Where Does Our World Go?

By Hans Kalff

We all have but one world. We should make this a better place for present people and for our future generations. How? Nobody knows for sure. However we can learn from past developments that seem to have worked giving people a worthy life, liberty and property.

Look at the nine slices of society that exist everywhere, given sufficient data to measure their effect, searching for the upward trends.

About the Kalff-o-gram: the graph on the front-page shows in the center the upward development of the gross domestic product per head from 1950 = 100 to 2000 = 2827 in the Netherlands. The 100% box on top of this line indicates the change in the mix of 4 groups of workers: agriculture (orange), industry (white), government (blue) and services (red). The 100% box under this line shows their output or contribution to g.d.p.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Aug 23, 2004
• ISBN: 9781466958821

Hans Kalff

In his active life Hans worked within international companies like Unilever and Heineken. Hans Kalff has learned how a person takes his daily decisions, and forms societies that nobody seems to steer. Positive developments can be seen by measuring what people do rather than what people say they do. Retired, he continues to follow the upward developmemts in his nine slices of society. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Book preview

WHERE DOES OUR WORLD GO ?

Looking behind the nine slices of society©

Hans Kalff

The past : our joint experience

The future : wisely we can make life better

© Copyright 2004 Hans Kalff. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

A cataloguing record for this book that includes the U.S. Library of Congress Classification number, the Library of Congress Call number and the Dewey Decimal cataloguing code is available from the National Library of Canada. The complete cataloguing record can be obtained from the National Library’s online database at: www.nlc-bnc.ca/amicus/index-e.html

ISBN: 978-1-4120-2866-0 (Softcover)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-5882-1 (Ebook)

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Contents

Introduction

For whom?

Some philosophy: to create the right atmosphere

See society from above

Flywheel effect

Life in general

Evolution

Something about chaos

Mapping chaos

Dynamic systems: a new class of thinking

The opposite of chaos is order

Basics of this study: the past is the starting point

The future: the road we are going, but we do not know when we arrive.

At the very end

The BIO slice

What is life? Life is a rare ingredient in the whole universe.

Some philosophy: what life is about

Can artificial life be some help ?

Evolution: what science saw

Nature: life-giving mystery

Life phases: you are changing.

The world population of human beings, as seen from above

Environment: part of our life

History: impressive in its race for survival

Health: free from illnesses and stress

Nowadays: better than ever

The World: people of planet earth

Some information about the USA: the # 1 country with an advanced lifestyle

Some information about the Netherlands: a small country (population size of Florida)

The future: some problems

The future: some opportunities, if we acknowledge them.

The SOCIO slice

General: more living space

Mankind as a social being

In the past: 90% of the population suffered some form of slavery

Human rights: a slow moving process, worth fighting for

Some SOCIO developments of the past in the USA:

The future: great opportunities for the individual who knows his possibilities

Household: the family core

The family in the future: more individualists

The individual: society’s best innovator

What will stay?

Cities in the future

The POWER slice

General: the people are taking control

Government: you (the one who votes) delegate power to whoever you think is doing his best to participate in a good government.

The job of governments: govern or do something

In the past: It took a long time to learn how to govern.

War: nations could not avoid war.

Democracy: invented at the time of the French revolution; only 200 years old

The future: it is a long way to……the Unites States of the World

The TECHNO slice

General: Value added to what we make. how to make money?

The market: our target group: the customer/consumer

Workers: after all they do it

In the past: how is the world developing?

Farmers: fewer people manage to feed us including exports to those in need.

In the past: industry: motors of welfare

Industry: The money motor of the 20th century

Services: the future if you are clever enough

Technology: the underlying reason that efficiency is increasing fast: a person can be more productive.

The future: wide open if we all want to

Companies. : they shall organize the future.

Caption 1: The Western world

Caption 2: USA

Caption 3 : the Netherlands

The TRADE slice

General: buying, buying, buying

History: scarcity, poverty, want are slowly disappearing

How are consumers faring in the USA?

USA : how income is being spent

Data from the Netherlands : How the Dutch consumer is faring ?

The consumer in his/her future home

Some classifications of consumers

Some more in the future : what a prospect !

What will stay

The INFO slice

General: ideas turn into words; words turn into ideas

Language

Information

Communication

Internet

Caption 1

Television

Caption 2

Transportation

The future

In short

The RECREO slice

General: do what you want

In the past: Sunday afternoon strolls in a park

Sports

Entertainment

Tourism.

Contact with nature

The future: more fun

In short

The PSYCHO slice

General: what does learning mean?

History : what have we learned ?

Data USA: a huge learning school

Data Netherlands : a guide country ?

Future : more consultants

Tools for learning

Services we all need : service in the first place

The future:

The basic school : where it all starts

Advanced education: we need more of it

Higher and university education: we need more and more of it

In short: some alternative tools

Computers: the extension of our brains

Children : how we all started

The CULTU slice

General: purpose in life

In the past : It took a long time to get our culture, whereit is today. But change is accelerating in a dizzying pace

Democracy in the USA

Volunteers

The future : moving towards a world culture

Measuring society

Summing up

What have we learned? Society has gone its own way

The past: go west young man and follow the sun.

The future : why forecasting ?

Our way to look at the future

The 9 slices of society© : the qualitative forecast

Some long, long-term trends

Wise words from Michael Zey

A few ideas : The FUTURE

Help sought for improvement

Famous last words

Caption 2

Postface

Introduction

For whom?

++++++++++

It is unbelievable the amount of money that we have loaned from our grandchildren. They will have to earn and pay back our loans including the interest. So we owe a lot to our grandchildren. The author prepared this book in particular for his grandchildren and in general for all the grandchildren in the world.

Here is a guide to the future to give them a better start.

In a new perspective, it will demonstrate the society we live in. In a way it is not taught in school, nor mentioned by your parents.

This is the handbook how society has been developing over the past 2-3 centuries, with particular emphasis on the last 50 years of the second millennium. Society has a life of its own and tracing its past can give a clue for the future.

It is a changing world, not a predetermined one by stars or gods who decide without our cooperation.

People want certainty. Who is providing that when few people know what is going on? Society is complicated. Who shall explain this in an understandable way?

So this is:

The handbook of society’s future

Some philosophy: to create the right atmosphere

+++++++++++++

We have learned to apply certain truths that we can give names like laws.

Law of unintended results: change is effected, but unexpected side effects have not been foreseen. Law of preservation of distress: with all good intentions to improve results, the outcome is distressing. Exceptions confirm the rule: In society certain rules have been accepted: sometimes you have to deviate from these rules, but still the rules remain valid for most cases. We concentrate on essentials and let inessentials to the side

We shall look at the better end of mankind. Yet we fully realize that greed and self-interest are prime motivators for individuals. The influence of these is hard to measure. Moreover society will not allow that it predominates. We try to concentrate on positive workings in society. Yet we realize that negative affairs exist like crime, poverty etc. These social ideas will be used to explain the developments of the recent past of society. It will be the guide what is going to happen in the future.

See society from above

++++++++++++++++++

How shall we get an idea about society?

By helicoptering or even better by taking a trip to the moon.

When you stand at the moon and look at our planet Earth, what do you see? A blue sphere with white clouds. No surprise because 70 % of the earth surface is covered with water. What about the other 30 %? The parts on which 6 billion people live? It is hardly visible becausemost of the time the (moving) clouds are hiding the earth. If we move to the International Space Station we are going to see a lot more: landmasses, rivers, mountains but very little that could indicate that 6 billion people live here. The first thing we see: the Great Wall in China where building has started around 1100 AD and its final stage finished some 300 years later. Nothing of modern building like bridges, skyscrapers. The first modern feature shall be the Great dam and reservoir, being built from 1994 till it will be finished by 2009 and located again ... in China.

That is what you see. But think of what you can hear (given the right equipment): a cacophony of signals, advertising vivid life on earth.

On earth we are so close to all the details of daily life, that we are confused about the details: are there trends or recurring events? Does history repeat itself or not? Valid questions. But we invite you to take our helicopter and see society from afar. But first some details you should be aware of.

Flywheel effect

++++++++++++

We have noted a flywheel effect, when we are measuring certain developments that are recorded by official statistical organizations. It means that yearly increases over longer periods show a definite trend. Okay, we accept that one or two years the development is slightly reversed or held back. The more interesting ones: the gradual increasing time series indicating a positive trend. Also you find decreasing trends, but they are less interesting for the future. So we concentrate on positive trends. And as times go by, we follow every next year if the trend holds up. One or two years may show a slight decrease. Very likely some year in the future the line will bend. So if two or three consecutive years show a decline we must take in consideration that the trend in the future shall decrease rather than increase. This has helped to determine which results in society are worth keeping for our map and its use in the future. We have found that new trends have a slow start that keep accelerating till the point that it levels off. Most of the time a new trend is under way. Statisticians call this a logistical curve.

Life in general

+++++++++++

In the universe life seems to be a very rare ingredient. Even though on earth we see much life like many plants, animals and 6.000.000.000 people, not forgetting bacteria, viruses and insects. They all share a period of growth followed by a period of decline and always ending in death. Strange as it may seem: mountains seem to have a life as well: they have been pushed up and then slowly deteriorate through erosion. Even fossilized stone turns in time to dust. Nature therefore brings life and ...death.

We are still waiting for an all-embracing theory of evolution and self-organization. Some predict that such a theory shall be available in 20 to 30 years. We cannot wait for that so we bring our own collection of thoughts. Self-organization is the power or motor in biology and natural selection is the power or motor that makes for the direction that life is following. Outside life we can give an example of a self-organized system: If you have a pile of thin sand. You add some more sand, which falls along the sides. For the rest nothing happens. Suddenly when you add only one grain of sand and the whole side begins to slide and run. So the difference of one grain can mean: nothing or a small slide or a large landslide. You can count how many times each of these 3 occurrences takes place In society you find a law of power in the average frequency of traffic jams comparable to the pattern of our pile of sand or the avalanche of a mountain. It is the balance between stability and fluidity. The end of a law of power is when e.g. fossils show that a living species have died out. There must be sufficient living species.

Living things have a genotype or building blocks that make them alive. The phenotype is the way we see these species from the outside. The human genotypes have recently been discovered in the DNA book. The scientists know the blocks, but they must give meaning to these blocks, interpret them to see how they work and what can be done to change them. We do not want the blocks that lead to cancer. A genotype determines the phenotype in a non-linear way, because there is a relation of causal necessity.

It is curious to note that all life is more or less shaped in the form of a cylinder, whatever the stage of their development. Streamline is apparently necessary. Moreover it seems that systems do collaborate to produce life, but never in an optimal way. Nature okays a workable solution. (People however want an optimized solution, if they can get it) Their systems are never balanced, because balance means death. Their internal models are the building blocks for behavior. It is known that most of our outside cells are completely renewed every 7 years. So it is a small wonder that we remember very small details from our early youth. How do our brains work? Our senses make perceptions; our synapses or perception channels are being trained and are a contact where a spark or sinew impulse jumps across to be stored somewhere in our gray brain mass. Our experiences take care of a positive feedback, so that after a few trials we start to do them automatically. Just as in artificial neural networks we have hidden layers that weigh our sensations, giving the reactions more or less importance. If we do not use our experience, it will die. Still it is an amazing feat that after learning a foreign language when you are young, not using it for several years it shall come back readily when you happen to stay some time in the country of that foreign language.

As explained by M. Mitchell Waldrop in the book the Edge of chaos, life is positioned at the edge of chaos. But first something about evolution.

Evolution

++++++++

How does evolution work? Changes are random + selection is competitive. That means organisms change in an unpredictable way. Thereafter selection decides what is useful for the species in relation to its environment and what not. The latter part dies.

Society improves thanks to specialization. Think of division of labor.

Unlike religion leaders, scientists have indicated that our human species-you, other people and I-have a long history, passing through various stages: first some fishy characteristics, then some land properties like movement, crawling and finally walking upright. It has taken millions