Over our history, we experienced more deaths from large animals than we do now. Once, larger predators such as lions and wolves were a daily danger. Now, these deaths are usually as a result of accidental happenstance, such as swimming in the ocean at dusk when sharks are feeding; or stumbling across a large bear ready to protect its young cub. We have killed most of the large predators, but there are still a few hundred deaths from them annually.

Then, there's the world of microorganisms. Some of them are helpful and even vital to our survival. And some are very dangerous.

Usually because we're young, we don't realize that when we get a cold or the mumps or measles, a microorganism has attacked us. These are species that are too small to be seen without a microscope. Some of them just make us very sick, but others are deadly to millions at a time.

The most common types of infectious microorganisms are viruses and bacteria. We are exposed to these organisms in such ways as breathing them, punctures of the skin or in other ways. And then, they start multiplying in our bodies.

Some of these can infect us and, because they don't quickly cause obvious damage, we're unaware that our bodies are under attack. The HIV virus is like that; it turns us into an AIDS victim because it slowly weakens or destroys our normal defenses. Then it often partners with anther microorganism that attacks our weakened bodies and we die.

Sometimes these microorganisms team up with another species to find their way to us. The West Nile virus lives in birds and travels from them to us by a mosquito, when it bites us. Rabies lives in such animals as dogs and raccoons, which can infect us with a bite.

Disease microorganisms can enter our bodies after we are wounded. Even in environments where we seek to be extra careful, such as hospitals, these killers can hide on medical equipment or be passed by touch.

These deaths can be scattered and seem to strike in patterns that appear basically random. A person can be wonderfully healthy one day and afflicted with a life-threatening illness the next. Currently, we have the West Nile virus striking people in a wealthy part of the world and the Ebola virus in poorer countries. The two cause hundreds of deaths annually.

A modest list of diseases caused by microorganisms brings the problem quickly into focus. The World Health Organization estimates that 2 billion people have been infected with the Tuberculosis bacteria and it kills 2 million each year. Annually, Malaria infects 300 to 500 million people; Dengue Fever 50 million with 12,000 deaths, Typhoid 16 million with 600,000 deaths; and Hepatitis B kills one million each year. Strains of the bacteria family of Chlamydia have infected 600 million people, leaving 7 to 9 million blind and causing more than 10,000 cases of female infertility annually in the U.S.

When combined with the always-present common colds attacking us each year and the normal levels of flu viruses that hospitalize 200,000 annually in the U.S., causing 36,000 deaths, it's clear that sharing our world with microorganisms makes Earth a dangerous part of the Universe for us. It seems supportable from the statistics to assert that one-half to two-thirds of Earth's 6 billion people are infected with a potentially deadly microorganism at some point during a year. That's most of us.

It's not only humans that microorganisms damage and kill. They attack many forms of life. Of course, the victims that concern us the most, from a survival point of view, are our food plants and animals. There are other life forms that attack our food plants, such as insects.

Of the many thousands of species of plants, humans have a very special relationship with a few of them. There are 24 types of plants from which we secure 90 percent of our agriculture production; a huge majority of the caloric intake of the human family comes from three of them: rice, wheat and corn.

We will be engaged in a "war" with disease microorganisms as far into the future as we can see. We certainly could have done without the negative types of these guys sharing our planet!

There is another area of life on Earth that the Universe has been trying to teach us about and it is similarly critical to our survival. It concerns the behavior of atoms and molecules - and how we use them.

We learned the hard way during our history that there were certain materials you did not come into contact with or mix with other materials, without risking injury or death. Some would catch fire or explode; some would burn our skin; and there were many other negative outcomes. When the results were bad, we could try to remember not to do that again; but we did not know why.

In the modern world, we know that all matter is composed of atoms and atoms group together to form molecules. Depending upon their situation or composition, atoms and molecules have certain behaviors under certain conditions.

At every moment of our lives, we are managing atoms and molecules; we critically need some of them to breathe into our lungs to extract oxygen and we extract them from food to sustain our body's cells.

We have become "Creative Little Devils" and we manipulate them for so many purposes. We use them to build our homes and work places; to transport ourselves to work or grocery shopping; to clean our bodies; to treat our wounds and diseases; to fertilize our yard plants; to package our products for sale in stores; the list is endless.

One of the problems with atoms is that under certain circumstances, they are inevitably going to bond with other atoms and perhaps behave in ways we don't like. For example, we developed DDT to kill mosquitoes that carry diseases; but the DDT molecule entered some of the big birds and bonded there with molecules that form their eggs. Their eggshells became too thin. The birds could not reproduce and began to become extinct.

These processes are so accidental. Consider that researchers tested drinking water from a variety of rivers and found random prescription medicine molecules. Cities upstream processed sewage into "acceptable" water to discharge into the rivers as waste. The sewage processing plant cannot remove all non-water molecules; so the prescription medications our bodies excrete in human waste remain in the water. In your next glass of water, you might be introducing into your body a molecule of someone else's medical prescription.

Beyond the problem of accidental results from our use of atoms and molecules is the aspect of discarding by-products of production systems or discarding our trash (product wrappers, baby diapers, old televisions, used oil from cars, fouled paint thinners, etc.). We are very good at extracting from the earth, water and atmosphere the molecules we want for products used in daily life. We are very ineffective at developing plans and processes for reinserting used atoms and molecules back into Earth's systems without damaging life forms or contaminating air, soil or water we might need later. Too often, we simply throw atoms and molecules away without regard to the consequences.

The consequences of these behaviors will accumulate. Many of the results will be undesirable, and for some fatal. The Universe is telling us we must properly manage atoms and molecules in accordance with its principles.

It is interesting, and probably constructive, to ponder where this experience of being human will progress to in the future. A sense of what may be ahead adds a helpful perspective to human problems and may guide us to make better choices if the future possibilities are factored in.

How far ahead can we see? Due to history and our observations, we know certain events are highly probable, in fact, some are inevitable; what is in question is their timing.

Reasoning from what we observe in the Universe around us, we have a consensus among scientists that our sun will die in a big explosion in 4 or 5 billion years. However, we probably don't have that much time to live on Earth.

Other scientists have projected that as the sun burns through its hydrogen, it will begin to consume its helium. The result would be intensification of its energy, enough to boil off the oceans of Earth and end all human, animal and plant life. Human life will become impossible here in about a billion years. Someday, for humans to continue existing, we must leave Earth.

And we have some clues as to what life may encounter in the remaining billion years. For example, stars move around. We might have another star pass close to Earth and that could end all life here even sooner. We would have plenty of early warning of that.

As for life extinction by a gamma-ray burst or a solar superflare, it appears possible, really, at any instant. And since we're young in our studies, there may be other massive and dangerous forces threatening us that we haven't discovered. We don't know if Earth will experience these catastrophes, we just know they are possible.

Over the next billion years, what you can be certain of occurring is that we will be on a collision course with an asteroid or comet, probably several smaller ones and maybe a cataclysmic one, too. You can be equally certain of a super volcano eruption, probably quite a few. The only question is when these events will occur.

We lull ourselves into mental error by stating "odds" on these monstrous events. The concept of the odds of an event is quite helpful if you have a two-dollar bet on a horse race; all you can lose is the two dollars. Using the concept of odds, when what is at risk is the existence of human life, is irresponsible.

We say, for example, that an asteroid strike happens once every 70,000 years or that a super volcano occurs on average every 600,000 years. Hence, some conclude, we have 70,000 or 600,000 years before we must worry. We don't, we must "worry" now; that means make a plan.

The average number of years between events does not tell you when the next one will occur. Yes, the chances are that these massive catastrophes will not happen in your lifetime. Yet, you don't know that.

All the coming generations are "our kids". These situations require long-term planning. And if you don't plan, what do you do if you live in the era when "luck" runs out? We are the guardians of the future of the human family, and maybe, all life in the Universe.

Both the asteroid/comet problem and the super volcano one have the potential to threaten the lives of many and perhaps all humans. Beyond the impact area of an asteroid/comet, which involves certain death, the risk of extinction is primarily from the loss of sunlight. That produces a colder world and kills the plants. The worst scenario for super volcanoes is the same result.

It is the damage to the plants worldwide that produces the most sobering thoughts. As food plants disappeared, humans would turn on each other like rabid animals to fight for diminishing food stocks. And, if they ran out completely, all humans would die. The darkness could last for years.

While the efforts required to survive these catastrophic scenarios are extraordinary, there's surely great value to examining our options. If we are caught unprepared, we have no hope. It's time, again, to use our historically great tool of anticipatory thought.

It is worthwhile to toss around ideas; if they are unworkable, nothing is lost. These serious events argue, at least, for some creative thinking. For example, could we create a revolving basic food storage capable of sustaining us for 2 to 5 years? Is it possible? It should be evaluated.

The catastrophic possibilities of these events also encourage thought of ensuring that colonies are started on the Moon or Mars when possible. If we have the loss of all humans on Earth, we'd have modern humans to restart Earth life - and not at a primitive knowledge level.

Our studies in many fields have revealed several instances of major extinctions in the past. We are unable to come to firm conclusions yet as to what caused them. The prevailing theories are asteroids/comets or volcanoes, but other causes have some support. These risks are not a new experience for life on Earth.

Assuming that we get to live here for the next billion years; that we are wise enough in our behaviors to avoid ending our existence due to bad choices; and that we avoid or survive cataclysmic events, the Earth will not be as it is now. The continents are moving at all times and in several million years might form one large continent - you could drive in your car anywhere you wanted.

And over the remaining billion years, there will be quite a few ice ages. Massive amounts of water become slowly frozen into ice and large parts of the continents are covered. Then, again over a long period of time, they melt. The oceans rise and fall significant amounts. First, there's more land, then there's less.

Other unusual events occur. The magnetic poles will flip many times: our compasses will work differently.

And the normal things will continue endlessly. The number of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, earthquakes and localized volcano eruptions will be too many to estimate. Many people will be injured or have premature deaths.

Diseases will continue to infect most of us annually and hundreds of millions will die prematurely or live lives with debilitating injuries. It is hoped that our scientists will find more and more cures or vaccines, but there will be many casualties before they're discovered and available to everyone.

Returning to the broader view, the Universe is capable of exposing us to powerful forces that can eliminate all life in a short period of time. Or we can individually be victims of natural catastrophes, attacks by other organisms or other ways of surprising injury or death. Millions of us die annually from these circumstances; millions more of us sustain injuries that will limit us for the rest of our lives and, too often, cause us to endure considerable pain.

That's a summary of our situation as caused by the realities of this amazing Universe; the one we were born into. These risks are simply caused by the fact that there are many serious dangers in our Universe. It is not our fault, but it is reality. The Universe has beauty, is exciting and is dangerous. And, it is all we have.

Our survival beyond this point may be possible only with greater understanding of how the Universe works. Our options are limited to studying the threats to determine their true degree of danger; evaluate if we could get warnings before they occur and determine if we could muster defenses.

The process of acquiring knowledge, applying reason and preparing possible solutions has improved our lives and permitted us to survive. We must continue this process.

Immense danger has always been a part of the experience of being alive for humans; we would never have experienced joy or happiness if we were unable to keep the dangers in life in a proper perspective. We cannot permit worry and fear to control our lives. But it is fools that do not prepare to confront them.

Our future generations will endure a great many adversities. There is a time frame for the existence of the human family on Earth and in the Universe. What is it?

CHAPTER TWO: A FORM OF SUICIDE

The massive forces of the Universe place the existence and survival of the human family on Earth at risk daily. And, as individuals we may experience a disabling injury, disease or premature death from the realities of the Universe that we were born within. We begin each day of our lives realizing that we must avoid the dangers of the Universe and that we must secure our fundamental basic needs to keep our bodies alive.

In addition to reproduction needed for the continuation of the human family, our fundamental basic needs began with food, water and air (oxygen). If we lived in certain climates, we needed clothes and shelter with heat. We always needed assistance when we were young, old or disabled; as time passed, medical care became fundamental, too. Now, realities of the modern world have created other critical needs for survival: transportation, communication tools, forms of energy and education.

Avoiding the dangers of the Universe and securing our basic needs daily are immense tasks. Unfortunately, the actions and behaviors of many of our fellow humans are directly threatening us with injury and death. The problem is simple to state: members of the human family are attacking us.

More precisely stated, while some of the dangers in our lives are due to the realities of our Universe and the pursuit of our fundamental basic needs, the remainder of the problems of the human family are due to the past and present choices and behaviors of some of its members. The carnage is considerable and produces fear at such high levels throughout the human family that our pursuit of survival is interfered with.

This problem takes us into the darkest corner of the entire experience of human life. It can involve cruelty not found in any other species. The needless suffering inflicted by humans on humans has been in amounts too gigantic to quantify and too terrifying to describe in detail.

One quickly is at a loss for words to communicate the horror, panic and pain so many individuals endured as injury or death was being inflicted upon them by humans. Any sincere reflection upon these experiences can bring one to a state of incurable sadness, near or total insanity and, perhaps, to a loss of all love for and all faith in our fellow human beings.

The only way to honor and make sacred the agonies endured by the victims is to seek a remedy. As an act of hallowed reverence and with a hope we will bring an end to these continuing tragedies, we must try to get a direct understanding of the ways humans are making our lives more dangerous.

This requires seeking to identify the elements of and to perceive the dimensions of this aspect of human life. And beyond the history of it, we must seek to examine our current situation. We must wrestle with a ton of facts, excluding some for brevity and focusing on others because they create fundamental premises for understanding.

War: The most devastating and horrific mass violence has occurred between small groups, tribes, nations and coalitions of nations and is usually called war. One will probably search in vain throughout the past 5,000 years to find a single day when humans somewhere on Earth were not engaged in the destruction, injury and death of war.

The insanity of modern war is often perceived by soldiers upon realizing that the individuals that are to be killed are simply common people. Every one on both sides is scared. Typically, all participants would prefer to be home with family and providing the basics of life to those that are loved.

If you look at each other as the engagement begins, or at the dead bodies if you are victorious, it is hard to figure out how you got into this situation. It's worse when the dead are civilians, especially children.

Wars have been caused by the smallest perceived slight or over such things as access to food and water, raw materials, religion, an economic system or an ideology of government.

Beyond the unimaginable terror and pain inflicted upon humans, the costs of war are nearly beyond calculation. The wounded soldiers and civilians must receive disability salaries and medical care the rest of their lives. Even the unwounded war veterans carry emotional scars that affect their behavior most or all of their remaining lives. The families of dead and wounded soldiers are also severely affected emotionally and economically.

In the worst situations, assets across entire continents can be destroyed and will take billions of hours of labor to replace. Lost are buildings, machinery and a wide variety of tools. Land that could be used for food production is contaminated with chemicals used to produce weapons. Land is also lost to the countless land mines that take decades to rediscover and remove, while hundreds annually are injured - often children. And in the most terrible modern war, land would be contaminated with radiation.

Another important consideration is the influence the possibility of war has on the internal politics of a nation or group of nations. It seems for the major nations, for the past several centuries at least, that they were preoccupied with the chance that a particular foe might attack them; that fear dominates most thinking.

Accordingly, a much larger portion of the taxes of a country are devoted to supplying and maintaining a military force. These funds cannot be spent creating services or housing for those in need, so some of the citizens are more impoverished.

Also lost is some amount of freedom for the people. Many community policies are decided within ranges required by the fact that an attack might occur and, usually, the government maintains that some actions and information must be kept secret to avoid giving an advantage to the foe. Accordingly, in voting governments, the citizenry must make decisions without all the facts needed.

It can be argued that war and the possibility of war dominates the thinking of a major portion of the human family. It is much harder to concentrate on the issues that challenge the survival of human life when our history and future remains enslaved to the continual existence of possible or real war.

Crime: The next critical category of human-to-human violence is the endless and random pattern of victimization caused by the behaviors commonly called crime. As with war, this destructive behavior has been with us for many thousands of years; usually dominates local community decisions; usurps vital community resources and, again, fills the citizens with fear.

A significant and ever-present area of crimes are those caused by our emotional states, frequently called crimes of passion. The two biggest emotional states involved are anger and jealousy. The actual act of violence is often done on a momentary thought; a seemingly irresistible action of impulse. Chemicals seem to race around in and control our brains.

The weapons can be fists, feet, objects we strike with, knives, guns and many more. The outcome can be minor injuries, life-long disabling injuries and murder. Some major causes are an accidental or purposeful slight or insult; also matters of romantic love, especially rejection by someone desired. Often the situation could resolve peacefully with the passage of time or another person mediating, but that too seldom happens.

Significant violence occurs in another major area of crime called stealing. Its most unnerving form is an armed robbery and usually the criminal only means for the weapon to scare people into giving up the property sought. But, many times things go wrong, and the weapon is used. And again, often very serious injury or death results.

Other stealing occurs by entering our homes, businesses or cars and removing property when no one is present. The fact that the area can be sneaked into causes us to be unnerved.

The subtler form of stealing is called white-collar crime. Someone may lie to us to secure the property stolen; this is called fraud. Or they may steal by having access to company checks and writing them to themselves. Some illegally skim small amounts in situations where they are trusted, but the repeated small amounts add up to big amounts.

Also, government officials can be bribed and contracts for public works are falsely issued at prices that steal from community taxes and fees. White-collar crime is done in a variety of ways and often by highly organized groups of people.

The results of crime are always a loss of individual or community resources. The survival of the individual may be at risk after the loss and, when the victim is the community, we have fewer resources to address our problems. Everyone pays for the people who are injured; the total statistics of injury and death become similar to a war.

Crime has a stunning impact on the human family. The injuries and deaths seem so senseless and occur so often by surprise that people feel great levels of fear; at the local level, it is frequently the highest priority.

And amazingly, given our many years of history learning to address it, it remains at unbelievable high levels. Sometimes, those at the highest levels of business and community leadership are assisting in it.

And, although its a bit of digression, even pollution can be considered a crime. In this, someone seeks to avoid the costs involved in the harmless disposal of dangerous materials. Of course, too often the result is that chemicals affect someone's health and may result in premature death. It's another form of stealing.

And so, just as with war, we spend so much community effort and so many resources to eliminate crime; and the tasks of trying to evaluate and plan for the dangers that exist in the universe are not fully addressed.

Negligence: Another form of human violence is in the area of accidents. The major problem is negligence, as when one runs a red light and a car crash occurs. Or when improper planning is done at a work site, and an employee is injured or killed.

These accidents are caused by mental errors that often cause someone else to be injured or killed. Yet, sometimes in accidents the person injured is ourselves. Trying to drive a car too fast around a curve or such things as improper placement of a ladder are examples of these errors.

Again, the costs of accidents are staggering. Medical bills and lost wages threaten an individual's ability to secure the basics of life. And in many cases, the community must pay the costs. Again, there's also premature death.

Neglect: The next area of human-to-human violence should be called the violence of neglect, if one were to frame it in the most positive terms. A major factor in why this occurs is that, as our numbers grew, the ability of an individual to use personal effort to secure from nature the basics needed for life disappeared.

That same individual, now unable to get what once was available from nature for free, cannot secure land to raise food because all land is now owned. All over the world, due to factors that are not their fault, people are semi-permanently locked out of opportunities to earn the mere basics of life.

There is something terribly wrong in the human family when we let a system develop where, nearly no matter what personal effort is made, the individual cannot earn what is needed to secure the basics necessary to stay alive. What many of us are saying is "I got mine, and I don't care if others have no hope." That is a form of behavior that should be called the violence of neglect.

This type of allegation can be substantiated because this essay asserts the premise that all humans must be factored into our system as part of the family. It takes that position because only the use of the talents and labor of everyone as well as the unity of purpose that occurs in an effective family is sufficient to enable us to organize our best effort to survive. Any human born may develop thoughts that may help us all.

Accordingly, the range of damage caused by the unfairness of neglecting to include all humans in our planning can be demonstrated if we assess our current conditions from the criteria of an effective family. To assess the effectiveness of a family, we'd look at the outcomes as regards each individual. The method for assessment of the results of the neglect humans inflict upon others is the same.

A family is composed of unique individuals that usually have a variety of characteristics and talents. Each contributes as they can and receives support from other family members as needed. In our human family, how well is each individual doing ?

And the answer is, for billions of individuals, life is barely worth living. While it is far worse in poor countries, there's really significant sadness and pain occurring among people everywhere.

Being born in a poor country is too often a sentence to early death or a lifetime of pain. There's inadequate or undependable access to food or good water. The result is poor health, some starvation and rampant diseases.

There's inadequate medical care, so diseases can easily progress to death or disabling injury. Injuries that could be minor if treated, may progress to lifelong disablements, while birth defects cannot be corrected. The absence of medical care makes so many forms of dying a terribly painful experience.

A look at a handful of the many available statistics provides a crushing vision of life. Daily, 30,000 children under age five die from the effects of malnutrition, bad water or the absence of extremely cheap medicines -- that's 11 million kids annually. In child birth, 40,000 women die each month because of inadequate medical care for such situations as a baby with a head too big for the birth canal or a sideways birth.

Housing is inadequate and too few communities have waste water treatment for sewage. Valuable resources are lost as forests are cleared for profit or cropland so that people may have the basics of life. And civil wars rage throughout the poorer countries, often caused by cultural conflicts or unresolved boundaries that affect farming, hunting or water access.

These people are denied basics because they are unable to obtain a role in the emerging world economy; a world economy is the only way to sustain the number of people on Earth today. They have inadequate farmland for subsistence farming and are further hindered by inadequate education--one that prepares them for a role performing work somewhere in the world economy.

And, of course, no one keeps statistics on the number or percent of unemployed worldwide; we simply do not see everyone as part of our economy.

Even in rich countries, where food, good water and quite reasonable medical care are available to most, there's a high level of anxiety experienced by so many. Anxiety produces fears; that enables people to think and do things whose outcomes can be very cruel.

A significant amount of that anxiety comes from what seems to be our frequently irrational economies. In years when the food crops are normal and there's an adequate number of people trained in medical care, we have situations develop where there are high levels of unemployment. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands or millions of people are without money to buy basics even though the needed products and services are available.

Even on simply a personal and individual level, for so many workers, there's the daily fear of the loss of their jobs, despite a good economy. This may occur because of a medical condition or because of a shift in the fortunes of a particular sector of the economy. Many workers are one to five paychecks away from homelessness or bankruptcy.

Many stumble into problems because of inabilities to handle and correctly use modern financial tools--trading a chicken for vegetables was easy math. Checking accounts require skills to balance them or errors occur with penalties. Credit cards require self-control or debts become unmanageable. Ultimately, these problems produce stresses, often causing conflict within families or with others; maybe stealing or violence results.

And, somewhat as an aside, the complexities of this world economy produce little small stings that endure a lifetime. They reveal that we have not done a good job of thinking through our system.

For example, why do we have situations in rich countries where some children feel hurt when nearby children receive nice gifts at holidays or birthdays and they do not? The problems of adults unfairly affect the young. No, this type of slight probably does not doom humanity, but how in the world does this cruelty happen? We simply neglect some unfairly.

There's another situation of neglect that negates the lives of individuals and can occur in rich or poor countries.

This area begins with people that were born with physical or mental defects; that usually means they cannot be productive with work. Over time, this group is cumulatively added to by those permanently injured in accidents, debilitating diseases and human-to-human violence.

The burden for caring for these people belongs to all of us; in days past when we were tribal people, the provision of their needs and care was often shared in the tribe. In the modern world, this burden is largely left to the families or people who love them; and the resulting burden consumes most of many people's lives. Love can come with a very high price.

In summary then, to assess our effectiveness as a human family, and using the yardstick of evaluating the lives of individuals to measure the quality of our work, we have not created a situation where we value each human from birth. We are not utilizing the potential of each individual to assist in our survival.

What we find as the situation for individuals is that, as our numbers grew, we created a large system to secure the basics for many of us. The remaining individuals lost a direct relationship with nature whereby the acquired skills of the individual could extract from nature the items needed for survival. Due to the limits of the size of Earth and our numbers, many have lost significant control of their lives and hope.

We fail to provide an opportunity for everyone to earn the basic needs for life; access to these basics is controlled by this large system known as the world economy. The only description possible for this is violence through human neglect of other humans. It not only limits our survival hopes to some degree, it is cruel.

Population: And, in another 45 years, there will be 3 billion more people. This is not an argument to stop the arrival of the coming 3 billion. The reality is that it cannot be stopped. They will be here soon.

The fourth absolutely fundamental need of the members of the human family, beyond food, water and air, is reproduction. Thousands of years ago, we were not the physically strongest species nor the most numerous. Daily, it was an extremely desperate struggle to survive. We died from conflicts and diseases. We competed with many other species and all were dependent on food, water and air--food was especially competed for. And, we had to avoid becoming food!

Yet, even if we were individually successful in securing food and avoiding premature death, we still faced a sure death from natural causes. For the human family to survive through the ages, it was necessary for us to produce and raise future humans.

About 10,000 years ago, there were probably 5 to 10 million humans on Earth. When we began to raise our own food animals and crops, our population grew to 300 million or so and stayed there for several thousand years, until about 1400. Our numbers began a sustained growth and in 400 more years, about 1800, we were a billion; then 2 billion in 1927.

Our growth dramatically accelerated. By the mid 1900's, we were adding a billion people about every 14 years and our current total is about 6.3 billion. While there's some modest slowing, we will continue adding a billion every 15 to 17 years and will arrive at 9 billion by 2050.

This population growth is like a train engine pulling 50 loaded coal cars. It takes some distance before it will stop after the brakes are applied. It is obvious that at some point, we must arrive at a limit or we will be elbow-to-elbow across the planet. And that change involves billions of individual choices.

We have a massive problem of many people enduring lives barely worth living when there's 6 billion of us. What will be the situation, caused by our aggression, negligence and neglect of our fellow members of the human family, when there's 9 billion of us?

Unless we manage our planning and resources effectively, the coming generation will look out upon a world with far uglier results from our behaviors. Of the 3 billion that are coming, 90 percent or 2.7 billion will be born in Africa or Asia. These areas are already our poorest and those currently suffering the most from our neglect.

The plain facts are, unless we can tolerate a far more horrific situation, we must factor into our plans for the future to provide a fair opportunity for these humans. We must ensure adequate supplies of food, water, air, housing, energy, clothes and medical care for the inevitable 9 billion of us. We must provide opportunities for all to earn their basic needs.

And, as if that problem wasn't big enough, there are other factors of developing human behavior that complicate it. We currently have migrations or the movement of significant numbers of people from one area to another; this adds a component that must be considered.

One cause originates with the creation of an economic system that uses money. People must, at times, move where jobs are available or where pay is sufficient to meet their critical needs level. We are experiencing serious levels of migration from less economically developed areas to those with jobs available.

We also have migrations from areas where wars are occurring. And in the United States, we have migrations of older retired people seeking warmer climates with better recreation activities.

These movements, when coupled with population increases, especially complicate solutions at the local community level. Those areas with growth are required to develop faster, while those areas losing population are left with empty buildings and a smaller group to share community expenses.

Another consideration here is the constant pressure this growth places on leadership at the local, national and international levels. No matter how effective their solutions are for today's problems, they soon find that we keep needing more of everything. When we were in smaller groups, solutions could last decades or centuries--now we're lucky if they last a year or two. Leaders are continually faced with a dramatically changing environment to organize.

And, if human beings begin individually to decide to act to limit their reproduction, a balance among generations must be considered. There's a need to ensure that a generation entering its older years is supported by a sufficient number of younger people to produce the items of basic needs and the services needed by both the elders and the immature young. It's a balance that's necessary; failure to correctly plan for such support could produce widespread suffering.

There's also a quality of life issue presented by population growth and migration. It's impact is rather elusive as regards what conclusions should be drawn. These high-impact changes produce serious levels of mental destabilization and stress in many individuals. They may prefer leaders that offer violent solutions and human-to-human violence increases. Our problems get worse and our hope for solutions is placed at risk.

Lastly, there's another extremely important aspect of this issue. Our population growth, migrations and lifestyles have an impact on all the other species that share the Earth with us. Unless we are wise in our choices in this area, we could create very serious problems and irreversible consequences.

Most species are doing as we are, seeking food, water and air to survive. Their "systems" are simple, needing these three items and reproduction to survive. They usually do minimal damage to their environment.

Most of the species are deeply interrelated and necessary to sustain life cycles. The process begins when plants capture energy from the sun. Some species eat only plants; then plant-eating species become food for the predators (sometimes we are the predators). And all of us become food for the microorganisms that "eat" us when we die. The atoms and molecules are recycled, often to new life.

We need these species, too. The plants take the carbon dioxide we create and turn it into the oxygen we breathe (the vital element in what we call "air"). The entire process of creating food for humans begins with plants. And we need other species for such things as pollination and to decompose dead plant and animal parts as well as the trash we discard. Some medicines come from them or we discover ideas for medicines from them. The list of their practical importance would be a long one.

On the delightful side of life, some animals and birds provide us friendship. Our children are fascinated and amused by them. We create gardens by strategically placing plants to enjoy their colors and aromas. The other species are so much of what is interesting and beautiful. Who can imagine life on Earth without them?

A serious problem with our population growth is that we are leaving them no space to live and find food. Or we are poisoning them with our discarded atoms and molecules. And, what will the situation be when there's 9 billion or more of us?

Wars, crimes, negligence and the violence of neglect of our fellow human beings reduces the lives of so many to a terrible experience. Which of the other species will survive our behaviors? And what will the outcome be as we grow to the inevitable 9 billion, or more, sharing Earth?

Being in a situation where we work together to face the immense and stunningly powerful threats posed by our Universe--that makes sense. Struggling together to eke from the Earth the basics of life for everyone --that makes sense.

But being unable to apply our unity directly and with the utmost effort to those problems because of negative and self-destructive human behaviors--that does not make sense. It is somewhat a form of suicide by the human species.

CHAPTER THREE: WHY WE FAIL

Here we are, together. The Universe is all we have; it provides us with the basics of as well as all meaning and value to life. It also threatens us individually and as a species, unless we reason out the ways to survive.

Sadly, so many of the efforts of the human family are directed toward avoiding the suffering, injuries and premature death caused by human aggression, negligence and neglect. These risks, caused by our fellow humans, pose such a daily threat to our individual survival that we are usually unable to focus our efforts on what should be the true worries of the human family.

Preparing and trying to survive the realities of the Universe as well as efficiently and effectively operating a system to ensure everyone can earn the basics for life: Those are the activities we should be doing. This is a monstrous challenge and worthy of the total effort of the human family. That's rational.

Instead, we're looking at a century or two of figuring out how to make peace with each other before we can organize the total and unified effort to address the most important problems. Will the great dangers of the Universe wait that long?

What makes this so maddening is that we have the resources and knowledge to permit the earning of the basics by everyone, if we solve the problem of negative human behaviors. Then our critical situation would be seeking to overcome the challenge of the Universe.

We are able to produce the food and clean water people need. We have more than enough people for the labor to produce the housing that is needed, the clothing and daily tools needed, and to provide safe sewage disposal systems.

We have knowledge of and could easily teach the basics of hygiene that seriously reduces many of the risks to our lives caused by microbes -- such as hand-washing, boiling water, etc. We know how to create and assemble cheap little medical kits that will keep kids alive and provide relief from pain for those that are afflicted with injuries and diseases or are aged and progressing toward death.

A big portion of the problem is that the needed labor is staying home unemployed and perhaps untrained. They have no way to join the world economy to secure basics and contribute to solutions. And so much of the needed knowledge is available but is not well shared so that it gets put into practice.

We do have most of what is needed. And with effective management and planning, we will be able to provide for the coming additional 3 billion family members. We might have an unmanageable situation beyond that. Our Earth is limited in size and there is a maximum level we can sustain. We really don't know what it is.

Accordingly, our hopes for long-term survival range from questionable to nonexistent. Our system for working with each other is failing and we may pay the ultimate price.

The only rational direction is to make a commitment to solve, first, the problem of human aggression and neglect as fast as possible. That permits the necessary design of an adequate system to provide opportunities to earn basics to everyone so they can help and have meaningful lives. Then, address the problems originating in the Universe. It's not that neat, but it's the right concept.

Unfortunately, that pathway cannot be pursued directly. It is the straightest way to survival, but we have human behaviors on another level that keep us from seeking to address negative human behaviors.

It helps to consider some very significant factors that prevent us from making this commitment in a unified way. The following factors are interfering with and delaying the development of the needed system of working together. They are major reasons why we fail.

Groups

At this point in history, most of us do not feel a sense of family among all humans. We do not recognize the potential of each individual to contribute or, worse, their right to survive. When we cannot encourage the free flow of ideas and inventions, when we cannot effectively and efficiently share the work load and available resources, we have less of a chance of overcoming the very serious obstacles we jointly face.

The most imposing barrier to the needed commitment is our division into separate groups. Our role in these groups is so vital to us individually that we feel a tremendous fear of change.

The necessary reasoning that must be shared and adopted to enable people to overcome these fears is so enormous and complicated to understand that we fail repeatedly. Frankly, it's hard to muster much hope that we can overcome it.

Yet, if we truly want the human family to survive, we must try. And hope that some people will come forward soon with better and more successful answers than this essay can present.

Perhaps the best that can be done here is to provide a listing of the most important groupings and some discussion of their characteristics. These complicating groups developed because of our historical pathway and the momentum of our past choices.

Factors such as geography, different experiences and genetics have caused individuals to be members of separate groups. Our individual survival is often dependent upon our participation and role in these groups as they provide access to our basic needs. And, unfortunately, we can develop an "us" versus "them" outlook.

It is not the behavior of being in a group that causes problems for humanity. Indeed, many kinds of groups improve our survival possibilities or provide enjoyable experiences that enhance so many lives. It is deeply in our nature to share time with people that have common interests with us, such as hobbies, vocations or such profound emotional experiences as surviving a devastating illness like cancer.

Actually, it seems that the groups that give us the most problems are those that we become a part of involuntarily - essentially by accident. The most difficult groupings are nations, religions, languages, race and gender. All of us must be in a group in each of these categories. It is the mistrust and walls erected between these groups that interfere with our unity for survival and can lead to violence.

NATIONS: For thousands of years, we were individuals simply struggling as members of separate groups to survive - the small group was the organism within which we had a role that resulted in our securing the basics we needed. Each birth in "our group" was important and represented our future survival.

We were indifferent to births in other groups and we couldn't conceive of a value to their births anyway. The "other" group might want our food or water or land or females. We cooperated within our group. We benefited from the troubles and afflictions of the "other" groups. For many, this logic still persists.

The flaw that developed was that these separate groups had to develop ever more powerful weapons to ensure survival. And they did. Finally, the near ultimate weapon was created and several groups had it. Now, not only was the survival of our group threatened but human life on the planet was at risk.

RELIGION: Religions are the most common form of belief systems. It is not obvious that religion is acquired for most of us as an accident of birth. Yet, generally this is true. The observations are that only a miniscule number of people change from their birth in one major religion to another. As we develop into adulthood, we choose a level of more or less participation, but most of us do not stray far from our roots.

Generally, religions have sacred literature whose origin is believed to be special. All major religions seek to guide the behavior of their members and advocate virtually the same basic values ( be kind, be fair, share, help, give charity, be peaceful and show love and concern). Most conflicts emerge from differences regarding the underlying historical facts believed to be the process by which they evolved their values (creation stories, chosen messengers, etc.). Or specialized absolute rules and rituals that are used to reinforce the beliefs.

For a significant number of the billions of us, some level of religious feelings is strong. Religiously supported ceremonies are used to publicly recognize important events in life, such as births, marriages and deaths. Further, this is not a relatively recent human development as we find evidence of religion in most of the earliest human communities we can study.

Therefore, it seems that religion performs an important function for individuals or societies. For thousands of years, religion has been the source of the answers to how we came to exist and why we exist. It provided, and still does for so very many, an understanding of the meaning of life and encourages a role for the individual.

The major religions also have a concept of some sort of a life after this one, and accordingly, address the near universal fear of our death. And often, religion encourages belief in the possibility of divine intervention in our hours of personal crisis.

At its best, religion creates faith, which allows people to manage their fears and to make their best effort at creating good. At its worst, religion creates terrible violence over whose history or thoughts are right.

Thought systems that address meaning, purpose, fear of death and hope will be stunningly powerful in the process of humans making choices and the resulting level of human cooperation for survival.

LANGUAGES: The next major area of accidental grouping is language. Language is certainly one of the most important tools that enabled us to survive and become Earth's dominant species. We form our thoughts, communicate our needs, and pass critical knowledge from generation to generation with language.

Geographical separation seems to be the major reason humans have so many different languages. A popular encyclopedia lists hundreds of them and many have no written form.

It is very difficult to function as a human family when we cannot easily communicate with everyone. It is difficult to discuss problems or possible choices. We cannot share thoughts that could lead to cooperation or enrich our individual experiences.

We must depend on individuals to translate from one language to another. Usually this works. Yet in a limited number of situations, the choice of a word for translation leads to long-term disagreement. For example, in some religions, the disagreement over the choice of a word for translation has lasted thousands of years. On the other hand, most major religions have grown to successfully include people from a variety of languages.

The modern world increasingly depends upon trade among groups with different languages. Therefore, certain larger or more economically powerful language groups must be dealt with by smaller groups. This requires the smaller or less powerful group to adapt and, over time, begin the process of language change or modification.

Language processes are not completely understood, either in their fullest function between people or the role and mechanics in the brain for storing knowledge and memories. However, language clearly plays a powerful role in our sense of personal identity. Any challenge to the safety we feel in our language will produce strong defensive reactions and interfere with cooperation.

RACE: A fourth area where we have tension among groups is race. At its simplest level, it is really about the color of our skin. Essentially, skin color appears to be a survival adaptation to a particular environment; it also occurs among many plants and animals. Our colors range from very black to almost albino white and along the way are hues of brown, yellow, red and even blue. The differences are gradual and frequently some people are not sure which group to claim they are in.

One complexity in the race area is really caused not by skin color but by cultural behaviors. We make an association of certain cultural behaviors with color when there really isn't a connection. Because we originally encountered people of a different culture as they were members of groups of a particular color, we tend to associate the group's cultural behaviors or customs with that color.

Yet migrations of the past several centuries have shown that culture and customs are not based on color. After 4 or 5 generations of assimilation, people of one color that joined a group of another color usually cannot be distinguished by behaviors in the new group - only by the color of their skin.

Migrations caused by political situations or economic opportunities are causing an increased mixing of people of different color. It is interesting that if the group to be assimilated is large, the process of change of behavior occurs at a slower rate and frequently involves cultural changes to both groups.

At this time in history, it is clear that skin color is a superficial feature of a human. The cells in each human function under the same principles. We all survive by fulfilling the same basic needs and have the capacity to behave pretty much the same.

Yet, so many people still feel uncomfortable with or fear people of a different color. And frequently tension and conflict between color groups is the result - but it is different cultural behaviors and customs that are the true source of conflict. Behaviors and skin color are not related. Yet, factors related to skin color still impact our ability to develop cooperation in the broader human family.

GENDER: The last area of human grouping chosen for comment involves gender - whether you were born male or female. The issues raised by gender considerations have grown to extend far beyond the inherent relationship of the sexes whereby women will always bear children and males have a role as the initiator of that process.

Earlier in history, the need for a large number of childbirths created more fixed domestic roles for women, while our thousands of years of hunter-gatherer lifestyle featured athletic and forceful roles for men. And these roles wove their way into human myths, customs, literature, sacred texts and laws. It seemed to be an eternal truth because, for so long, it was the critical arrangement that permitted humans to survive. There was but a minor variation to this arrangement as we changed our survival lifestyle to that of the farming life of the agricultural era.

The developments occurring during the past few hundreds of years, especially as an ever larger number of us have moved to large city life, have resulted in economics dominated by the sale of services and knowledge. These factors, combined with the significantly reduced need for production of children, are bringing changes to the traditional roles.

The changes are not occurring uniformly throughout the world and, wherever they are occurring, they produce tension and confusion. And as with many changes in the modern world, the changes have come fast. It leaves people struggling to feel safe in their new roles.

To summarize our groupings, we are born into membership in these groups and, all too frequently, the barriers prevent us from effectively working together. We could wish that these complexities would resolve themselves soon, but they won't. We are probably looking at very many years for the problems caused by these groupings, and perhaps others not discussed here, to resolve themselves and stop impeding efforts to protect human life.

Desperation

Those without a fair opportunity to earn the needed basics in this world will not join cooperative efforts; they can't envision an opportunity or reason to help. Their sense of hopelessness leads to desperation.

In the poorer parts of the world, the desperate will destroy some of the remaining forests to secure needed cropland. They eat animals on the endangered list and discard waste haphazardly in ways that threaten the health of others. In the wealthy part of the world, they purposely refrain from helpful acts.

And because their situation looks hopeless, not because of the realities of the Universe but because of the unfairness of their exclusion from our world economy, they want to express themselves in negative behavior. Sometimes they want to attack others as unfairness frequently breeds violence.

Their desperation denies us their positive help for survival. They do not make a commitment to cooperation because they are not invited to the party.

Logic Fragments

The generation-to-generation process of continuing human life obviously involves the parenting generation feeding and protecting the younger one. The protecting element involves sharing experiences in the form of knowledge transfer. Some of that knowledge transfer is in the form of logic designed to lead to rapid conclusions in various situations.

For example, telling a child that "things will never change" is a piece of conclusory logic that discourages the child from attempting to remedy unwise or unfair situations that may be encountered in life. These pieces of conclusory logic can pass from parent to child for many generations and, if the logic fragment is negative, it can interfere with efforts to encourage cooperation in the human family.

The possibility of this type of roadblock to human efforts was suggested by scientist Richard Dawkins. He presented concepts of cultural information being divided into separately transmissible elements and passed from person to person, like a virus. He called such information units a "meme". The frequently used example is the suggestion a few years ago that the MMR vaccine might cause autism; a significant number of parents avoided the vaccination for their children.

There are many logic fragments passed down through generations that are minimal in impact on cooperation; consider " a penny saved is a penny earned" or "you get what you pay for".

A complication for cooperation develops if the logic fragment gives the appearance of seeming to be obviously true, hence the need to explore its validity at the deepest level might get overlooked by a younger generation. For example, "an eye for an eye" at first view seems fair until one realizes that an error in the justice system cannot be corrected under such harsh punishment.

Many attempts to develop cooperation will be impacted by the contrary force of some of these logic snippets. For example, those encouraging steps to address human conflict will encounter those with thoughts such as "there's too many people, war is population control". Inherent in that logic is that any death helps us by eliminating people randomly. Examples of other negative logic are ones like "everyone's dishonest" or "the physically strong will always prevail".

There are also more positive short pieces of logic passed through generations; these include "love your neighbor as you love yourself" and "love one another." Those encouraging cooperation will find positive responses when these types of logic are encountered.

Whether neutral, negative or positive, these types of logic fragments take hold erratically from generation to generation. The negative ones are like an inheritable affliction that strikes here and there, and will frustrate efforts to develop group cooperation to address our common problems.

Burdens

Another factor that interferes with our unity is the burdens placed upon those attempting to contribute to the development of elements of an effective system of cooperation. These people are, first, faced with trying to figure out what will help in this intricate and immense area of the problems of the human family; then they experience discouragement and confusion in their attempts to help.

Usually, these people are trying to contribute from what is often volunteer time; they still must secure their basics for life. Their time is limited, but the problems are huge.

Further, the information they are able to secure is often conflicting, requiring judgment too few have. Their available time can be consumed simply trying to get accurate information.

And these people with good intentions must attempt to rally support amongst a dispirited citizenry. Too many citizens have lost faith in the capability of our systems to provide good outcomes.

Our numbers have grown so large that people can live a lifetime without ever meeting a leader that makes the decisions that affect important parts of their lives. At the tribal level, the leaders were around daily; but we have lost the ability to communicate easily our problems or our recommended solutions.

And so many citizens have lost faith in the fairness of their systems. Their share of the costs of these systems is assessed under a process that no one understands. And there's no public record of what tax is paid by any citizen, so the fairness of one's share cannot be evaluated. Further, there's no effective way to measure whether those receiving public moneys are giving fair value.

Accordingly, those with good intentions, and seeking to contribute ideas or labor to bring improvements, become discouraged. They quite frequently cease helping because of frustration. We are unable to effectively unleash the labor of those who want to help.

Fear

Now, we are able to address the most significant factor that prevents us from exerting our best efforts to seek to survive the dangers of the Universe. The near universal and clearly dominant human emotion is fear.

On the first level, our constant worries exist from war, threats of war, crimes and our vulnerability in the world economy. Further, the violence of neglect leaves hundreds of millions confronting hunger and diseases without much hope.

If we try to address the problems caused by negative human behaviors on this first level, we encounter the complexities created by the second level. Here, we find people fearing those who are members of other belief systems, languages or race as well as the changes in gender roles. Others are too desperate to care. And too often, we approach human problems with short, invalid logic fragments that may yield wrong conclusions.

The result is some level of fear in nearly every individual in the human family. These fears dominate over the risks posed by the realities of the Universe. The stunning growth in population that is coming and the turbulence caused by migrations will likely make our fears worse.

These dominant fears originate in the behaviors of our fellow human beings. The efforts of those who try to help are too frequently negated.

Any proposals encounter the fears of many individuals, maybe most, that they will lose something important if a system develops that includes everyone in a concept of a human family. Unable to realize that our true fear should be directed at the realities of the Universe, the existence in nearly everyone of some major fear prevents us from even setting a goal to create such a system together.

This "thing" feared has a higher priority than the survival of the human family because it seems to be a more immediate threat or they are not fully aware of the danger of the Universe. Worse, these fears too frequently reach a level where people want to strike out at those they fear - while that fear is often not valid or those feared are not the true source of the problem.

A major type of fear here is many believe that if everyone is to receive basics, they may not receive basics for themselves. This is the self-interest factor at work. Essentially it says, "I'm receiving the basics of life now and, if we change to a broader system, I might not".

Inasmuch as there's enough to supply the basics to everyone, this really is a fear of a design of a bad system if we change. It is this fear of not having basics that permits our worst emotions to surface and it seems that we can then justify terrible violence.

Another type of fear develops around attempts to preserve major but secondary human interests. This simply breaks down to feelings that we don't want certain people to survive. Some do not want people with a different language, or color, or too often, another belief system to survive. The logic here is simply that if the individual resists a system that includes everyone, then those that they fear might die. And that's what they have in mind.

There's a type of fear created in those in desperate circumstances. They're frequently hungry or in pain from injuries or diseases and they develop a feeling of hopelessness. People in those circumstances would experience genuine fear of death daily.

However, when they become aware that in the world many others live a life that's better, and they realize they are permanently and unfairly excluded, then anger becomes directed at those with a better life.

Others have fears that distract them from having the energy to commit to asserting the correct priorities for developing an all inclusive system. For example, crime acts done to them or around them makes dealing with that a higher priority. Or they may fear the possible aggression of another nation and that becomes a higher priority.

This whole area seems to be resolvable to fear that change might risk a loss of basics to themselves and to the fact that few have any faith in the capacity of the human family to create an effective and fair system. Too often, major change can only occur when there's wide-spread desperation and major chaos. Then it might be too late.

In summary, we fail because of these conditions. So many fear war and crime. So many are afraid of the loss of access to the basics or loss of their beliefs, language or something. Fear of each other dominates our thoughts.

Those trying to help are discouraged or confused by the dimensions of the problems. And we are separated into groupings, especially nations that are allied with or clustered around those nations with nuclear weapons.

Our basic needs come from "our" group and we fear the "other" group may threaten us, not only with violent actions but may develop economically to get "our" jobs or control raw materials we feel are needed for our country's economy. Opposite to a feeling of being in a human family, we fear we are at risk from those people outside our group.

It is to be wished that we could all join together and concentrate on the most direct path to our survival. But, being realistic, we cannot even hope for that unity for quite some time - perhaps a century or two.

We, too, must accept the reality that humans are rising up from a reasoning level like that of animals and we acquired a cruel streak along the way. The best that the people in The Helper Project can do is to share in work that helps the human family correctly organize to overcome our real problems - so we have hope to survive. The human family needs helpers.

Some people will be able to perceive the coming risks, will be able to sustain their faith and hope for the human family, and will be determined to contribute what they can to our effort for survival. The Helper Project is designed to assist in such efforts.

CHAPTER FOUR: OUR PATHWAY TO SURVIVAL

The issue is survival. To this point, it has been reasoned that the true problems begin with the realities of the Universe. We are unable to most forcefully and directly address our problems because of failures in the system humans use to work together.

Soon after the word "problems" in human conversation, the word "solutions" will be spoken. This essay cannot explain what the solutions are, but it can help focus our attention on the problems. The essay can also point towards the tools we must use to arrive at solutions.

In this essay, two of the critical tools for survival have been implied, those being anticipatory thought and a division of labor. Two other important tools are wise choices and effective cooperation.

Catching a glimpse of where we are in history, we are in transition from our beginnings, when we did not understand the forces here on Earth. And, they scared us.

We are quickly approaching a situation where we control Earth's resources and nearly every facet of the lives of all the species of life on Earth. We are changing from the nearly mindlessness of behaving like animals to assuming the responsibilities of being the "masters" of the Earth.

Perhaps a better concept is being the managers of Earth. The choices we make will have an impact on all aspects of life, especially food, water and air. And on our preparedness for the calamities that can happen.

To consider pursuing survival or happiness, we must fully appreciate the role of making choices. It is the choices of the individual that determines the survival of that individual. It is the aggregate of individual choices that decide the conditions of, and probably, the survival of humanity.

Life is a series of choices, often because we encounter a problem. Sometimes there isn't much time to make the choice of how to respond. Then, the process is that we rapidly search our brain for information and make what we reason to be the best choice.

If the situation doesn't require a quick response, we've discovered the experiences of others can help us make a wise choice. And in the modern world, we have such things as books and the internet that accumulate the experiences of others - even those who lived a long time ago. Further, education is a planned systematic transfer of knowledge from the experiences of others. It's available for the moment a choice might have to be made.

A very important strategy in this process is that we usually depend upon the help of other humans. Helping each other with information is a very important form of cooperation; cooperation has a long and successful history among humans. Cooperation as a tool, like anticipatory thought, division of labor and wise choices, has been critical to our ascendancy to the status of superior species.

Perhaps the most critical choice people make is to choose a pathway in life that utilizes cooperation with other humans to secure what is needed or wanted. While it may now seem obvious that cooperation is usually a wise and productive course of behavior, cooperation is not an inherent behavior of the individual. It does not come naturally. In fact, the opposite seems true - watch a child grab a toy from another child. The child will continue to do so until adults say no. For thousands of years, we were that way as adults until we came to believe in the rewards of cooperation.

Alternately and interestingly, the first experiences for a child are provided by cooperation - the mother breast feeds the child. And surrounding adults provide basic needs for years. As the child grows, lessons in survival are given. In adult life cooperation continues and, at a certain point, the relationship reverses; the child cares for the adults when they are old. Cooperation was the basis for creating family tribal groups.

Cooperation was discovered as helpful between family tribal groups. They exchanged young adults for reproduction. They worked together for defense against large predators or against aggressive tribes. Other types of cooperation could include food sharing after hunting or gathering, shelter building, items for trade or other helpful acts. Cooperation brought more hope for survival.

In the modern world, it is easy to understand why cooperation among the wider human family is necessary. Simply look at the size of the problems. The only hope for solutions is cooperation through choices made by individuals - with the interests of all humanity factored into consideration.

For example, imagine the effort and skills needed to try to deflect a large asteroid we might discover that's on a path to collide with Earth. Which individual or small group could carry out that effort on their own? And because we might have only a short period of time to initiate action, we must have a plan, have individuals searching for the asteroids/comets and prepare the equipment and staff to be ready.

Creating greater cooperation in the human family requires organizing in accordance with basic human behaviors regarding choices. In this aspect, we are not very different from the other forms of life. They always congregate around their sources of energy and body-building material; meaning especially food and water. It is in their self-interest.

The most important answer as to why people choose to cooperate is that such cooperation provides the best chances for survival of the individual as well as more of what is needed or wanted. Cooperative human behavior is largely dependent upon the perceived self-interest of the individual. We choose it when it works. We will abandon those cooperative behaviors that do not produce the needed or wanted results.

There are some behaviors by humans that appear more selfless, and some truly are. The vast majority of these are by people who have come to a special understanding of life and believe immediate gratification of needs or wants is often better deferred. Such people are almost always above a desperate subsistence level of economic life and believe the deferment will be compensated in the long-term or that it is safer. That's also a level of self-interest thinking.

And, in some rarer instances, people give totally selfless sacrifices, even their lives. Such behavior can be a contribution to survival of others and to less human conflict. On the other hand, the need for such sacrifices may be created by the failures of the human system. These failures should be eliminated. The sacrifice of a human because of the errors of humans is a mindless and wasted loss.

However, for purposes of understanding the processes of individual human choices or trying to plan for and create greater human cooperation in the future, it is best to understand human choices as attempts to serve the best interests of the person. This means when self-interest and the interests of others are the same, cooperation is most likely to occur. And as an individual benefits from cooperation, the commitment to the process grows.

Since designing processes for greater cooperation also involves opportunities for errors, some factors of effective processes of cooperation among humans should be considered. The true beginning of the relationship between self-interest and the interests of humanity starts with the individual's need to survive.

Cooperation occurs when people exchange services or products in ways that are mutually beneficial. Our communities are the most filled with happy people when there are many beneficial exchanges occurring. The greatest amount of cooperation occurs when the self-interest of a large number of individuals is aligned with the interests of the group.

To explore the current status of humans making choices and the degree to which individuals participate in cooperation, we must recognize that we have two types of shared behavior - voluntary cooperation and coerced or involuntary cooperation.

Far earlier in our history, some tribes made group decisions by a process called consensus decision-making. If the group could not agree, they either deferred the decision or the differing individuals went in separate ways. The peace between people was maintained and each group bore the consequences of their choices. The problem that developed is that we have run out of room. If we don't defer, we cannot separate.

The progression that then developed was, when voluntary cooperation failed, often the result was violence. And that has led to complex systems for behavior control. When we have processes that determine that certain choices are required of every member of the community, we have a system called Government. The primary role of government is to force individuals to make certain choices and bear certain burdens to cover the costs.

In other words, we have, in the modern world, a division between voluntary and involuntary or required behavior. When the group is successful in aligning self-interest and group interest, the individual is free to make choices. When that fails, we require involuntary cooperation.

The most notable chapter in human history, and probably the most important, has been the search to design a system and select leaders for a fair, wise and effective process of government. The failures continue to interfere with effective cooperation in the human family. So often, the extremes for individuals have ranged from sadness to plain tragedy. And, for too many thousands of years, our resources for survival have been misused or stolen.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the peoples of the various nations have chosen to turn over to government more control of the decisions of cooperation and choice. This occurs because, as the system humans use to work together keeps failing, the emotions that have become dominant are fear and frustration; people want to force other humans to behave in ways believed to eliminate risks. Increasingly, more and more areas of human choice are being placed under the control and authority of governments and are not subject to the voluntary choice of the individual.

And the conditions we find today will not change soon. For the foreseeable future, we will have a large number of separate nations and we must depend upon developing cooperation in a cumbersome system. The number of recognized countries with governments is now approaching 200.

This is not an argument for a goal to create a World Government. In fact, it's not clear that one government for the world would be the best way to serve our survival interests. It may be that the human family will find that separate units or countries, ones with rational membership (language, religion or cultural bonds) and that must bargain based upon their particular interests, might serve us best for many years more. We're not really sure what arrangements among ourselves will bring out our best efforts to be directed at our common survival needs.

We do have a historical record that proves that, if the human family focuses upon an agreed commitment to cooperate to work on a serious problem, we can do it.

Consider our stunning accomplishment with smallpox. This terrifying killer caused 300 million deaths in the 1900s before the last case on Earth was reported in 1977. It was the first and only disease completely eliminated from nature by humans and the effort was led by the World Health Organization. This effort required medical staff to travel village to village in poor countries to vaccinate people. The help of so many nations was necessary.

Equally impressive is what we are currently accomplishing with polio, once a world-wide scourge affecting millions. Armed with the polio vaccine, we have gone to every sector of the Earth's population to provide protection. We are within two or three years of eliminating it, too. There are but a few thousands occurrences annually now.

Or consider the recent efforts to take immediate control of flu viruses. The SARS virus was discovered and immediate world-wide cooperation stopped it in its tracks. We now have cooperation throughout the world to monitor for and treat flu viruses. Every country cooperates.

The fundamental factor of success seems to have been that all nations realized it was in their self-interest to prevent the spread of death from these microbes and a method of cooperation was quickly developed.

Another impressive area of world cooperation occurs when we have major natural catastrophes anywhere in the world. Consider the powerful responses of citizens and nations to the tsunami in the Indian Ocean area or to earthquakes in such places as Turkey or to hurricanes in poorer countries of the Caribbean and Central America.

The factors of success here seem to come from the unquestionable expression of goodwill from the donations of citizens in rich and powerful countries and their high expectation that their governments should assist, too.

As future success in addressing the survival problems will require cooperation among governments, we are able to get a reasonable view of the near future as to how and through what processes nations will negotiate with one another for developing cooperation in the world. This framework probably presents the tools we must use to improve the survival hopes of the human family.

The most significant organization is the United Nations. Except in the most rare of circumstances, the United Nations is simply a forum for discussion and exchange of viewpoints. Every country may join the general assembly and have an equal vote; when a consensus develops, countries can choose to take cooperative action. Participation and outcomes there are largely voluntary.

There are some instances when the United Nations takes coercive or forceful actions. These come through the 15-member Security Council, where 5 countries are permanent members and have a veto over any action. These are Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States. The forceful acts may be economic or military.

The UN also has an International Court of Justice (World Court), where nations may voluntarily submit conflicts for a peaceful resolution. And the UN has subsidiary organizations in the areas of labor, agriculture, monetary systems and banking, education, science, trade, health, refugees, children and the environment. Voluntary cooperative actions may be developed in any of these areas.

Funding for the modest overhead costs is through an assessment process. All funding for bigger and more significant programs is voluntary and occurs only when nations find it in their self-interest.

From time to time, there's debate about eliminating the UN, but such positions are really criticism of its structure. If it were disbanded, another organization would have to be created in its place. The nations need a forum for discussions and facilities to organize staff for their agreed cooperative programs.

Outside the UN, countries use treaties to form direct arrangements for cooperation. Some treaties create organizations with broad membership; others just involve two or three nations.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has many members and has rules for exchange of products and services among member nations. Sometimes smaller trade groups are established among neighbor countries, such as NAFTA with the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Another frequent area of treaties involves commitments for joint defense, usually against an understood foe, even if the feared country is not named. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an example of this.

Treaties may be used by countries for problems such as sharing water or controlling travel of people. Many types of cooperation are developed through treaties.

Currently, the European Union is an attempt to group a wide range of issues under a structure that increasingly encourages the development of trust among neighboring countries with a long history of violent and catastrophic wars. All cooperation is generally by consensus and, in many ways, could be considered a United Nations on a regional level.

Cooperation is easier among some nations because they share a common language or religion. Links are easier between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand because English is the common language. The same is true of Spain and most of the countries of Central and South America. It is also easier for Christian, Muslim or Buddhist countries for form links.

There are a few areas of cooperation between people of different countries that do not involve their governments. Some of these links form around humanitarian efforts, such as the Red Cross or Red Crescent for disaster assistance. Also members of the same religion, with members in different countries, form international links. However, while their achievements are wonderful, they do not have the resources nor have they shown the capacities to tackle problems as large as those we face.

What all this says is that we are - repeat, are - capable of acting like and cooperating like a family. We have proven we can do it.

Now, what is missing is that the members of the human family have not yet concluded that the realities of this Universe are so serious that we must make a commitment.

That commitment is to eliminating aggression, negligence and the violence of neglect as well as to ensuring the basics to each child born or to provide each adult the opportunity to participate in the world economy in a way that they can earn what is needed for the basics of life. Then we can seek unity of purpose.

Fundamental tools will include anticipatory thought, division of labor, wise choices and effective cooperation.

What should be obvious from this brief survey of cooperative efforts among the people of Earth is that it is through governments that we are seeking to develop the relationships that will permit us to attempt to survive. Whether that's the best choice or not, the choice has been made. Our hopes for Survival depend upon the actions of the governments of our planet. Can we make it work?

CHAPTER FIVE: USING GOVERNMENT AS A TOOL

Government is, like cooperation and division of labor, a process developed by the human family to help ensure our survival. To discover how we can make it work most effectively for this critical task, we must discuss the nature of and the behaviors of governments generally. We have lots of history to reveal this to us.

Perhaps because we often encounter government in the guise of benign services, such as libraries or public health, we can overlook a critical foundation of it. At its deepest level of structure, government's major tool is violence. We must realize it was created because of violence, either within the small groups we formed early in our history or the violent attacks we endured from other groups.

Within our group, if we were unable to separate when we disagreed, violence occurred over choices or behaviors. The mass violence between factions was indiscriminate and terrible. So a process developed whereby the group would attempt to enforce required behaviors and choices through "controlled" violence.

Over the centuries, if the problem was minor, coercion became the first step when the group did not approve of the behavior or choices of an individual. Often this level of disagreement does not rise to the level requiring government action; typically the individual was shunned or denied normal cooperative interaction with others.

If that failed, what has evolved by modern times is a gradual pathway to violence. First, a warning is given as to what behaviors will result in a violent reaction from the group. Essentially, the first step here is written law - violate the law and some violence is authorized by the group.

And sometimes a violator will receive a visit from an authority or a written message warning that violations must cease. If life or property is not at immediate risk, this is usually the group's first action.

A more severe violation or continued violations may then cause a fine. A fine is really a punishment of forced labor - you must work some hours to earn the money for the fine. And a fine may endanger, to some degree, your access to items of basic needs as you'll have less money.

A severe violation, usually one threatening to or actually causing injury or death to an individual as well as those that will or might do damage to property, including stealing, will usually result in direct violence from someone selected by the group. Injury may be immediately inflicted upon the violating individual or individuals. Or an arrest can be made; one will be processed through a system that may proceed to invoke the group's violence through incarceration and even death as a punishment (in some countries).

The point is that the fundamental tools of the community are coercion and government violence or the threat of violence. Throughout history, we have tried to put boundaries on the violence of government so that violence is only used for the truly most important need of the human family: our survival.

This process has costs, which are assessed in some manner on the citizens. Failure to pay what the group determines is your share will also result in violence from the group, if necessary, to secure collection.

Since the primary tool of government is violence (its origin was uncontrolled violence in the group), government processes are, to a degree, a form of permanent war. And the process of the design of a good government is, again to some degree, an attempt to negotiate our way out of war.

When examining the origin of government, we should remember that the choices and behaviors we wanted were those necessary for cooperation for survival. Government, then, is a device for cooperation. To be valid, the choices being made for us or the limits being placed upon us must be for the survival of the human family.

Of course, we are familiar with choices being made for us or limits being placed upon us-- we begin life in that situation. We experience these impositions by the adults that raise us in childhood. If we're lucky, the choices and rules imposed by the adults have as a goal our protection and survival as well as to teach us the most likely road to human happiness.

When the goal of those raising us is truly our protection and happiness, our commitment to our family grows strong. If it isn't, we break away as soon as possible. Either way, as an adult, we discover we are in a new system outside the family. We had no role in its development. We made no choices. We inherited the system.

Being intelligent, we can only voluntarily submit to a system if it has the same goals as those who lovingly raise a child. That means providing for protection and survival, while seeking to share opportunities that will make possible our making choices that may lead to personal happiness. It is the experience in a good and caring situation as children that prepares us to make evaluations of government correctly. From early life, we have a guide to good government.

Different than our situation in a family, where the control of choices and behavior are increasingly our own as we grow older, the inherent nature of human government appears to be expansive as to control. Perhaps it's because of economies of scale, but surely because of the near universal feeling of fear and frustration, we're turning control of more and more behaviors over to government.

The original goals of government were dealing with outbreaks of violence; in the modern world that usually involves police and courts. Now, it is difficult to find an area of life not involving some level of a role for government.

A partial listing of its additional tasks includes fire and EMT services; health services; health and scientific research; protection of food, water, air and soil; protection of the vulnerable; libraries; education; maintain community property and parks; systems for money and measures; regulate monopolies and business practices as well as to allocate airwaves, airspace and water resources. It is also responsible for comprehensive management of the economy to provide jobs and to maintain systems to give money to the unemployed or disabled.

These services may be organized at the local, regional or national levels. The costs for these services are secured through a hodgepodge of taxes and fees. Often we do not know what the true amount of our allocation of the costs is nor that of anyone else.

Once government enters an area of services, it's role and range of control seems to grow through time. An example of the expansiveness of government can be demonstrated by reviewing the development of public education in the United States.

Beginning in the 1800's, a movement swept the country to make each child required to attend school to learn, specifically, to read, write and do a basic level of math. A century later, children are required to attend 13 years of school (K - 12); very many hours of instruction beyond reading, writing and math are mandated by a process created by state legislatures.

Now, not only must a child learn to read, but a great many things that the child must read are required by schools. The community determines that certain ideas are acceptable and the child must be exposed to that thinking - whether or not such ideas are desired to be explored by the child or the adults responsible for the child.

At the simplest level, ideas are being forced on the child. And separate groups fight endlessly to control what ideas will be required to be presented to the children. The interests, goals and choices of the child or those responsible for the child can get lost. It is often argued now that skills needed by the country must be learned, whether or not that choice fits the will of the child.

The children now spend a huge portion of their time with groups of a similar age, where peer pressure dominates. It has replaced time spent with children of varying ages or with adults doing various forms of work. The entire process of the role of government has grown beyond reading, writing and basic math, and has had a massive impact on the individual.

Since the role of government is always expanding and our population gets larger, government requires constant redesign. Especially, the structure of government does not seem to have kept pace with our growth in population. Again, an individual can spend a lifetime and never meet one of the leaders that makes community rules. The interaction between the group and its leaders has significantly diminished or disappeared.

Inasmuch as so much of the hopes for our future will be determined through governments, and as the inherent nature of government is to make choices for its citizens and to enforce such choices through violence if necessary, what remains of individual choice? Are there great dangers to this pathway?

Human cooperation is created by one person engaging another person in efforts that are mutually beneficial. The greater the range of possibilities of human choice, the greater are the possibilities for cooperation. In other words, the maximum possible range of freedom creates the maximum possibilities for cooperation. The opportunity to pursue happiness enhances the commitment to cooperation. While freedom does not guarantee happiness, it gives the best chance of obtaining it.

It is also in an environment of freedom that we have the greatest opportunity to expose group error - think of the days when people were only allowed to believe that the sun goes around the Earth. Freedom not only creates an environment to maximize cooperation, it gives a greater chance to discover truth and expose error.

Originally, the range of human freedom to make choices was limited only by the physical world. For example, we had to avoid predators or realize that we could not stay outdoors in freezing weather without clothing. Unless we made certain choices, we were at risk of injury or death from the realities of the physical world.

Yet, to survive as a species, we needed to cooperate with other humans. And that need to interact with humans created new restraints - their needs, behaviors, choices and beliefs and ours might conflict. Cooperation could not occur without some resolution.

What range of human freedom must or ought to exist and yet is consistent with the cooperation necessary to ensure the survival of the individual and the human family? Certain behaviors are a threat to our survival and too little freedom is equally a threat to us. The question is where to draw the line as to behavior that will or will not be permitted. Perhaps the most direct approach is to ask what limits must be imposed.

As far back as we can discern from records, we have always cooperated to protect ourselves from aggression. Aggression is not permitted. Aggression includes not only the inflicting of physical injury or death but also destroying or stealing another's property as well as threatening, intimidating or harassing. Aggressive behaviors threaten our individual survival and make happiness or cooperative efforts nearly impossible.

Physical injury, death and property destruction can also occur through negligent behavior of individuals. For some time now, many legal systems have defined minimum responsibilities for individuals to evaluate in their behaviors to protect others from an accident.

All clearly valid prohibitions seem to originate from these two concerns about aggression and negligence. The prohibition of these two behaviors enjoys massive support throughout the human family.

Often, one must look deeply at a prohibition to understand that its nature is related to prohibiting aggression or negligence. For example, participating in activities that pollute food, water or air is an act that may cause injury, death or destruction of property and is aggression or negligence. Or consider a violation of business regulation, it's selling a product that is falsely presented to the buying public as conforming to certain rules -- but does not. That's stealing, meaning aggression. Or consider a violating monopoly, it's using its leverage to gouge the public into an unfair price and is aggression.

The prohibitions of the community have grown beyond these two fundamental and vital areas. Essentially now, in the United States, any behavior that someone thinks might be a good idea to forbid can be prohibited unless the federal or state constitutions specifically deny that action. However, seldom are these other areas of prohibition supported by the massive, near universal approval that the limits on aggression and preventable negligence receive.

It's these more debatable items that lead us to the area of the delicate line. Effective and fair limits on aggression and negligence always produce positive results. Prohibitions beyond these may produce positive results or they may cause rancorous and divisive debates or subtle to outright violent resistance. Valuable community resources and time are expended in the resulting struggle; and we lose so much hope without unity. These battles can produce such anger and hate that a focus on survival is lost.

Often these debatable limits are based on belief systems or philosophies. Those who believe in them seek to impose limits they believe are mandated by their system of thought. The lesson of history is that desired behavior based on belief systems should be developed by persuasion and not community rules enforced by the violence of government.

Also, debatable prohibitions, usually those beyond aggression and negligence, may produce breeding grounds for corruption. Corruption is the "illegal" selling of products or services that permit one to violate the enforced rules of the community. It could be said that corruption is the selling of an additional level of freedom. The greater the number of people who disagree with a particular limit, the greater is the size of the marketplace for corruption - and the greater the profits.

Interestingly, those who make the greatest profit from corruption are surreptitiously the greatest advocates for such limits - if the limits are removed, the profits disappear. In other words, it is often not the community that is advocating for and spreading fear that supports these debatable limits but those who profit from them. They appear righteous but they are duplicitous.

Sustaining the profits in corruption requires not only people to insincerely advocate for the questionable limits, while they sell the profitable product, it often requires that people willing to cooperate for profit be selected for community leadership. And perhaps some in law enforcement must be willing to "wink" when it is profitable. The entire system of community rules is soon affected. Many of those in leadership or enforcement are concerned with keeping these profits rather than providing valuable leadership on the really critical issues and the protection necessary for survival.

Beyond the distortion of the focus of community leadership caused by corruption, there are other critical problems caused. The costs of enforcement are wasted and law officers are distracted from putting greater efforts against more serious violent crimes. And violence often erupts inside the corruption community, to defend market areas or to silence those who threaten the "system". Worse, corruption causes members of the community to lose faith in laws and in cooperative behaviors.

Finally, if limits are not truly related to the survival needs of the human family, they remove options that may lead to happiness for some people. And again, they may obscure areas of truth or group error. We cannot maximally focus on our survival as a human family.

Unnecessary or debatable limits are a serious risk to successful cooperative efforts as they create an environment for angry debate, create a self-destructive area for corruption and unnecessarily remove possibilities for happiness or discovering truth. It also wastes scarce resources.

It may turn out that, to secure the cooperation we need to ensure the long-term survival of the human family, the most important choices we will make concern the freedom of the individual. Perhaps the failure of the human family to address correctly the issues of freedom might be the greatest impediment to the level of cooperation we need to provide maximum hope for protecting life into the future.

After a history of trying different types of government, such as dictatorships and monarchies, the trend over the past few centuries is toward "voting governments". Beyond the consideration of government in general, some features of voting government should be pondered. In modern times, they began being widely adopted in different styles in the 1700's, and clearly, they will be important as we seek to create hopes for survival.

Over the history of governments, often an authority for the exercise of power is asserted. In the far distant past, valid authority was ignored for many groups, as the brute force of an individual or group of individuals was exerted. Then for a couple of thousands of years, we had many governments that claimed that God or some gods were their source of authority. Sometimes, a leader even claimed to be a god.

In voting governments, the authority asserted is the majority of the people. However, it is difficult, in the past century or so, to find a government clearly selected by a majority of the citizens subject to the government.

Consider the most recent national election for the leader of the United States. In 2004, the US had 295,734,000 people, of which 217,800,000 were over the age 18 and considered adults. Of these, 142,070,000 were registered to vote. (i.e. having cleared various processes, including those that exclude certain people). The winner of the largely two-person race had 62,039,000 votes and the loser had 59,027,000.

Accordingly, the winner had 43.7 percent support of the eligible voters and only 28.5 percent of the adults of the country. Where's the majority from whom authority is claimed? This type of pattern holds for nearly all elections from the local through the national level. And it also reflects the outcomes for nearly all the large voting governments of the world.

In other words, it is not clear what kind of decision-making process we are designing for the survival of the human family. Are the choices to be made by minorities? We have failed to devise ways to create government by the majority and government is instead controlled by minorities. Would wise choices and the cooperation needed by the human family be secured more successfully if government was required to secure a true majority of those that will be governed?

A further complication is the shifting nature of a majority. Take as an example a situation where 1,000 people voted in a race for a leader or on a public issue. On election day the outcome might be 501 for side #1 and 499 for side #2. Side #1 wins.

However, it may be that one day later, two people that voted for side #1 have reconsidered and wish they had supported side #2. Now, side #1 is the winner and has control; but side #2 is where the majority support lies.

Clearly, a workable concept of a majority is difficult to discover in voting governments. And in modern voting governments, so far, it is rare for the majority to be in control. It is usually some level of a minority.

There are also many other factors further complicating these issues. With the present levels of population, our capacity to accurately record and count votes is failing.

For example, again in a presidential election in the US, this time in 2000, it is acknowledged that hundreds of thousands, if not several millions, of votes were lost by faulty election processes. Due to rules in the US, the election outcome was decided by fewer than 1,000 votes. As we have failed to create accurate voting processes, no one has any idea who received the support of the majority of those that voted. Interestingly, the processes determined that the candidate with the fewer of the votes counted was the winner.

We've seen situations where it is deliberately planned for a minority to control the processes. There are instances where elections are purposely timed so that the outcome will be determined by a minority. This can be found, often, in a narrow issue election like a bond authorization, usually at a local level. A special election can be planned where few will have time to vote or understand the issue. In these situations, those in leadership do not care where the majority support is.

There are many factors limiting participation. Elections are, in the US, held on a single day and it's a work day when hourly people may not be able to afford the time off to vote. Also, often, the facilities at particular voting places are limited, so the long lines discourage or prohibit people from voting. Worse, sometimes the limits that cause long lines at these facilities are planned on purpose to discourage voting.

Further, sometimes a faulty design of the structure of government can limit participation, confuse voters as to the choices and distort the process. A long list of offices to be elected on a ballot, plus bond authorizations and other questions can severely slow the process of voting, create long lines and overwhelm voters about choices. Each office or issue requires the voters to obtain information and the voter's access to valid helpful facts is limited, as is the voter's time.

For example, in one county in Florida, the number of elected offices simply overwhelms the voters. There are more than 65 judges elected county-wide and, beyond them, a citizen may be faced with electing a city councilperson, a city mayor, a county commissioner, a county mayor, a member of the school board, a person for the Florida House of Representatives, a state senator, a member of the US Congress, a US Senator, a Governor, several members of the state cabinet and a US President.

It is impossible to know the hundreds of candidates seeking those offices and to get sufficient information to evaluate choices. The election ballot may also contain issues for the city, county or state government. Not surprisingly, most of the judges in the county are elected by an extremely small number of eligible voters.

Our population numbers discourage people from participating because very few people know the candidates well. Their information comes from printed material and "sound-bite" commercials. A choice for a leader that will truly be effective often requires extensive knowledge of the individual, such as a person down-the-block that you've known for years. When you know the lifestyle, family and values of people well, you know how well they will lead. Unfortunately, we usually vote based on guesses and trying to read-between-the-lines.

There are many structural factors to consider. Should the citizens vote directly on the proposed laws and budgets or should representatives be elected to sort these matters out ? Currently, with petition-initiated referendums in the US, its system is a mixed one.

Should a two-party system be encouraged or a parliamentary process of multiple parties, creating 3,4 or 5 choices for citizens? In a parliamentary system, after the citizens have divided in many directions, the factions negotiate to create a majority. Or how frequently should elections be held to re-secure the support of a "majority"?

Voting governments experience many special pressures that affect the outcomes. Since elections, when combined with our now massive number of people, involve hundreds of thousands voting for most offices, communication becomes a decisive factor. It requires huge sums of money to pay for media to reach the voters.

Those with lots of money will, accordingly, be sought by those seeking office. And, they may have expectations of the candidates. The right to spend large amounts is said to be a right to free speech. Those with limited moneys will, obviously, have a free speech right that has less impact. Government can give significant advantages to some and our self-interest principles ensure that some will seek a favorable outcome from the winners in elections.

And since participation in elections is limited, somewhat by complexities or design, some groups dominate. In the US, the older people vote in larger numbers than the younger. No wonder then that government essentially guarantees health insurance and, often, pensions for older individuals. Many of the young have no health coverage and can also be hungry. The needs of the full spectrum of citizens is not fully considered when some sections of the citizenry vote more than others.

There are other complications. The fundamental documents of voting governments have not successfully articulated rules that limit majority control of behaviors and choices to those required for survival or to protect the pursuit of truth. The minorities quickly learn that the tyranny of the "majority" is no more tolerable than the tyranny of tyrants.

Accordingly, we spend lots of effort fighting over what people "ought" to be required to do, so that it can be enforced by violence of law, rather than what is required for survival of the group. Law can become a tool for persecution.

The costs of securing whatever rights are given in fundamental documents to minorities or to injured people can make the assertion that the rights exist actually to be a false promise. In the US, a losing lawyer laughed when the victorious victim in a case of industrial poisoning won $280,000. He said the victim had to spend more than that in legal costs to win.

The individual is simply unable to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to process through the courts to secure the rights promised. It is similar in criminal cases. In essence, for so many, the rights do not exist.

And the endless state of war or the threat of war among peoples and nations continues to complicate determining good choices. Governments insist secrets must be kept to prevent adversaries from gaining advantage. It may be true, but until these conditions are gone from the human family, citizens will continue to make choices without all the facts. That invites serious error.

And consider the most terrible event: assassinations can nearly negate the entire process. The trauma experienced within a large part of the citizenry when a leader is killed can last decades; it has an effect on participation by future leaders and on the citizens.

The creation of voting governments should be considered a terrific step forward for the human family. After reviewing our human history, no serious thinking person could risk a return to our past processes of dictators or monarchs.

These comments were not selected to discourage commitment to processes of voting but to emphasize the elements that make it difficult to cause voting governments to fully serve the human family. The flaws in our processes, as they have currently evolved, will invite errors. Since it is the survival of human life that we are responsible for ensuring, we must understand and improve the processes of government until they are equal to the task at hand.

It is amidst all these factors and features of government in general, as well as in voting governments, that we must seek to forge a future for the human family. We certainly have our work cut out for us and a long period of effort will be required.

The future of the survival of the human family will be pursued then, by the nearly 200 nations whose government processes have not been perfected. They must negotiate our future.

Since the bargaining position of each nation will depend upon their own processes to determine what they believe is their self-interest, it is helpful to consider some of the internal factors and pressures that will affect the determination of their interests.

One of the most severe impediments to developing a policy regarding the interests of a particular nation is the composition of its citizens. Some countries are largely homogeneous as to language, religion, cultural groups and history. Many others are not.

A very serious problem some countries have is that their borders are irrational. They enclose smaller groups within a larger group or combine groups that have little in common. Sometimes these borders were imposed by violence from the larger groups or by people from the outside.

We saw some of this in Europe until recently. Czechoslovakia was permitted to divide into two countries and Yugoslavia was also allowed to divide. Many of the remaining unnatural countries are in Africa or the Middle East and their borders were usually imposed by colonial powers. Too often, it's a formula for civil wars and massacres. They have difficulties developing a unified national viewpoint for asserting their interests.

A common language helps the process of determining a nation's interests, but many nations include multiple language groups. Some multi-lingual countries have a history of successful processes for overcoming the difficulties; others do not.

Another complicating factor is when nations have significant numbers of citizens that belong to competing belief systems, essentially religions. They frequently fear a loss of freedom to advocate their beliefs or the imposition upon them of the beliefs of others. Some prefer, and often vote for, policies that force the nation's culture to reflect their beliefs and seek to impose governmental limits on behavior that will force conformity to their beliefs.

Without a policy of freedom of religion as well as a separation of religion and government, the competing belief systems come into serious conflict within a nation and may cause widespread mistrust or violence.

Another internal pressure point is caused by the dynamics of a country's economy. The world's countries are increasingly working on a concept of "free enterprise" and many countries must learn how this works. The freedom part of it permits individuals to make choices in accordance with what they determine to be their self-interest. This creates greater productivity. That's the positive element of it.

The negative element surfaces when the free-for-all of seeking profits results in mergers, which can be in the interests of a small group as it produces a monopoly. This results in the acquisition by one group of control of access to critical raw materials, land or services, such as banking, airlines or railroads. The resulting monopoly no longer needs to compete for a low price or better service and may use its power to charge unfair amounts.

The only option becomes governmental intervention and the resulting struggle distracts a country from policies to determine their true interests within the world.

Another internal pressure can develop around a country's justice systems. Internally, groups do not necessarily agree on what is a crime and what the consequences of a crime should be. They compete for which persons will be judges and the justice systems may be irrational, unworkable or unfair. The citizens are distracted and correct identification of their national interest is interfered with. Survival of the human family is not their highest priority.

Other internal pressures come from a variety of advocacy groups. For example, some groups may be seeking recognition of some historical event from their past or some other civic or politically relevant position. While the issue might be important, the internal dissention may distract from a focus on their true national interest as it relates to the needs of the greater human family.

All of these internal pressures and the actions of the various factions affect the bargaining position of each separate nation and its ability and willingness to commit to the needed unity of purpose in the human family.

Since, at this time in our history, we have placed our future in the hands of the many governments of Earth, we must ask many questions. What can be done to ensure that government is designed to serve as an effective device in each country so that country will cooperate in the wider world community to help ensure the survival of the human family?

The questions stream on. How can countries align their self-interest so that war is avoided as unnecessary? How can these countries avoid the conflicts or dead ends created by competing belief systems or the gravitation of their economic systems from the benefits of free enterprise to usurious monopolies?

How can we ensure voting governments are authorized and act with the assent of true majorities that also protect minorities? How can we ensure that these governments are effective in aligning the individual's self-interest with group interest, while minimizing to the absolute essentials necessary, for our goal of survival, the limits on human choices and behavior?

How can we ensure a fair distribution of the burdens or costs of such governments through taxes and fees? Can a publicly known list of the taxation charged to each citizen be created that proves its fairness?

These are very important issues to resolve. Their resolution is critical to our success and the faith citizens will have in our systems as we seek survival. They affect the commitment to cooperation.

Government is to be a device for cooperation. The purpose of government is to preserve the liberty of the individual to attend to survival needs. It must ensure safety to permit the pursuit of happiness. It is being safe that makes liberty possible and permits free choices.

The state of liberty is preserved through group cooperation in the face of danger. Freedom from danger creates peace for the individual to exercise choices. Peace in the human family requires fairness.

No matter what system of government is used, if humanity is to exert its maximum effort to seek survival, certain elements must be addressed.

Our actions must include recognition of our current plight. With this many people on Earth, and the significant number soon to arrive, we must cooperate to survive. When there's no hope of a future where people depend upon their individual skills to secure from nature the basics of life, we must cooperate for each individual to have hope to survive.

When there's no other way to secure the basics of life but to participate in a world economy, everyone must have an opportunity to earn what is necessary for survival. Every error by government is an attack on the survival of someone and maybe the survival of the human family. We must design a system that serves us.

It is worth repeating: Since we have depended upon cooperation from our earliest days as humans, it's clear to see that the greatest struggle we have engaged in has been the design of a system for making wise and fair group choices for survival and choosing appropriate leaders.

The elements of a "system" are, first, that a system must have a goal. There must be a purpose the system is addressing. The system, then should have understandable and reasoned processes within a structure for accomplishing the goal. Essentially among humans, that's having a plan. The plan must assess what resources are needed to accomplish the goal and then those resources must be gathered.

Further, in the current situation, many tasks are large and usually involve a division of labor. Those who are laboring are seldom in a position to see the full project, so there must be effective communication to and from those working. They must understand what is required in their contribution and must report back their progress and any problems encountered. Perhaps lastly, a valuable element of a human system is that it works best if the workers believe in the goal. And among humans, the best motivator is their self-interest.

The goal of our system is the survival of life, especially humans, for as long as possible, given the realities of this Universe.

And, since we are currently committed to create the elements of this survival system through a process of interacting governments, we must depend upon some premises. What elements or processes can be depended upon to increase the likelihood of our success?

With The Helper Project, we are struggling to grow mentally. In the least, we should look to our history because we have learned many things the hard way. Since we've already paid such a huge price by the pain of so many people in our past, let's at least honor their agony by not repeating the errors.

Some of the elements in the design of a good system just seem to stand out from our history and demand attention.

The one that seems most obvious is that our system of working together for survival requires openness. We cannot explore possibilities, evaluate, seek consensus and choose improvements unless we know all the facts and possible elements. Wisdom for good choices comes from correct evaluation of the entire range of facts - and it builds trust. The withholding of information or having secrets, invites fatal error.

It should be obvious, too, that if we are to "marry" our hopes to voting governments, we've decided to add the totals of the opinions of the citizens. It is on their opinions/choices that our survival depends. Effective methods of providing information and exposure to issues and candidates for leadership must be developed. Shall their choices be made from thin air or upon knowledge worthy of the fate of the human family?

The most successful system, and the one that will require the least effort to maintain it, will be one that aligns self-interest with group interest. We should avoid coercion and violence as community tools as much as possible, if voluntary positive choices can be secured. Since it is an individual with one life on Earth, group errors in exercising power on that individual cannot be rectified.

Community choices, especially for leadership, must be made as locally as possible. It must be possible for the citizens to know on a personal basis those selected for leadership in the local community. Those leaders must be a bridge to those elected for larger areas. The number of leadership positions must be reduced and the structure simplified so that citizens are not faced with choices beyond what they can easily acquire information about. If everyday citizens cannot process sufficient information to make wise choices, the concept of elections is unworkable and an invitation to failure.

There must be processes to ensure that those selected for leadership, and are exercising power in the name of the group, are acting within the rules the citizens have created for the system. When they don't, there must be prompt and effective corrective measures for the individual; and the costs belong to the community, not the individual.

Restrictive rules on behavior must be limited to our true survival needs. Any trespass over this line is an attack on individuals by government. It may deny the hopes of happiness for some. We also might fail to discover truth or detect group error. Excessive rules invite corruption that makes the system destructive, hence it destroys faith in the system. A good indicator of appropriate restrictions is that they receive massive support from the people, not simply shifting majorities - which currently in voting governments are usually minorities.

Unfairness diminishes confidence in our human system and reduces voluntary cooperation. The words liberty and fairness have become important in history for a reason, and both depend upon the existence of peace.

Since all community resources are extracted from the lives of humans, our system must be efficient and conserve resources. It must be fair and the burdens placed on individuals must be obvious and subject to public evaluation. We must know what our costs are as compared with other citizens. Only fair contributions from all will create the confidence our system requires to be effective.

The human family is awaiting now, as it has for centuries, the design and implementation of a fair, wise and effective system for preserving our survival. We have ended up where we are now: dependent upon the interaction of the governments of nearly 200 countries. And the actions of some nations, because of their power or size, are more vital than others overall - but not to those individuals stuck in the lesser systems. We are all important.

History continues to wait for the emergence of truly great nations.

CHAPTER SIX: VISION AND HOPE

As life on Earth, more especially as the human family, we are on a long journey. We would hope that the journey lasts as long as the Universe exists.

The thoughts must return to the starting point. We are individual humans and we want a happy life. Happiness can be hard to find, but the absolute first step is to survive. You must be alive to have any hope of being happy.

This Universe has fundamental principles, one of which is that to survive, you must avoid the premature death that can come from the natural actions of the forces of the Universe. Whether it's a passing star, a gamma-ray burst, a solar superflare, random muons or any of its other possible dangers, a human must avoid their capacity for causing injury or death.

Whether it's hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires, earthquakes, lightning, horrendously large volcano eruptions or any of Earth's major forces, you must plan to survive them. Whether it's toxins and poisons in plants or other life forms, such as insects or snakes, you must avoid them. Whether it's any of the many diseases that microorganisms can cause, you must avoid them or be able to treat them before they cause you serious injury or death - they may afflict millions of other people. Maybe you won't be the victim of these dangers, perhaps it will be someone you love.

So, at its most basic level, the ability to survive is reduced to this simple rule: you must secure the atoms and molecules your body needs daily as well as avoiding or being able to repair your injuries from the countless dangers this Universe contains.

We have grown enough in our knowledge to know that for the human family to exist for a billion or more years, our species will have to survive one or more of the great calamities that the Universe can cause. With our current progress, we cannot survive some of these disasters; but we must continue to study them, we might find a way. Others could be survived with proper planning.

Humans have the best hope for a future if we anticipate the dangers, cooperate to create and prepare solutions, make the wisest choices and effectively divide the labor amongst ourselves. It is the only pathway available.

During recorded human history, we have lived a charmed life relative to the destructive power of the Universe. Earlier, we had ice ages, asteroid/comet strikes and super volcano eruptions - now, we're acting as if those events never happen. They do, and the worst ones could present themselves in a relatively short period of time as a surprise to our usual reality.

It probably helps, at this point in the reasoning, to imagine how one of these terrible circumstances could develop. We can allow ourselves to consider how our thoughts and, more important, our fear impulses might guide our actions. Let's think.

Choosing one of the major calamities to illustrate our possible situation, consider the possibility of an eruption of a super volcano - since one could rumble to life at any time during the next couple of hundred thousand years. Inasmuch as there's been some minor activity recently, let's choose the one at Yellowstone Park in the US.

We might notice signs over a decade or two, or a scenario could develop where we'd have about six months warning. According to author David Keys, since 1988, the "upward pressure exerted by the magma reservoir," it is the size of Lake Michigan, has caused hundreds of square miles of land to rise by 3 feet and the pattern of geyser activity has begun to change. If we were to have events such as the ground rising daily there and frequent minor earthquakes, the media would report these occurrences.

Scientists would quickly add up the possibility that we might have a super volcano eruption coming. The public would be advised that, in the worst case, we may have sunlight blocked causing wide-spread dying of plants and that food for many or most of us may disappear if the darkness lasts years; that rainfalls may be so poisoned by gases that they turn black and acidic. Many parts of Earth may have very long droughts, followed by long-term and massive rainfalls. Now with that kind of knowledge available to the people, what happens?

Were it Yellowstone, the US would receive the worst immediate impact and, with several months of warning, how would the most militarily powerful nation act to preserve its self-interest? If we're divided, without a feeling of being a human family, everyone else is expendable.

If it unfolds the worst way, humanity may be eliminated or those remaining might be reduced to our prior status as people of the caves. The survivors could be clawing for every morsel of food and an unthinkable level of violence could occur. If we wait until a major calamity is upon us, it will be too late. Without some preparatory thought, we will not work together.

Failure to prepare means we might not have hope of survival. The value of the centuries of terrible pain endured by so many in our past, our accomplishments as well as our wishes and excitement at the possibilities of the future - all that will be lost. It may mean that all conscious life in the Universe is lost.

Our hope for survival as a human family will be created by the cumulative outcomes of the many individual choices we make now and in the future. That's choices, one by one, as we grow to 9 billion of us.

The worst problem with our simple rule - secure your basic needs, prepare for and survive the dangers of the Universe and you can pursue happiness - is caused by other humans. We permit human aggression, negligence and neglect to reduce many of our fellow humans largely to a state of continuous fear. Too often, they react with a capacity for cruelty to each other. And we fail.

Unable to work together in a unified way on the threats caused by the Universe, we are equally unable to work together to stop our self-destructive human behaviors because we are divided into groups - we're not sure we care if lots of the "other" people die. And some are desperate, hopeless and can't or won't help. Some use faulty logic passed through generations that, unexamined, seems valid. And, the fear and frustration grows: we want someone to control or hurt those we fear or that make us angry.

We've chosen government as our process to seek solutions. At one level, that can be seen as a permanent state of war with each other, using "controlled" violence. And again, since fear and frustration continue to grow, we are increasingly turning control over more and more of our choices and behaviors to government - and we argue and disagree over these issues a lot.

Accordingly, the positive behaviors we attempt to use to improve our survival chances are divided into voluntary choices or those mandated by the group through coercion and actual or threatened violence by government. Errors by the group may deprive us of pathways to happiness or prevent exploration that yields truths we need. And the corruption that often results (under-the-table government) further complicates our survival.

This puts us in our current situation: we are depending upon the interaction of nearly 200 governments to negotiate and coordinate actions that improve our survival hopes. And, as voting governments have only been developing for a very short time in our history, they remain imperfect.

At this point in their design, governments are incapable of protecting every individual, primarily because there's too many of us; there are many victims without remedies due to error or high costs - and important parts of their lives are lost. And, as voting governments are virtually always controlled by minorities, it is unclear what the nature of the principle is that we have agreed upon to empower the people making the decisions that will determine our survival.

Some of us must explore and encourage processes that will permit us to develop a highly effective community among humans. Sometimes, societies collapse because their problems become too complex for the thoughts and the resources the group can muster. That seems to be the gist of the analysis of past civilizations by Jared Diamond in his recent book "Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed." It would seem to clearly apply to organizational problems on a scale that includes the entire human family.

The circumstances we encounter here at our starting point can best be described as near gridlock. Of course, we would like to eliminate, as soon as possible, our negative human behaviors. Otherwise, the possible outcome is a form of suicide.

The reality is that, given our current level of disorder, sustained by a strong force of historical momentum and our limited available resources, the greatly needed success will not come soon. The personal efforts we make now will be but a deposit on what must be accomplished.

While successful efforts are needed sooner, it will take a long time to fully work our way through the impediments to unity. Nonetheless, humans are interdependent upon each other and, to an important degree, the other species of Earth.

It is a multi-decade, perhaps a multi-century effort just to guide the human family to a posture where they can make their best effort to survive. Then it will take a persistent and well-thought-out effort over generations to find and institute the needed solutions to our risks in the Universe. We must hope we have the time.

During this interim or transition period, we must figure out how to focus our efforts as helpers to encourage as much cooperation as possible and to make the best use of available human resources to provide as much hope of survival as we can. While we cannot soon maximize human chances of survival, we can improve our chances.

Worse, during this period, as we transform ourselves from self-destructive humans in self-destructive societies to an effectively cooperating human family, capable of directly addressing our true problems, so many people will continue to be victims needlessly. Every improvement will lessen the number of people that endure the pain of our failures.

Accordingly, one focus for those in The Helper Project should be to help as many individuals to survive the continuing and coming dangers, while we assist humans in seeking to solve the complex problems that prevent us from resolving our differences. Now that we're beginning to understand the maze we're wandering in, each new victim is created simply because of our failure to think things through correctly. We can save many of them.

We'll probably find that our first priority should be eliminating all forms of aggression, so that we can seriously reduce the level of fear that feeds human cruelty. Next, we'll want to extend our world economy to create a place for everyone to earn the basics of life. Finally, one of our earliest steps should address our mismanagement in the uses of atoms and molecules, before we damage too much of the water, air and soil, and needlessly endanger lives.

As we are progressing through that mind-numbing agenda of critical problems demanding solutions, we must not lose our concentration on supporting the research efforts that form our knowledge needed to improve our survival hopes. Especially critical are major areas of science and medicine. Available excess labor should be encouraged to join these areas as their results directly enable us to survive the perils of the Universe.

To create our maximum chance of survival, we must properly manage the elements of life on Earth. Our assets are the Earth, its atmosphere, all forms of life, our thoughts guided by our knowledge and our labor.

A really serious problem is that we cannot effectively "just get to work," because we do not agree. We do not agree on what the problems are. We do not agree on which solutions are wise. And we must seek actions through the complex processes of nearly 200 governments that have not yet perfected themselves in their design to serve people. They must and will act in their self-interest as they perceive it; and they will not agree on the priorities for this effort. We need help.

At least we know where our help comes from. The only help available comes from our fellow humans. And to secure as much help as possible, we must understand them somewhat. All of this effort must be managed within the parameters of the realities of our characteristics and abilities as humans. And being honest about reality is our best friend.

We must allow for the fact that humans must and will expend their energies and efforts in pursuit of the basics of life daily. They must secure the atoms and molecules in food, water and air. They need shelter and medical care. And modern human social structure has added the needs of transportation, communication and energy forms.

If our daily crises are dealt with, we next turn our attention to the happy experiences and joys this amazing condition of life offers to those able to discover them. We are that very special thing called humans, with that very special mental state called consciousness; it permits us an existence wherein we can choose to live beyond a level of mere interacting chemical molecules. We can seek happiness.

The people of The Helper Project will advocate that an important part of our time and resources that are not needed for our daily crises could, should and must be expended on ensuring the further growth of knowledge of the dangers of the Universe and the preparation to survive those threats. And we must bring to the attention of our fellow humans the behaviors we acquired that are preventing us from effectively and efficiently addressing those threats to our survival.

Unfortunately, most of our fellow humans will ignore those of us involved in this process. Currently, very few are in a position to provide us much help. They are so overwhelmed in the pursuit of basics as well as that many also fear that change will take what little they have. They will not only be unhelpful but they may be hostile.

Others may feel forced into the systems they are currently in. Those systems make meaning, purpose and happiness hard to find. They are discouraged and may have lost hope.

This means that, in the beginning, we must search for those capable and willing to make a commitment to helping create the system of relationships that are needed by the human family to seek to survive. And here, it seems helpful to assert a formula: people are changed by a vision and empowered by hope. Therefore, we must first share visions and those who can help will come forward.

The information should enable a human seeking the vision to focus on what's important in order to reach or achieve the possibilities of that vision. It should correctly reveal the problems to be encountered in seeking the goal.

An accurate vision enables us to effectively pass the goal from generation to generation. Future generations can keep on target if they see the goal clearly. Like the baton pass in track, this multi-generational effort requires vision that sustains efforts into the future. Or we lose time and some hope.

A survival vision encourages awareness of the problems of survival and the dimensions of the situation we face. It is a view of what was, is now and what may be ahead. It is not a set of answers; it's a sharing of facts, and analysis as to their possible implications or possible conclusions.

A survival vision encourages a "big picture" concept and, when an extremely valid vision is developed, the actions required will become obvious. Thereafter, actions may progress by consensus and massive cooperation. And then, we might succeed.

Perhaps the final statement that must be made about a survival vision is that the right vision completes the critical formula. Since people are changed by a vision, it is the vision itself that gives us hope.

If we are correctly seeing our situation, we can begin to envision solutions. And, it is solutions that will permit us to survive. An accurate vision unites people and helps place a priority on cooperation.

We are empowered by hope. We are able to exert so much more energy, and to sustain it for so much longer, if we have hope that our efforts will succeed. The right vision will also provide so much more confidence in our actions as a response.

Cooperation for survival has a long history among humans, but previously it was applied in groups. Now, we need cooperation applied to a group defined as the entire human family. A world where this type of cooperation is possible must be built by people committed to it and willing to work for it.

We must be motivated to work as a human family because we are at risk from the forces of the Universe, the actions of our fellow humans, other organisms, natural catastrophes and our own mental errors. We must free ourselves from negative self-destructive behaviors so that our maximum effort can be directed at our true problem -- the realities of this Universe. All of our hope begins with an effective vision that can be shared by all the members of the human family.

At the most fundamental level, all mentally healthy people are essentially alike. They desire to survive and they seek their critical needs to stay alive. All hopes for personal happiness in this life begin at that point.

For humans, if we're a family, each birth should be a treasure. What mentally healthy person doesn't want to ensure that each child receives food, good water, medical care and survival skills for a system built upon a world economy? What mentally healthy person doesn't want to ensure that a woman has help in pregnancy or child birth? What mentally healthy person doesn't want to ensure available cures or pain relief to the disabled, the injured or the old and dying? And, what mentally healthy person doesn't want to help ensure the survival of the human family?

We are dealing with the residuals of our human history and the realities of our Universe. The choices made in our past have created much of our present circumstances and our coming choices will have the defining impact on our future.

Fortunately, a growing number of people are beginning to understand. The problem is: How do we make everyone in the human family part of "our group"? When we see the truth that we have a common purpose and that we can best confront our risks from the Universe together, we have our best hope. And that is the situation in our human family today.

We will fix our "system" eventually, otherwise we will not survive. The question is not will we evolve the necessary and effective system, but how long will it take? And will we do it in time to adequately prepare for the catastrophic events we know are coming?

The clock is ticking on the survival hopes of the human family. And, as for our situation as individuals, how many people will endure terrible agony or unfairness before the rescue squad arrives?

THE END