The world is getting...

[regnauld]

---

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.

[regnauld]

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.








My kids n

[regnauld]

The world can get either better or worse, revolutionaries have always told us. But these days, the world seems to be getting both better and worse at the same time.

Most observers would argue that things are getting better for some but worse for others. And that's certainly the case with one world trend: the growing gap between rich and poor. But even as the rich get richer, there is plenty of evidence that the poor are also better off than they were a half century ago.

The most telling data on this is longevity. United Nations data show that from 1950 to 1990 human life expectancy at birth rose almost 30 years, despite some 150 bloody conflicts.

Other data show that human fertility is rapidly falling, suggesting that the population time bomb is going to defuse itself.

And finally money, virtually inaccessible to vast areas of the world only fifty years ago, now circulates everywhere. There is almost no place so isolated or backward where a family cannot access money and the life-giving remedies it affords.

A century ago when poverty was seen as virtually irresolvable a few visionaries -- especially Karl Marx -- predicted it could be resolved. Ironically, with the spread of money, it has been resolved. Just about anything can be manufactured or grown in almost unlimited quantities and even, in one way or another, distributed.

Environmentalists charge that nature sets absolute limits to consumer capitalism's capacity. But the eager minds of capitalism's designers are already plotting to use nature's limitless energy -- like the sun's -- to make even more commodities available for centuries to come.

At the recent Rome food conference Marxists joined the Pope in denouncing maldistribution of wealth as the main reason for persisting hunger and poverty. But capitalism has also learned how to make limitless quantities of seemingly inflation-proof money that buys ever greater quantities of goods and services.

Longer life, stabilizing populations and magic money are big reasons why the world's condition is getting better. Yet for all the advances in material affluence, there is a growing sense that something is wrong. Post-modernists argue that progress has lost its meaning. The real answer is that while capitalism has succeeded in improving people's material condition, it has failed to produce a moral order. And without moral order people feel deprived of the three human values essential to their sense of well being -- love, work and justice.

From its beginnings, capitalism has preached one fundamental value -- greed. Its main philosophy, utilitarianism, argues that universal greed will produce universal affluence. What it failed to account for is the destructive power of greed.

Where love recognizes the existence of another being outside oneself, greed pivots on the self. Where work finds its ultimate value in creating community, greed forswears any and all communal ties. Where justice accords everyone a place, greed envisions no place other than for the self.

In the last two centuries revolutionary socialism and communism arose as violent reactions against the massive tilt by capitalism towards the self. Now the revolutionary torch has passed to fundamentalist religions -- especially Islam and Evangelical Christianity. Whether from the left or the right, the revolutionary impulse is to wrench the pendulum back to some communal imperative.

But revolutions, as history has shown, don't in themselves resolve anything. As revolutionary communist and fundamentalist regimes alike have discovered, as soon as morality comes into power, greed -- the hunger for material affluence -- comes right back in through the back door.

The world today takes its direction from forces at the bottom as well as at the top -- proof that its condition is getting both better and worse. Only when material affluence and moral order are available to all will the world grow better and not worse at the same time.

Source:
Why the World Seems to Be Getting Better and Worse at the Same Time
Originally Published 12-31-96

[pugak_79]

The world can get either better or worse, revolutionaries have always told us. But these days, the world seems to be getting both better and worse at the same time.

Most observers would argue that things are getting better for some but worse for others. And that's certainly the case with one world trend: the growing gap between rich and poor. But even as the rich get richer, there is plenty of evidence that the poor are also better off than they were a half century ago.

The most telling data on this is longevity. United Nations data show that from 1950 to 1990 human life expectancy at birth rose almost 30 years, despite some 150 bloody conflicts.

Other data show that human fertility is rapidly falling, suggesting that the population time bomb is going to defuse itself.

And finally money, virtually inaccessible to vast areas of the world only fifty years ago, now circulates everywhere. There is almost no place so isolated or backward where a family cannot access money and the life-giving remedies it affords.

A century ago when poverty was seen as virtually irresolvable a few visionaries -- especially Karl Marx -- predicted it could be resolved. Ironically, with the spread of money, it has been resolved. Just about anything can be manufactured or grown in almost unlimited quantities and even, in one way or another, distributed.

Environmentalists charge that nature sets absolute limits to consumer capitalism's capacity. But the eager minds of capitalism's designers are already plotting to use nature's limitless energy -- like the sun's -- to make even more commodities available for centuries to come.

At the recent Rome food conference Marxists joined the Pope in denouncing maldistribution of wealth as the main reason for persisting hunger and poverty. But capitalism has also learned how to make limitless quantities of seemingly inflation-proof money that buys ever greater quantities of goods and services.

Longer life, stabilizing populations and magic money are big reasons why the world's condition is getting better. Yet for all the advances in material affluence, there is a growing sense that something is wrong. Post-modernists argue that progress has lost its meaning. The real answer is that while capitalism has succeeded in improving people's material condition, it has failed to produce a moral order. And without moral order people feel deprived of the three human values essential to their sense of well being -- love, work and justice.

From its beginnings, capitalism has preached one fundamental value -- greed. Its main philosophy, utilitarianism, argues that universal greed will produce universal affluence. What it failed to account for is the destructive power of greed.

Where love recognizes the existence of another being outside oneself, greed pivots on the self. Where work finds its ultimate value in creating community, greed forswears any and all communal ties. Where justice accords everyone a place, greed envisions no place other than for the self.

In the last two centuries revolutionary socialism and communism arose as violent reactions against the massive tilt by capitalism towards the self. Now the revolutionary torch has passed to fundamentalist religions -- especially Islam and Evangelical Christianity. Whether from the left or the right, the revolutionary impulse is to wrench the pendulum back to some communal imperative.

But revolutions, as history has shown, don't in themselves resolve anything. As revolutionary communist and fundamentalist regimes alike have discovered, as soon as morality comes into power, greed -- the hunger for material affluence -- comes right back in through the back door.

The world today takes its direction from forces at the bottom as well as at the top -- proof that its condition is getting both better and worse. Only when material affluence and moral order are available to all will the world grow better and not worse at the same time.

Source:
Why the World Seems to Be Getting Better and Worse at the Same Time
Originally Published 12-31-96

Nice one. But don't you think it's really getting out of control after thirteen years?

[regnauld]

Nice one. But don't you think it's really getting out of control after thirteen years?

It depends on your PERCEPTION and CONSCIOUSNESS!

[Angel Sky]

OT.
@sir Regnauld..thank you sa pag post_sa mga pictures sir ,they're so beautiful , breathtaking.


@pugak_79... one of my friends gave me a bookmarker ...w/ a message,

"There is a way of changing the world by changing ourselves".

I'm not really good at explaining things,you know...pls. just read between the lines .

I planted some roses. ..kung dool pa lang unta ta, tagaan ta ka ..free.

[Angel Sky]

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

sir Regnauld, I love this song.thank you sa pag post ani.

[handsoff241]

I planted some roses. ..kung dool pa lang unta ta, tagaan ta ka ..free.

Can I have some too?
Our rose died when mama left () she was the only one who keeps on watering it everyday.
Which reminds me... the world is indeed getting worst.

[miyay]

^ it's not really the world, handsoff241, that killed the rose. the rose died because you didn't water it daily.
@angel sky: can i have some roses, too? my mother likes them

[pugak_79]

OT.
@sir Regnauld..thank you sa mga pictures sir ,they're so beautiful , breathtaking.


@pugak_79... one of my friends gave me a bookmarker ...w/ a message,

"There is a way of changing the world by changing ourselves".

I'm not really good at explaining things,you know...pls. just read between the lines .

I planted some roses. ..kung dool pa lang unta ta, tagaan ta ka ..free.

Gawd! Don't you love this conversation?? Thanks. You're sooo sweet. We should date some time. Do u like chinese food? I'm not good at explaining things either. Maybe I'm a realist, i dunno