Question: If all unnecessary jobs disappear, 90% of the population will remain unemployed. What will these people do and how will the economy support itself without these jobs?

Answer: But the people who occupied these places did nothing useful. What did they work for? To throw money around?

What are we afraid of giving up? Doing useless work: taking from one place so another can pull it out and throw it to another place? So some people can dig a hole and others fill it up?

Question: Baal HaSulam wrote in the newspaper The Nation: “Clearly, the measure of egoism inherent in every creature is a necessary condition in the actual existence of the creature. Without it, it would not be a separate and distinct being in itself. Yet, this should not at all deny the measure of altruism in a person. The only thing required is to set distinct boundaries between them: The law of egoism must be kept in all its might, to the extent that it concerns the minimum existence. And with any surplus of that measure, permission is granted to waive it for the well-being of one’s fellow person.”

We only need to find out what the benefit of others is. This is not just to redistribute production toward minimal necessities, but to determine what benefits will flow from this to others. How will we experience this, and what is this trend?

Answer: I think we need to create a new group of states that can really solve this. But there must be leaders who understand the integrality of the world and the need of the moment to bring it to an integral form.

Question: Where can we find such leaders and politicians? Look what is happening! Trump is now blaming China, China is responding in the same way, conflicts arise. The same trends as before. The world has not changed.

Answer: We, the Kabbalists, need to move in the direction of our vision. We must explain, in every possible way, advertise and disseminate our knowledge, which is consistent with the laws of nature.

Nature will not allow us to do anything else. As soon as everyone starts going back to the old ways, the mutated virus will hit even harder. Now its consequences are harmless. According to statistics during the worldwide reign of the virus, far fewer people have died than if it had not existed.

But the virus works for the whole system of humankind, and if we do not do what it is pointing us to, i.e., if we do not become integrally interconnected, then nothing good will come out of it. Wait and see. We are still on the way toward it. I see that, unfortunately, all countries want to return to the way things were in the past.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/5/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think of Spain implementing a permanent universal basic income?“

We are quickly transitioning into an era where many of the jobs we once held will become obsolete due to our needs changing, and also due to technology increasingly replacing human resources.

In such a situation, basic income becomes a necessity.

I support basic income provided that it is given in exchange for learning and certain kinds of contribution to society.

Basic income alone, without any requirements on behalf of the receivers, would stagnate society. It would create a society of disinterested and indifferent people who would lack motivation to strive forward in life. The sluggishness and dullness that would envelop society would end up erupting in our faces.

Therefore, in Spain’s case, I would recommend that the government provide courses that receivers of basic income need to complete.

The courses can be used to funnel people into certain jobs or areas of social contribution that would improve Spanish society, and they can also be used to teach people about the history and culture of the country and its people, in order to strengthen its citizens’ identification with the country, and in addition, the courses can be used to teach people about the new globally interdependent conditions we find ourselves in today: how we live in a new era where mutual responsibility and consideration are becoming increasingly essential in order for us all to live safe, calm, happy and healthy lives.

While the courses would ideally seek to develop people into certain areas where they could contribute—from finding new careers better suited to our times, to becoming instructors and aides within this new educational system—the educational process would be beneficial in and of itself.

The leading idea of the educational process is that people will improve their social connections, feel more connected to their country, and build the beginnings of a social network fueled by mutual consideration and responsibility.

The more such a network thrives and grows, the stronger a foundation people will have by which to navigate through any future crises, and also, to inhibit future social dissent and conflict.

About photo by Tom Morel on Unsplash.

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Remark: Today, man has more freedom than slaves in America in the nineteenth century or serfs under serfdom.

My Reply: This is not freedom! By the way, a slave was not enslaved more than we are today. He felt that he belonged to his master, which meant that he had no worries.

He knew that his master would feed him, make sure he had a place to sleep, make sure that he was healthy, that he had a family, and so on. That is, the master was taking care of the slave, and there was a certain agreement between them.

The fact is that there were special agreements on the status of slaves determining how the owner should look after them, provide medical treatment, and so on. Slaves were not people without any rights. In addition, a slave was quite expensive, so, the owner took care of his assets.

Today, in contrast, everything is quite different. You get fired, you are lost. There are 100 more people at the gate to replace you. No one owes you anything because the owner only thinks about how to get rid of you and not pay anything.

Question: Do you think that in terms of valuing freedom, there has not been a breakthrough in human relationships for the past century and a half?

Answer: The breakthrough is in the fact that today a person is enslaved and used in such a way that he does not even know that he is a slave.

Question: Slavery means a prohibition on moving from place to place, not being able to take care of your family, it is violence and absence of justice. How can the condition of slaves in the nineteenth century be compared to that of the modern working man?

Answer: I do not see much difference. Anyway, you do not move according to your own will but according to the commands of television advertising. You do not choose your profession by yourself but under the influence of what was instilled in you in your childhood. There is no freedom in this. Talk to good psychologists and you will see that that is the case.

Of course, there are relative freedoms, but they are as if you took a pill and do not feel your lack of freedom. And you are even proud of it: “Look, we visited this place. Look, we saw that. Look, we were there.” Why were you there? Yes, it is because others go there. In everything without exception, we follow our flock mentality, and therefore, we have no freedom.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/12/20

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Question: Can we introduce the next stage of our society now? Or will this model manifest itself as we develop, rise, and begin to become integrated in it? Is this process intermittent or gradual?

Answer: I think that we should begin to develop this process ourselves since it has already been described in the writings of great people and there is no reason to refuse what they have achieved. We must use their conclusions and accomplishments and build a system of education and upbringing for all of humanity on this basis.

Question: How will the whole society develop? Some people predict a dictatorship, others see furthering democracy, and there are even views regarding Nazism and fascism, some see rather tough measures and, others, softer measures. But, so far, no actual model has been brought forth for  economic, social, or political relations.

Will that part of society’s life, which concerns the material world and people’s interests, be gradually manifested or can it be modeled now as we move toward the realization of a plan that we understand?

Answer: We must have a social discussion of what we really need and what we don’t. This can be understood by the state of modern society; how much are certain professions and certain consumer goods needed? We know how we pollute the Earth and how all the oceans are contaminated, etc. We need to pause and have a very serious scrutiny regarding our mistakes.

Only after that can we reduce our interference in the world around us and create a system that would work only to provide humanity with essential material goods and maximal spiritual content.
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From the TV program: “Unemployment In The Post-Coronavirus World,” 5/5/20

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Question: We are now experiencing a very interesting moment when almost the entire world is trying to return to the old life. People hope that everything will be the same and life will somehow get better. But at the same time, the International Labour Organization predicts that one and a half billion or more people will be out of work altogether.

We hope that the country will provide them with the necessary social support. But the question is, how can such a huge mass of people exist without their usual work? What will they do? How can a person realize his or her human qualities if they are not in business, not in demand, and not satisfied with anything?

Answer: What did a person do before? Absolutely unnecessary things. Just to sell something to someone, buy something from someone, and that is it. In this case, it is more useful if he does not do anything rather than harm the environment, the atmosphere, the ecology. Nobody needs his job!

Nature will not stand for it anyway. It strives for a clear integration of all its parts, and even more so of the human. So, we come to the conclusion that the coronavirus has shown us we are an integral system in nature and are inside it. We cannot do anything, because nature will still urge us, push us, to take our serious, normal niche, and work in it.

This niche has only one way out. We cannot always exhaust Mother Earth and produce unnecessary goods because this leads to a huge overproduction.

The fact is that thanks to modern technologies, we can feed and serve the entire population on the planet, but we only exhaust it. Therefore, we need to look for a different way, another way of development: what to do, what to develop, and in which direction to move.

I believe that there is only one answer in the direction of spiritual, social, cultural self-realization, but in no case technical, not material.
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From KabTV’s “Unemployment in the World After Coronavirus,” 5/5/20

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I tell fake news from real news?“

The real news is that the media publicizes and broadcasts the news in accordance with its owners’ funding sources’ agendas, i.e., it is all ultimately fake news.

When subscribers were the primary source of news media funding, then the media was indebted to them, i.e., to the people buying, reading and watching the news on offer.

However, when media proprietors became the primary source of news media funding, with the media relying on advertisers for its sustenance, then the media serves owner and advertiser interests, blurring any authenticity that once existed in news coverage.

Today, there is widespread awareness of fake news reporting. More and more people are questioning the genuineness and the interests behind the media they consume, yet out of a lack of options, continue consuming the news from the same sources.

Yet, instead of finger-pointing at media corruption for fake news, we would be wiser if we took a moment to examine ourselves, each and every one of us that makes up society.

The media is no more corrupt than its enveloping society, which we all make up. It is, rather, a product of society’s values, influences and behaviors.

Fake news awareness is thus insufficient to reach a stage where we will have real news.

Reaching real news depends on undergoing serious introspection and realizing first that the media is no better or worse than the society it resides within—a society driven by individuals each prioritizing personal well-being over the well-being of society.

Fake news and corrupt media then become viewed as reflections of who we really are—self-centered beings who each try to benefit ourselves in life as best as we can—and such self-analysis should lead us to a pressing question:

Is this the society we really want to live in?

If it is, then fake news and media corruption should not concern us.

However, if we aspire to a society that blossoms with happiness, kindness, support, encouragement and a generally positive atmosphere, then we would need to reset our social values—to prioritize benefiting others in society over benefiting ourselves.

Such a change is easier said than done, but it is indeed doable.

It requires regularly learning about our interdependence, how we are all interconnected and dependent on each other.

We would do well to understand our interdependence from many different angles, until it starts becoming a tangible sensation, where we feel that any move we make has an impact on others’ lives.

The coronavirus exemplified our interdependence in terms of our health, how one person’s health depends on the other person following health department orders, such as the maintenance of personal hygiene, keeping a certain distance from others and wearing masks in public.

According to our interdependence, one person’s indifference, lack of concern, divisive attitudes and antipathy spreads negatively to others, sparking a harmful chain reaction that negatively affects society.

However, if we each feel our interdependence, as if we are all parts of a greater whole, then our care for our common possession would let us refrain from harming it, and instead, we would each seek how to make it prosper and grow as much as possible.

Understanding that fake news and media corruption stem from the way we each prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others in society, we can then see that nothing effective comes from blaming the news and those directly behind it for being fake.

On the contrary, if we want to change the media, we need to change ourselves and make ourselves first want to benefit society over our personal benefit.

If we continue letting ourselves be held back from improving our relations, then we can expect more fake news and media corruption emerging together with myriad other problems filling our society.

Moreover, we would see no solution in sight.

Real news would thus come as a result of self-examination and improvement of human relations.

Negative exploitative attitudes are like viruses that we infect each other with on a daily basis.

Positive change thus requires a common effort to build a positively-connected society by developing mutually considerate and responsible relations.

If we make that slight calibration in our thinking, then we will experience a completely new and upgraded world.
Above Photo: “Xenophobia” by Gideon at Flickr.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/27/20

As reported on CNBC, “Spain is deploying a basic income to citizens to ease the coronavirus impact.” However enticing, some people say it is “an incentive to stay home without work.” The program is not intended for everyone, but rather to give the least earning and the unemployed a safety net that will guarantee their ability to provide for their basic needs.

I fully agree that in a reality of high, and growing, unemployment, it is necessary to provide a basic income to everyone. However, doing so without anything in return is a recipe for disaster. It is not only an incentive not to work; it will deprive people of a sense of purpose in life, the sense of necessity to struggle and advance. It will make them apathetic and a burden on society. And since there will be more and more people without income, a few years from now, this will be a huge social problem.

But Spain can prevent this dismal scenario from materializing if, instead of just giving money away, it will stipulate the benefits on participating in state funded courses. Spain can use these courses to direct people to jobs it wants to occupy, educate people about Spain’s history and culture and make them more connected to their country, as well as educate them about globalization and responsible social behavior in an age of pandemics.

People who attend these mandatory courses will either find new careers, become teachers themselves to the new arrivals to the government educational program, or go off the program altogether. Either way, they will have learned something that Spain wants them to know, and have become more connected to their homeland in the process. This will make future crises easier to go through and prevent social unrest in the immediate and near future. So in my view, basic income should be given, but only if recipients take classes in required jobs, understanding today’s globalized world, and where they can contribute to their country.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/25/20

A few weeks after the coronavirus started to spread throughout China, South Korea, and parts of Japan, much of Europe and North America derided them for panicking over a new strain of flu. A few weeks later, South America, Russia, and much of Africa derided Europe and North America for the exact same reason. Today, no one is deriding anyone because no place is virus free. In fact, some places have already begun the second wave.

But in all this derision and pain, the best news I see is precisely that it’s everywhere. Now, at long last, we’ve got proof(!) that we are all in one boat. Now we know and feel that either we all swim out of the sea together, or we all sink.

I have no doubt that even as we return to “normalcy” and countries reopen their economies, many of the realizations we had gained during the lockdown will remain with us. Perhaps we will push them to the back of our minds, but they will nonetheless affect our thoughts, desires, engagements, occupations, and decisions going forward. When the second outbreak occurs, the experience will return to the fore, which will remind us of the realizations we had had and sink them in our hearts a little deeper. This, in turn, will take us one more step toward a life of more consideration, mutual responsibility, and connection. Eventually, the necessity to keep our distance will help us bring our hearts closer.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the spiritual lesson of the coronavirus?“

The spiritual lesson of the coronavirus is that in order to live optimal lives, we need to develop different kinds of relationships, ones based on acknowledging our tight interdependence.

When we realize how much we depend on each other, we would then also realize that our happiness, health and well-being depends on fueling our relationships with support, encouragement and care, and any problems in our lives stem from a lack of positive relations.

Moreover, the coronavirus illuminated the idea of what is essential and nonessential in our lives, and accordingly, we can seek how to provide ourselves—all human society—with life’s essentials, and invest our free time in learning about what is most important in life and developing positive connections to each other.

By doing so, we would bring ourselves closer to balance with nature, and then receive positive feedback from nature, which would include the alleviation of future pandemics and other problems.

Above photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/24/20

“In this moment,” writes journalist Anne Helen Petersen on BuzzFeed “the primary tension in America is how, and when, life is going to ‘return to normal.’ But that ‘normal’ was an economy that … was built on a form of consumption that felt compulsory, …a ‘normal’ in which the vast majority of people still felt economically precarious, burned out, …and most still struggled to cobble together enough savings to protect them from medical or financial catastrophe. A ‘normal’ in which the various manifestations of the gig economy — and the lack of healthcare, labor protections, or the general safety net that accompanies them — have been, well, normalized. So what if we don’t actually want to go back to that?” she asks.

Instead, Peterson argues that “Part of the reticence to reopen the economy is rooted in the very real fear of widespread infection. And part … is a manifestation of a desire to reject that old way of living entirely. There are different ways of being with each other as a society, different ways of caring and knowing and growing. As cheesy as all of that sounds, it’s certainly better than being told to do your part to save the country by going to Disney World or trying to distract ourselves from our exhaustion and fear by buying skincare products.”

As I have been saying since the outbreak of COVID-19, we are at the start of a new era. And that new era begins with rehab from addiction to consumerism and adoption of more pro-social, humane values.

The sooner we adopt them and usher in the new era, the sooner we will overcome the virus. Social distancing reflects our inner distance from each other, our alienation. But if we, as Peterson put it, reject the old way of life and start caring, we will not infect each other with viruses. Just as social distancing does not apply to families, it will not apply to anyone once there is no emotional distance between us.

Indeed, the old “normal” was anything but normal. It made many of us depressed, obsessed, obese, addicted, and lonely. If we only stop for a minute and reflect on our lives and what we want from them, I’m sure we can build together a new normal of connection, care, and solidarity, a world where everyone wants to live.

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