THE WONDERFUL WORLD TOMORROW
What It Will Be Like
Chapter 1
by Herbert W. Armstrong
1966, 1973, 1979 edition
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Three World Views -- Only One Is Going to Happen!
Chapter 2 - One Last "Obituary" Look at
Today's World
Chapter 3 - The Cause of All World
Troubles
Chapter 4 - The New World
Government
Chapter 5 - Education and Religion
Tomorrow
Chapter 6 - Now Picture Tomorrow's
World!
Chapter 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!
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.
"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.