In the News (CNN): “A small group of ultra-wealthy individuals could help solve world hunger with just a fraction of their net worth, says the director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

“Billionaires need to “step up now, on a one-time basis”, said David Beasley in an interview on CNN’s Connect the World with Becky Anderson that aired Tuesday — citing specifically the world’s two richest men, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

“‘$6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated,’ he added.”

My Response: No amount of money can feed people. Everything will be stolen along the way. The number of people that should die, will die.

Comment: We are talking only about 2022, and then we will need more, more and more.

My Response: Every time more and more.

Question: Will people starve more and more every year?

Answer: Of course. There will be great abundance and at the same time great shortage in everything, in basic products, such as bread, water, and rice, the things that people need.

Question: So you do not think there will be a general lack of everything. Will there be reserves somewhere and everything will be in plenitude?

Answer: And huge armies will guard these reserves, and next to them the hungry people will be dying of hunger. It will be very open. All this will be in the news. People will see all this and say, “How sorry we are for these starving people.” And do nothing.

Comment: Please reveal the plans of egoism to us. It is so insidious.

My Response: Egoism in no way aims to satisfy us, but only to teach us how to act. It is in order for us to realize that our dependence on each other is our problem, but this is also our salvation.

That is, if we can rise above this problem, come to connection and use it correctly for our unification, then we will understand why this is given to us, and we will be grateful that this is happening.

Question: What is the conclusion? What should happen in order for humanity not to starve more and more? And an understanding of what?

Answer: Understanding that this is not happening so that we do not starve, but because we have to unite. We must unite.

Question: Will humanity understand this?

Answer: With a stick to happiness.

Question: Are you saying that it can only be understood through many famines?

Answer: Perhaps through many famines. Baal HaSulam talks about the third and fourth World Wars, which will be atomic ones.

Question: Why is egoism so unbending?!

Answer: This is nature. This is nature that we do not even know, do not attain, and cannot imagine. You can beat it as much as you want, but it remains the same.

Comment: It feels like nothing can conquer it.

My Response: Nothing can conquer it. There is only one upper force. If you can attract it, then it will sweeten this egoism, and you will be able to use it correctly.

Question: Does it mean that you do not believe in any corporeal plans?

Answer: There can be no good corporeal plans!

Question: Then what are we building them for? We are making all these plans, the future of the countries, the future of whatever you want. Is this also egoism pushing us?

Answer: Because we exist in this, we live in this, we do not see anything else, and this is what we do. We believe that we can do something and we do not understand that we are moving from bankruptcy to bankruptcy.

We have nothing else left, not for humanity, nor for you and me. We just understand why there is nothing left. Because we have already reached rock bottom, as they say. This is it! We have come to a clear understanding of the cause, effect, and end of everything. The world, however, does not understand. But it nevertheless has nowhere to go.

Comment: You also have nowhere to go. You have to keep saying this to the world, drop by drop.

My Response: I need people who can put this into the right words so that they shake the world after all. To shake up all of humanity somehow.

When we reach absolute despair, we will finally discover that only rising above our egoism, changing our nature, can save us. Then this action will happen!

Question: No money can save us?

Answer: What money?! It is the last thing.

Question: Why, then, does this illusion exist? Everyone has this small hope that these plans can be implemented, that money will help.

Answer: Because humanity has nothing else! Nothing! Therefore, what can we hope for? We need to ensure that there is a government reserve, a family reserve, or something like that.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/18/21

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My new article on Linkedin “Madness Not a Winning Strategy”

The current mindset of sustaining the economy by pushing for endless shopping is not capitalism; it’s madness. If we want to go on living, we must adopt more rational priorities and values.

On the one hand, the media and every pundit with a microphone or a laptop tell us that prices are rising because disruptions in supply chains and shortage of computer chips have slowed production and distribution while demand is on the rise. As a result, prices are soaring. At the same time, we throw out more than half of what we produce, and even what we do buy, we throw away while it is still working perfectly fine, just in order to get a newer model. This is not a capitalistic economy; it is senseless madness.

This is why I was so happy when Covid came along. It forced us to stop the mad shopping and frantic traveling, give Earth some time to breathe, and give ourselves some time for one another. But once vaccines became available, we let the shopping monster out of the cage and now we cannot cage it anymore. With tooth and nail, we are fighting to keep up the insanity. But Omicron is proof that nature has many tricks up its sleeve. We may fight it tooth and nail, but nature will keep fighting back until we have no teeth or nails.

We are depleting our resources, both natural and human, increasing our debt, both personal and national, and we are living with a mindset of “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die.” But madness is not a winning strategy; it will end in war or in another form of complete destruction.

If we want to live to see more tomorrows, we must change our mindset. It is time to rise to a higher level of existence. Endless shopping has exhausted itself, and now we must look a little deeper.

To look deeper, we need to change our value system. If we let the media keep telling us to shop till we drop, this is what we will do. We need to make the media tell us a different story, one where people enjoy other things, such as each other’s company, or prosperous and supportive communities. Just as we currently let the media teach us that we are worth only as much as we make, we can make it tell us that we are worth only as much as we care—about each other.

If we start thinking more about each other and less about ourselves, we will not need to constantly affirm our self-worth by buying more stuff that we do not really need. Instead, we will buy what we need for comfortable living rather than buying for emotional comfort or to boost our confidence.

If we adopt this mindset, there will be no over-demand, no disruptions of supply chains, and no shortage of anything. Producers will not only have to produce less and lower their prices, they will not want to exploit and charge more than they need to because their approach to people will change from exploitation to connection.

In that regard, an intriguing research was recently published by Northeastern University. The researchers, Shanyu Kates and David DeSteno, examined the effects of gratitude on people. They distinguished gratitude from a general feeling of contentment, which could be driven by selfish motivations and did not prove to have any impact on people’s social or environmental behavior. Gratitude, they discovered, made people more considerate of others and decreased their propensity to overconsume. They concluded that gratitude “may be useful in promoting sustainable behavior,” and aptly titled their research, “Gratitude reduces consumption of depleting resources.”

I sincerely hope that in the coming year, before it is too late, we will acknowledge that nurturing mutual care rather than alienation and competition is our only way to guarantee our future in a positive way, and that all other roads lead to scarcity and further madness.
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Filed under: Economy, New Publications - No Comments →

Freedom is the right to inequality.

Equality (if it is understood more broadly than purely formal legal term “equal rights”) and freedom are incompatible things. By nature, people are not equal, equality can only be achieved through violence, which will always be an alignment to the lowest level.

It is possible to equalize the poor with the rich, but only by taking away from the rich his wealth.
It is possible to equalize the weak with the strong, but only by taking away from the strong his strength.
It is possible to equalize the fool with the clever, but only by turning the wisdom from dignity into a blemish.

The society of universal equality is a society of the poor, the weak and the foolish, based on violence (Nikolai Berdyaev).

My Response: This is what they tried to build in his country. But it is impossible. By this you deprive a person of the opportunity to move forward. After all, he measures himself in relation to others. And if there is no competition, there is degradation.

I am for competition but for good, right competition so that you are better than him, and he is better than you. And it becomes better, better, and better every time, kinder, smarter, and so on. And then you would like to become the same and even more than that.

Question: Is this good?

Answer: Of course. Look what you stimulate by this. And today’s competitiveness is destructive. Ask people: who do they recognize today as great people? They will tell you: officials, billionaires, and that’s it.

Question: Why does humanity have such a dream all the time to come to a society of equals?

Answer: Because it is the only hope. And all other societies are ugly. I am speaking theoretically. Nature strives for balance. Nature abhors a vacuum. And so we want to come to this equality.

Question: But it is impossible. Or is it?

Answer: What we find, on the other hand, is impossible. But! Man can rise above nature and bring it to balance. To ensure that everyone is happy—each by himself, in his own right—and that everyone is equal, each in its own way. That is, the problem in definitions begins here: how can incompatibility be compatible? This we must learn.

Question: That is, will we be equal in the happiness that we will feel?

Answer: If I think about the happiness of others, then I will achieve my own happiness.

Question: Is this what you call a society of equals?

Answer: It is a society of balance.

Question: Then once again: the definition of happiness for you, if possible?

Answer: Happiness is when I can make others happy. Unbelievable?

Comment: And at the same time it is impossible. But people will feel good and warm to hear it.

My Response: Because it is pleasant for them that people around are kind to them. It is good for a person egoistically. But in fact, it is very difficult to become that way.

Question: But is it necessary?

Answer: We will discover very soon that it is necessary.

Comment: You keep saying that one way or another, humanity will come to this.

My Response: It is the bright future for all mankind.

Question: So one way or another, sooner or later, I will come to the point that I will be happy because I make others happy?

Answer: Yes, that is precisely the correct definition of happiness. It is characterized by a balanced society.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/30/21

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “No Way to Unscramble Scrambled Eggs”

On March 8, 2009, during the financial crisis that became known as the Great Recession, then Wachovia Corp. economist Mark Vitner described the world’s jumbled economies quite aptly: “It’s like trying to unscramble scrambled eggs. It just can’t be done that easily. I don’t know if it can be done at all,” he told CBS News. These days, as the world struggles with disruptions to the global supply chain and vital commodities are stuck at sea for months, some pundits are suggesting that we do just that. But since 2009, economies have only become more entangled, and the idea of unbundling them has become even more unrealistic.

You cannot go against evolution, and evolution goes toward more complexity, not less. This is true at every level: the mineral, the biological, and the social. As a result, human society is becoming more complex and intertwined, and the economy, which is a reflection of human society, follows the same lane.

The reason we do not see such congestion and disruption in nature is that besides people, all other elements follow their instincts. The result is a harmonious flow, the cycle of life continuous uninterrupted and things evolve in synchrony with their environment.

Humanity functions in exactly the opposite way. We strive to rise above our environment, not in sync with it. We try to reach the top of the heap, to be faster, higher, and stronger than everyone else. When every country, company, and even person (to some degree) tries to do this, congestion occurs at the nodes, and everything gets stuck.

In other words, we are witnessing the result of our own self-centered attitude. If everyone had worked in harmony with the rest of human society, as every other element in nature does, there would have been no congestion and everyone would have gotten what they need, when they need it, and as much of it as they need.

Moreover, because we are competitive and derive satisfaction not from having what we need, but from having more than others, and even from denying others what they need, we cannot unravel our economies. Our desire to beat others binds us to them because their pain is our pleasure, and we cannot work without pleasure. To go it alone is to go against human nature, and we cannot do that, at least not in the long run.

If we are going to rationalize supply chains, we have to be clear about our interdependence. We need to start seeing ourselves as a unit, where the benefit of one is the benefit of all, and all parts contribute to the well-being of all other parts.

Our own bodies function in this way, every organism functions in this way. Without this approach, life would not be possible. When we act contrary to the fundamental element that makes life and development possible, we condemn our society to death and decay.

Once we recognize how nature works, how we work, and that it is in our best interest to change, we can stop disrupting the global economic system and begin to synchronize our actions. In simpler terms, we will be more considerate of each other.

Currently, we may not like the idea that we need to think of others and not just ourselves, but if we do not start teaching ourselves the truth today, global entanglement will worsen to the point that we will no longer be able to provide ourselves with the basic necessities for daily living.
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Filed under: Economy, Globalization, New Publications - No Comments →

In the News (BBC): “The Pandora Papers is a leak of almost 12 million documents that reveals hidden wealth, tax avoidance and, in some cases, money laundering by some of the world’s rich and powerful.”

Comment: At the same time, in their everyday political or ordinary life, these people behave as if they care for the welfare of the people. But in fact, they steal and put everything offshore.

My Response: It is natural. And it exists everywhere. Therefore, there is no use waiting for them to stop thinking about themselves.

It is not that simple. The elites have built a very serious safety belt around themselves. Therefore, no one expects that something will happen. In addition, they themselves take care of each other and inform each other if one of them gets to know something.

In fact, they are not at war with each other. Even the elites of countries hostile to each other inform each other about what can shake them anywhere, in any place possible. It can be in Israel, in the Emirates, in Iran, anywhere, and it functions above all the agreements and connections that we know about.

Question: That is, it is a kind of international elite who understand the danger of the masses getting out of control and they are trying, despite the contradictions among themselves, to preserve this pyramid? Are we getting back to the pyramid in which the main masses cannot live without the top, but the top cannot live without the main masses as well?

Answer: Yes. But shouldn’t people in different countries of the world be concerned about at least preserving what they have? If not improving, then preserving? Otherwise, the world may enter a state of such threatening imbalance that it is better for us to leave everything as it is.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations” 11/1/21

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Question: What will bring about a change in the control of the elites who manage us?

Answer: It is impossible for something to change because anyone who reaches a top position is ready to continue managing things the way it was, and no one leads to any revolutions on his watch. In order to perform changes and lead to revolutions, we need the right conditions, and we don’t see that there are such conditions because people are already used to the state they are living in.

They have been working like slaves for many years, receiving crumbs from the rich, some trips abroad, travelling, theater, cinema, television, and all kinds of things that are meant to confuse them, and this is how it goes. The people at the top, rich people and managers, live differently and that’s the way it will be. There cannot be equality all of a sudden.

Question: What can change the basic conditions?

Answer: Understanding the essence of life, the goal of life, the value of life, understanding that life is not measured by money. In order to attain this, we need a new education.
From KabTV’s “Conversation with Journalists” 11/7/21

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Comment: You said that we work a lot, we don’t need so many professions and so many hours of work. And you are absolutely sure of this. Irina writes to you: “I still don’t understand, but what to live on? Prices are increasing in a race with the rise in gasoline prices. I really respect Michael Laitman, it’s nice and instructive to listen to his lectures, but this is all utopia, it doesn’t happen in the real world. A person from birth is programmed by society to study and work. Parasites, homeless people, inferior, everything is clear with this, and the rest are welcome to the machine.”

My Response: Why go to the machine? Why do we need so much work?! To throw it away later?! See what is being done in the process and at the end of the production chain. How much do we throw away? 60 to 70% of everything produced, including food and so on. What are we doing?! We empty the globe, pump out everything from it.

What’s the point?! If it were all rational, then I would agree with her. But today we are already discovering that we are spending half of our time, energy, and life in order to throw it away later! We pollute nature, the air and everything else. What’s the point? It is better to sit and do nothing, it would be most useful.

Question: So what should a person do if he has nothing to live on?

Answer: I have no complaints and no advice for such a person.

Question: So you are talking about completely different people who recycle and do not know why they accumulate?

Answer: Of course.

Question: That is, here we are talking about the necessary. And how can a person determine: “This is what I need and more is all superfluous”?

Answer: An ordinary person cannot do anything about it. He works, receives almost minimum wage, and cannot do anything about it.

Question: Do you ask this person to quit his job?

Answer: No. I advise him to simply vote in the elections where he can influence, influence, and before that, to convince others how a normal, balanced life should be arranged so that everyone works, everyone receives and can exist—no more and no less, as they say.

Question: What does this mean no more and no less? What do you mean by this?

Answer: So that everyone has enough for what is necessary, enough, but not more than that.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/4/21

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Comment: The head and heart of a person who is seriously engaged in business are completely there. Practice shows that such people included in our community do not give themselves completely to the spiritual idea. They still have material interests and needs.

My Response: It’s just their job. There are solid businessmen in our community who have been devoted to the group for many, many years. I don’t see how they can leave their jobs. They will not live on a lower salary, they have a certain standard.

There are certain conditions for each person. Therefore, it is considered normal for him to maintain the level at which he lives.
In the Talmud there is a story about Rabbi Akiva and his rich friend. Usually the rich man moved in a palanquin, in front of which people ran, clearing the way for him.

And when he went bankrupt and started walking, it became a terrible state for him. Therefore, Rabbi Akiva specifically hired people to run ahead of him. But when Rabbi Akiva did not have the money to hire people, he himself ran ahead of his friend, clearing the way for him.

Of course, this example should be understood much more deeply. But, in principle, we can conclude from it that a person should be treated according to the level that he considers normal for himself.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time”

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We Do Not Need Competition

Question: The economy is built on competition. What will competition look like in the new society?

Answer: We do not need competition. We must do everything completely differently. Most people must be free from having to work, and humanity must stop depleting the Earth, polluting the air, and wasting natural resources. Out of 8 billion people, we will have 7 billion out of work.

Therefore, we need to distribute the work so that everyone is busy maybe an hour or two a day and the rest of the time they are engaged in self-education, and not only self-education, but also education in general. It is necessary to create a huge global system of education, and then we will be busy all the time.

Our children, grandchildren, and we all together must search for methods of correct connections. They are described in Kabbalah, and it remains for us to realize them.

Question: And here, naturally, we will need music, culture, and everything else?

Answer: Everything is needed for this, we must develop. And everything we do not need, we absolutely do not need.

Question: Will companies compete with one another about how much they give and who will give more?

Answer: Maybe. I don’t want to think about anything right now. This is all in the distant future.

Comment: But competition is the fuel, everything is based on it.

My Response: No. There will be other kinds of competition in terms of returns. I haven’t thought about it yet. I think that everything will be balanced, according to the plan; there will be nothing superfluous and nothing unnecessary, only what is most useful and necessary. And the rest of the people will receive only from communicating with each other, enjoying it, and achieving complete fulfillment.
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From KabTV’s “ Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/1/19

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Toward an Economy of Mutual Guarantee

Question: Baal HaSulam in the articles “The Solution” and “The Last Generation” writes that the consumer economy, which is experiencing a crisis, will be replaced by an economy of mutual guarantee. I would like to understand what this economy is based on?

Answer: On the fact that it is one single system. We are connected to each other and completely dependent on each other.

Nowadays this mutual connection is revealed more and more vividly and fully. It indicates that we must be connected by good ties because we cannot break this connection. If we remain dependent on each other through egoistic connection, then we will lead ourselves to annihilation, to mutual destruction.

Therefore the wisdom of Kabbalah is now being revealed in the world in order to help us correct ourselves, to come to a good dependence on each other, instead of what we already see now that the whole world is becoming global, integral, and everyone only wants to destroy each other.

Therefore in order not to bring ourselves to a Third World War, we need to think now about the way we will organize a new society.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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