian Systems Thinking by means of Top ==> Down approach(es)

According to Washington-based Worldwatch Institute (see notice
below) very short time is left for doing what is needed which should
consistent enough with the features of our species and coherent
enough with our planet (the only one available for human life)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One generation all that is left to save world, report warns

Paul Brown
The Guardian Weekly 20-3-0116, page 5

The human race has only one or perhaps two generations to rescue
itself, according to the 2003 State of the World report by the
Washington-based Worldwatch Institute.The longer that no remedial
action is taken, the greater the degree of misery and biological
impoverishment that humankind must be prepared to accept, the
institute says in its 20th annual report.

Overuse of resources, pollution and destruction of natural areas
continue to threaten life on the planet.

Conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly, the report says, although
there are some hopeful signs in that technical solutions to the
problems have been found and - where there is political will -
adopted. In most cases, though, nothing is being done.

Among the worst trends is that 420 million people live in countries
that no longer have enough crop land to grow their own food and have
to rely on imports. Around 1.2 billion people, or about a fifth of
the world's population, live in absolute poverty - defined as
surviving on the equivalent of less than $1 a day. About one-quarter
of the developing world's crop land is being degraded, and the rate
is increasing. The greatest threat is not a shortage of land, says
the report, but a shortage of water, with more than 500 million
people living in regions prone to chronic drought.

By 2025 that number is likely to have increased at least fivefold, to
between 2.4 billion and 3.4 billion. A probable world population
increase of 27% by then will create social and ecological instability.

Global warming is accelerating, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
has reached 370.9 parts per million, the highest level for 420,000
years and probably for 20m years.

Toxic chemicals are being released in increasing quantities, and
global production of hazardous waste has reached more than 300m
tonnes a year. There is only a vague idea of what damage this does to
humans and natural systems, the report says. Another threat is
movement of invasive species to regions where they can pose problems
to native species.

The state of the world's natural life support system is perhaps the
most worrying indicator for the future, says the report. About 30% of
the world's surviving forests are seriously fragmented or degraded,
and they are being cut down at the rate of 130,000 sq km a year, it
says.

Wetlands have been reduced by 50% over the past century. Coral reefs
are suffering the effects of overfishing, pollution, epidemic
diseases and rising temperatures.

A quarter of the world's mammal species and 12% of the birds are in
danger of extinction.

On the hopeful side, the report says that renewable energy
technologies have now developed sufficiently to supply the world.
They could significantly reduce the threat to the world from
pollution - but currently there is a lack of political will to
introduce them fast enough.

The Guardian Weekly 20-3-0116, page 5
Received on Wed Jan 15 04:46:32 2003