A Novel Approach to Saving the WorldOctober 5 2007
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In 1798 Thomas Malthus published "An Essay on the Principle of Population", describing his theory of quantitative development of human populations. In it he argued convincingly that the world was headed towards an unavoidable global famine due to over population.
The global catastrophe predicted by Malthus did not appear as and when predicted, not because his calculations were wrong, but because he was unable to fortell the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the effects of tapping into the earth's store of fossil fuels.
Two hundred years later we are faced with another impending world disaster, again with no apparent plan for survival. Global warrming, pollution, terrorism and over population are all on course to creating multiple global disasters which will be even greater than the one Maltus predicted. If these predictions are correct we will be lucky if our species survives, let alone our civilization.
It would seem a shame that after only a million years on the face of the planet and only five thousand years of civilization behind us, we humans would simply appear and disappear in mere instant of geological time. Particularly after establishing a bright vision of our future through a science fiction genre that has envisioned human kind spreading throughout our galaxy.
I would suggest there a possible escape clause in our apparent death sentence. I will ask that you to suspend any disbelief and focus on the possible while I explain more.
In order for the human species to survive in the long term there is only one place were we can expand, and that is into space. Our time window for doing so is limited by the duration of our current technological capacity to reach space which will decline sharply under the negative pressures described above.
Once established in space energy from the sun and raw materials from the moon and from the asteroid belt will give rise to another blossoming of human civilization. But getting from here to there would seem unachieveable since our ability to reach and operate in space seems to have declined rather than increased in recent years.
What we need in order to overcome this hurdle is another revolution, one which will have a boosting effect on our civilization of a nature and magnitude equivalent to the boost we received from the Industrial Revolution.
I believe that the power to transform our society exists, through what is becoming popularly referred to as "The Law of Attraction." The claim is that that individual humans can effect their material future simply by visualizing the future which they want to achieve, while retaining an attitude of optimism and gratitude for what the universe has and will grant them. Note that it may be beyond the ability of the scientific method to prove or disprove this law; however the law is consistent with the reported experiences of hundreds if not thousands of individuals, myself included.
There is futher evidence that this law may be amplified by numbers. More people visualizing have more effect. A study performed in 1993 showed how the presence of 4000 people meditating on crime reduction correlated with a 24% reduction in the crime in the Washington DC region. A certain approach to reading the New Testament could lead one to believe that Jesus' powers were amplified in proportion to the number of people who believed in his power.
If this is true, then by harnessing the power of several million people who agree to visualize a single positive outcome to our global predicament, we could avert disaster and trigger the appearance of a solution where none seems to possible at the moment.
The reverse side of the Law of Attraction would tell us that if we allow ourselves to visualize a negative outcome to our global dilema then we are more likely to attract that particular outcome.
Not everyone agrees on the mechanism behind the Law of Attraction but almost everyone agrees that visualizing success is an important first step in achieving success, whether in business, in sport or in science.
It is time or humanity to take on a massive positive visualization project of our shared future in order to create the future that our great 20th Century authors have imagined for us.
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