Re: What is at the root of man's Discontent and Malaise?

On Nov 5, 5:10 am, "Jong Kim" <rh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write.
They are those that can not learn, unlearn, relearn.

~~Alvin Toffler, author of *Future Shock*

"The maps of the world drawn by medieval cartographers were so
hopelessly inaccurate, so filled with factual error, that they elicit
condescending smiles today when [almost the] entire surface of the
earth has been charted. Yet the great explorers could never have
discovered the New World without them. Nor could the better, more
accurate maps of today been drawn until men, working with the limited
evidence available to them, set down on paper their bold conceptions
of worlds they have never seen."

-Toffler, Future Shock

Punchline:
The Lost Horizon
http://federation.g3z.com/FedSeries/TV04/10.htm

Excerpt from section 2 "Understimulation and Future Shock":
"Very few people are aware that Toffler, in Future Shock, discussed
this problem in depth. Even though the entire point of the book was
the overstimulation of a future coming too fast, there was an obscure,
but highly revealing, passage written on the converse problem. [Future
Shock, Bantam edition, in the footnotes following Chapter 16] ..."

'The emphasis in this chapter has been on the problem of
overstimulation. What is striking to anyone who reads through the
scientific literature is the similarity of human response to both high
AND low stimulation. Apparently, when men are pushed either above or
below the adaptive range, they exhibit some of the same symptoms of
distress... [Discussing a particular instance of this] Many exhibited
extremely short tempers, flaring easily into anger... repeated
references to 'polar ennui' and frequent symptoms of withdrawal and
deadly apathy.'

'To sum up: when the levels of environmental stimulation or change
falls below a certain point, the individual is forced below his
adaptive range, he suffers distinct distress and takes action to
increase the level of stimulation.'

===============

"Whatever gulf separates the rich from the poor, an even greater gulf
separates the armed from the unarmed and the ignorant from the
educated... despite all inequities of wealth and income, the coming
struggle for power will increasingly turn into a struggle over the
distribution of and access to knowledge"
-- Toffler, Powershift

The punchline:
http://federation.g3z.com/FedSeries/FallOfMankind/05.htm

"The control of knowledge is the crux of tomorrow's worldwide struggle
for power in every human institution"
-- Toffler, Powershift

http://federation.g3z.com/FedSeries/FallOfMankind/08.htm

"When power systems are far from equilibrial, sudden, seeming bizarre
shifts may occur. This is because when a system or subsystem is highly
unstable, nonlinear effects multiply."
-- Toffler, Powershift
http://federation.g3z.com/FedSeries/FallOfMankind/09.htm

"A redistribution of knowledge is even more impotant than, and can
lead to, a redistribution of other power sources."
-- Toffler, Powershift
http://federation.g3z.com/FedSeries/TV04/09.htm

"The manufacture of goods - autos, radios, tractors, TV sets - was
seen as male or "macho", and words like practical, realistic, or
hardheaded were associated with it. By contrast, the production of
knowledge or the exchange of information was typically disparaged as
mere "paper pushing" and seen as wimpy or - even worse - effeminate...
What all this added up to was ... a self-reinforcing, self-justifying
ideology based on a kind of macho materialism - a brash, triumphant
"material-ismo"! ... There was a time when material-ismo may have made
sense. Today, when the real value of most products lies in the
knowledge embedded in them, it is both reactionary and imbecile. Any
country that, out of choice, pursues policies based on materialism
condemns itself to becoming the Bangladesh of the 21st century."
- Toffler, Powershift

The punchlines...
http://federation.g3z.com/FedSeries/FallOfMankind/07.htm
http://federation.g3z.com/FedSeries/TV04/08.htm

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