Golden Question to the Future of February 1997 (week 2):

Dear Time Traveller

Here you are in the 21st Century, here I am in the 20th Century. It seems so easy for you : just a step from 20th to 21st, But it is not so for me. One day 24 hours, One hour 60 minutes, .... is still a reality for me.

I ask Questions, not to expect Solutions or Answers from you, but rather your guidance and wisdom for me to take a bold little step into the Future.

Your giant step from 20th to 21st Century must have involved a journey of up and down, lost and found, sweet and sweat, discovery and re-discovery, maybe in some instant life and near death, ...... but all these make up your experience and your wisdom today.

You have arrived at your destination in the 21st Century. You have caught your fish, your own fish, which is your fruit and harvest.

I ask not for the fish, but I post questions about your fishing net, your methodology, your learning process, your guiding principles.

I see much consumer products in nice and attractive packing. I like and buy them. After consuming the contents, I throw them away : the packing that was the attraction are now in the rubbish bin. The packing that I paid for are to be collected and disposed off. From the little knowledge I learn from school and from our present mode of industrialisation and consumerism, I have many many questions. Isn't is true that this world is finite in term of resources like wood, fuel, oil, gas, metal etc. etc.? Isn't is true that much of the precious energy used by the industries finally is dumped as waste? Isn't it true that uncontrolled waste creates environmental problems that haunt, hurt, and destroy many of us, now or in the future? Isn't it true that senseless commercial competition creates temporary winners of a few in term of profit, but at the expense of our limited resources of this earth?

I see children sometimes ill treated by arrogant and self-centred teachers or parents. I see employee totally stressed into sickness by the pressures imposed by their management. I see the ill effect of children living in a state of constant anxiety of the fearful teachers or parents. I see employee continue to be burdened with more pressure by the management on which their living depends on. Isn't is true that little little ill treatments will instil hatred and not love in children? Isn't it true that cumulative hatred may produce a senseless act like killing people in the public without any motive? Isn't it true that accumulated organisation stress further alienates people and destroy community spirit? Isn't is also true that it is the society that does not provide adequate and quality training and education of the arrogant teachers and parents? Isn't is true that the present mode and doctrine of production give rise to present type of industrialisation and consumerism? Isn't it true that we are part of thiii is society and hence are resposible for its outcome? Isn't true that what we earn for a living also perpetuates present mode of production? I realise more and more my thinking, my action, my behaviour can no longer be treated as isolated and individualistic event, It has cause and effect relationship with this mother earth, with the rest of the community and can create impact in the Future. More often than not, we are caught in a vicous circle of this sick and ill system.

Since you have arrived at the 21st Century, you not only have survived, but you represent a collective wisdom of the rest of the mankind that has taken its concerted effort to treat this world as a global village. You must have managed well the finite resources of this earth, the synergy and creativity from each and every one of the Global Village community member. You must have established a set universal principles and values as guiding ideas for everyone.

Since I meet your, a time traveller from the 21st Century, you represent hope that there are ways for us to take a bold little step into the Future. This bold little step calls for my involvement, each and every one involvement and collective involvement in the quality direction towards the Future. I will continue to post Questions, with the hope that others will have more creative and imaginative Questions so as to form a workable framework for us to take a bold collective step into the Future.

Golden Question to the Future of February 1997 (week 1):

This is quite a big task. What to ask someone who just came from the future? You just might be one of my decendants and here I am, asking what's happening and cool down "or is it out" there in the future.

Quite a big and not so easy task indeed... But then, what really matter is that for one now I'm sure the man will exist till XXI century. How did you manage not to go into World War III? Or not completely annihilate the human race?

Or are you just a refugee of that same time? Escaping here in the past to save the future...

Boogling questions for a boggled mind....

Golden Question to the Future of January 1997 (week 4):

Constantly I look to the future for hope and ingenuity and the promise of a new day and a better world for the chilren that I want to bring into being, however I have been noticing that there are more and more children everyday and that rather then replacing our species so that it can survive we have reached a point where the human race is expanding exponentially with no end in sight.

I don't want to sound morosely malthusian but I would like to know how future generations will deal with the burgeoning population, I am also wondering what kind of population standards or limits might have to be inflicted on the general populus so that everyone who exists can enjoy a reasonably comfortable quality of life?

I have nearly given myself anxiety attacks over the grim prospect that there just is not enough space on this planet for so many humans, since you have arrived from a later century this monumentous problem must have been solved; So how does the earth's population distribute wealth and resources, and limit their populations so that quality of life is perserved? Is there anything we can do now to help manage this problem so that it doesn't fall to our children to solve?

Golden Question to the Future of January 1997 (week 3):

Dear time traveller.

You probably know that our technical progress in 1997 has already started to slow down. It comes along with an economical recession in many countries, not speaking of the hopeless economies in most countries. Also the material resources like fossile energy is already consumed more than half and can only become more expensive if not unavailable at all. Also in agriculture there is less usable ground to produce food on. The threat is clear.

Will the diversity of species still be able to live outside zoos and will there still be the blue whales in the oceans?

Will the lack of fuel let us freeze and keep us apart from another?

Is there an alternative to our market economy which sells world resources just for profit, and can this alternative be human?

But what we are concerned of the most, will mankind, while it is rising in numbers, be able to find a peaceful way out of this dilemma?

Golden Question to the Future of January 1997 (week 2):

Many people acknowledge that there are environmental hazards to city life and that something should be done about them but only a few very committed people are actually making an effort to change their habits.

At the moment there seems to be a lack of community within most major urban areas. I strongly believe that one person can make a difference. For that reason everyone should do everything that is within their power to help maintain a sustainable living and their lives; and only through education and the use of these rights will anything ever get down towards improving are urban enivornment.

This leaves me with a couple questions for the future:

1. Will people final come together to work on problems that many feel need addressing?

2. Will are cities deteriorate into cesspools of disease and waste were only the poor will live and most people will only enter it to work? Or will cities transform into a high (almost magical) state of harmony with nature and lowered impact on humans physically and emotionally?

Golden Question to the Future of January 1997 (week 1):

I see that most of the problems and conflicts that plagued the 20th century have been resolved.

National rivalries, hatreds, and intrigues have ceased, and racial animosity and prejudice have been replaced by racial amity, understanding and cooperation. The causes of religious strife have been permanently removed, economic barriers and restrictions have been completely abolished, and the inordinate distinction between classes has been obliterated. Destitution on the one hand, and gross accumulation of ownership on the other, have disappeared. The enormous energy that had been dissipated and wasted on war, whether economic or political, has now been consecrated to those ends that extend the range of human inventions and technical development, to the increase of the productivity of mankind, to the extermination of disease, to the extension of scientific research, to the raising of the standard of physical health, to the sharpening and refinement of the human brain, to the exploitation of the unused and unsuspected resources of the planet, to the prolongation of human life, and to the furtherance of agencies that stimulate the intellectual, the moral, and spiritual life of the entire human race.

What where the major factors that influenced and inspired this shift in human thought and behavior?

Golden Question to the Future of December 1996:

In our time, we have begun to question the fundamental assumptions that have carried humankind this far. Questions like "Who are we? Where do we come from? What is our purpose here?" were easily answered by religion or other traditional authorities; now, our collective metacognitive development finds the old answers unsatisfying. Has this iconoclastic trend continued? Are you any closer to the answers in world than we are in ours? And if so, what was the major breakthrough in thought that allowed this to happen?

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