"If you want to change the world, change yourself."
Mahatma Gandhi
In order to survive and preserve civilization there is practically no options for mankind but to stop the endless chain of destructive wars and learn to resolve contradictions by way of negotiations and compromise. To begin with, radical reforms need to be implemented in the system of education and in the media as they strongly influence people's attitudes and behavioral patterns. A possible path to survival would involve the development and implementation of a set of global–scale programs. Let's call them Consciousness, Disarmament, Technology, Economy and Geopolitics. In terms of organization, these programs can utilize the time–tested approaches and mechanisms used in the recent successful national and international projects and programs, such as the Manhattan Project, the Soviet nuclear and missile programs, the Apollo Project and the European Union creation program. This time, however, it will be required to raise one step higher in the scope of work, its complexity and overall duration of the program.
Although these proposals may sound to a certain extent reminiscent of the old utopian concepts of building a society of justice, today we simply have no alternative to finding a way to peaceful coexistence and establishing a new, different from the present one, system of life on the planet. One of the main tasks is to stop spending money on military purposes and retarget these funds to peaceful programs, specifically to ensuring sustainable development of the human civilization. The combined total of military spending in the world currently equals approximately one trillion dollars a year. This money must be used for funding the work of resolving the global problem facing mankind.
In brief, the programs outlined above can be summarized as follows:
1. Change of global mentality and mindset (Project Consciousness). Propaganda and education directed at promoting tolerance, peacefulness and equality, suppression of aggressiveness, ethnic and religious hatred, and imposing limits on consumption where it is excessive. Use of the rapidly developing information technologies, global information networks and distant educations, for the purpose of mindset transformation.
2. Disarmament. Disarmament and disbandment of the armies. Only police forces shall remain to maintain security. Termination of weapon research and their large scale production.
3. Technology. Development of technologies aimed at environmental preservation and ensuring high quality of life for all inhabitants of the planet as well as humanitarian technologies required for the transformation of human consciousness and mindset.
4. Economy. Help the developing countries to achieve economic rise. Establish stable political and social systems based on social justice. Eliminate the gap in the quality of life.
5. Geopolitics. Unification of countries along the lines of the European Union with the prospect of establishing, in a longer run, a common world community.
These programs will take dozens of years and many trillions of dollars to implement. However, already at this pint it is possible to identify several potential sources of their funding:
– The money released by the reduction of military spending; in a longer run, spending on weapons and armies should be reduced to zero.
– Available financial reserves and contributions from the richest countries, companies and individuals.
– Additional earnings from the global growth in labor productivity fueled by the scientific–technical progress. – Funds released by a wider use of robotics and computerization.
– Increase of earnings thanks to the introduction of modern educational and training systems and programs in the developing countries.
– Money saved through the transition to a reasonably limited consumption in the wealthiest countries.
– Profits from the extensive development of extraterrestrial resources.
Human civilization now needs a fundamentally new model of development. From the present sporadic growth mankind should transit to a globally controllable system of coevolution of society and nature. Implementation of the programs outlined above will require to attract the very best specialists, to select and train the most talented young people, to make detailed plans, break the work down by phases, make timely updates and corrections, and lots of other efforts. The ruling circles too (at least in the developed countries) appear to be aware of the dangers facing mankind due to the building up global crisis. Nevertheless, so far their policy was to hush it up. Probably one reason is that they fear to lose their present privileged positions. It is also true that these problems do not have simple solutions.
"The time-lags built into the dynamics of our world are considerable. We would have had to change yesterday, so to speak, to head off the crisis tomorrow," as Professor Ervin Laszlo said.
If the proposed programs are successfully implemented, the human civilization will be able to take the favorable path of "sustainable development," as shown on the picture below. (Here we will not discuss the other option – space settlement – which appears pretty farfetched at this point).
Some possible variants of the future
