Opinion (Robert J. Gordon, Stanley G. Harris Professor of the Social Sciences, Northwestern University): “This paper raises basic questions about the process of economic growth. It questions the assumption, nearly universal since Solow’s seminal contributions of the 1950s, that economic growth is a continuous process that will persist forever. There was virtually no growth before 1750, and thus there is no guarantee that growth will continue indefinitely. Rather, the paper suggests that the rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well turn out to be a unique episode in human history. The paper is only about the United States and views the future from 2007 while pretending that the financial crisis did not happen. Its point of departure is growth in per-capita real GDP in the frontier country since 1300, the U.K. until 1906 and the U.S. afterwards. Growth in this frontier gradually accelerated after 1750, reached a peak in the middle of the 20th century, and has been slowing down since. The paper is about ‘how much further could the frontier growth rate decline?’ The analysis links periods of slow and rapid growth to the timing of the three industrial revolutions (IR’s), that is, IR #1 (steam, railroads) from 1750 to 1830; IR #2 (electricity, internal combustion engine, running water, indoor toilets, communications, entertainment, chemicals, petroleum) from 1870 to 1900; and IR #3 (computers, the web, mobile phones) from 1960 to present. It provides evidence that IR #2 was more important than the others and was largely responsible for 80 years of relatively rapid productivity growth between 1890 and 1972. Once the spin-off inventions from IR #2 (airplanes, air conditioning, interstate highways) had run their course, productivity growth during 1972-96 was much slower than before. In contrast, IR #3 created only a short-lived growth revival between 1996 and 2004. Many of the original and spin-off inventions of IR #2 could happen only once – urbanization, transportation speed, the freedom of females from the drudgery of carrying tons of water per year, and the role of central heating and air conditioning in achieving a year-round constant temperature. Even if innovation were to continue into the future at the rate of the two decades before 2007, the U.S. faces six headwinds that are in the process of dragging long-term growth to half or less of the 1.9 percent annual rate experienced between 1860 and 2007. These include demography, education, inequality, globalization, energy/environment, and the overhang of consumer and government debt. A provocative ‘exercise in subtraction’ suggests that future growth in consumption per capita for the bottom 99 percent of the income distribution could fall below 0.5 percent per year for an extended period of decades.”

My Comment: Humanity must provide itself with everything necessary, but not more, and all of its resources should be directed to its re-education, creating humane interaction; this is programmed by nature, and we will have to realize this. Kabbalah explains how to do this!
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Question: Is it important to match people in the integral education groups according to their properties?

Answer: I wouldn’t say we should match people according to their properties. After all, the characteristics can be completely different, and no qualifications matter there.

What matters is the so-called “threshold attitude,” the preparation to what we are doing. Someone may have already taken certain courses, undergone some integral superposition with others, while another may not know what we are talking about. He was brought from outside and wonders, trying to catch his breath: “What are the rest of the people doing here?” This should not happen: They will simply not understand one another. People should be approximately at the same level according to their integral preparation.

The integral experience should be similar.

We should know beforehand that in the group of twelve people there are, say, five who are more or less prepared and who feel and know already what’s going on. And then they include all the rest within themselves as though they enclose them and take them together with them. Then the joint work begins.
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From the talk on the integral upbringing, 03.04.2012

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Question: Should we speak about the crisis, about existing problems, and about negative things when we establish the perception of the social system that is scientifically based, or should we speak only about things that positively influence society?

Answer: On the whole, yes. But we assume that society feels the need to move to the other state.

According to the law of development we see that currently there are certain features and negative attributes in the system that do not allow it to go on functioning positively and to provide itself with everything that it needs. It suddenly discovers that what it needs most slips away and so it needs a change.

So there must be a negative factor here. We simply shouldn’t make it three times greater than it is and bring it to extremes, but on the whole it has to be felt in the system as something that summons a new revolutionary approach.

We also notice this in plants and in animals, in the development of every organism. We move from one state to another only when we are forced to do so because the previous state or the current state seem flawed or that it came to an end and cannot continue to fill us with knowledge, food, or with everything that we need.

In any case, the movement can only be by negating the current state and moving on to a better state.

We don’t develop negative states; we don’t live in negativity. There are societies in which people constantly experience their negative states. We don’t pay attention to them.

Our only motion is forward, only toward the positive side. It isn’t an escape from the previous negative state, but highlighting the positive future state and moving toward it.

We want people to understand that something bright, good, pleasant, and warm is waiting for them ahead, and we want to attract them to it.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World: Formula of an Integral Society” 7/1/12

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Question: It is common knowledge that the human organism has an immune system that blocks and destroys old defected cells which are still alive. If we compare this to the integral society, does it mean that this system has to get rid of old sick people?

Answer: No. The point is that here we need a system that sorts out what is beneficial and what is harmful. There is nothing harmful in nature. It is all revealed this way to us because we don’t know how and what to implement correctly. Nothing is destroyed in nature. Everything that nature develops is necessary and so it should be the same in human society. This means that we are going to see how various intractable, negative forces remain outside of our success in integral education do so because we do not put in the correct effort.

On the basis of these examples, we will just learn to improve our system of education and teaching and thus advance. We should be thankful to all the revelations of our deficiencies because they constantly compel us to further develop this method and will serve as the basis for its development.

I believe that the revelation of the negative attributes is as beneficial as the revelation of the positive attributes. It is negative feedback that corrects our focus towards the ultimate goal.

Question: So it turns that a direct transfer of the human organism model, or of what we see in nature, and our attempt to implement it without explaining the real reasons why it is that way in nature actually leads to great problems.

Answer: No. Here it is implemented on the model of a closed living body, which we have to keep balanced. In order to do that we have to sort out, clarify, and analyze the elements or the attributes that we receive from the outside and what we need.

This is because we realize that no matter how much we try to absorb only what is beneficial from the environment around us, a lot of harmful things also enter the organism. That which is harmful needs to be identified, collected, and evacuated from the body. This is what our physiological systems do, and it is the same on the cognitive level. The immune system stands guard and destroys everything that penetrates the organism that is hostile to the body.

I think this system has to be created in society until it reaches its ultimate form. If a certain part of humanity is in the process of becoming integral, it will certainly have to set some limits and boundaries around it so that outsiders will not be able to influence it. This means that in contrast to the rest of humanity, these people will have to live according to laws and constitutions and different social and family relations, which they accept according to their spiritual level and their altruistic development.

Of course, like a healthy organism, they will have to protect themselves from evil external influences. Here there should be an immune system that warns if a negative influence is felt in the society, and should immediately identify and remove it.
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From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Question: Any system built sooner or later faces the external resistance of the world. What kinds of informational counteractions can we create in the integral society?

Suppose the world around us is indifferent at the moment to the idea of establishing an integral society. But at some point we will begin to disturb them at least by the fact that people in the integral society live a better, happier life than they do. Then they will begin to feel a resistance. So in any case there is a hostile environment.

Answer: First, I think that there doesn’t have to be a hostile environment. This society should be open for everyone. Certainly it should have some kind of buffer zone in which those who want to join this society are educated and after having studying seriously and having been trained they could be gradually integrated into the integral society.

This isn’t what is done in Europe. The French began accepting everyone from North Africa, since as they claim, “we occupied you and now we are giving you a chance to join us.” This wasn’t a wise political move when people who didn’t want to integrate into French society and weren’t willing to change anything, moved to France. Thus they remained foreign with regard to French culture, language, religion, and everything else.

It’s the same with the European market, which instead of a common market became an actual market. Before implementing the concept of a “common market” they should have educated all the Europeans according to the integral approach so as to bring them all to one understanding, one culture, and some unified qualities, meaning a desire to cooperate mutually in order to summon the upper energy, the integral force of nature, upon them.

This didn’t happen and so they don’t know what to do now. The solution is the same solution as before and it’s still hanging in the air. They can do it now too, but not with the leadership that is currently in power.

If such a society is created it has to guard itself from the rest. This means that it has to develop a very wide working environment in integral education: “Welcome, you can join us, there is room for everyone, but only after you pass a course and certain training in integral education and begin to live, study and work according to this principle. Only then can you be members of our society.”
[89194]
From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Question: While designing the model of our social policy we began to think about what we can do with regards to the external informative influence of TV, newspapers etc. We have worked out several models.

One of the models is total openness, but it is not suitable since a person is easily tempted and remains, as you have said correctly, on the animal level.

The model of total secrecy doesn’t work either since “the forbidden fruit is sweet.” There is a barrier, as with the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain, where information doesn’t seep in, etc.

The only model that could be fulfilled is having no censorship at all. But every source of information is accepted as reliable to some extent by the internal censors. A person can choose which source of information he wants to use: those which he fully trusts or those which he doesn’t. But this model didn’t work either because there is no education or teaching in it.

Answer: I believe that this model will not work because we have to build our own influence on the environment according to our teaching and education, by withdrawing from external influences.

Question: Withdrawing? But the “forbidden fruit is sweet.”

Answer: There is no “forbidden fruit,” since the perspective of my society is that there is no “forbidden fruit.” I have to withdraw since in a state of weakness I can deteriorate and ruin the whole process of my changing from an egoist to an altruist.

So there should be a system that selects good and right programs from the ones that exist today, and it should be clear and accurate. There should be a special filter, censorship.

There is no education without censorship since any form of education is under the influence of the environment. Here you are providing a person with such an environment that without censorship your efforts may be futile.

On the other hand, fewer people may enter different Internet sites and TV channels full of rubbish as a result of our intensive education and other external conditions. But we must help him; otherwise it will be ineffective, because as long as the ego is active in a person, it will obligate him to roam through all the garbage on the Internet.

We voluntarily agree to the filter. No one is forcing us, but it is one of our conditions.
[89187]
From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Question: Suppose I have certain resources and I have to invest them in integral education and teaching. A government official comes to me and persuades me to invest the money in a certain school promising that in five years it will be different than other schools. On the basis of what criterion can this difference be seen?

Answer: A government official or a manager will not see anything. A manager is a mechanical egoist who cannot see anything from within his ego. He is only interested in acting before his supervisors and climbing to the next level in the hierarchy of the egoistic pyramid. He will look at people dealing with integral education and teaching as people who are studying totally unrealistic systems; who are solving some internal social problems or individual emotional problems. He wouldn’t care about it. He is interested in figures: How much did I invest, what did I get, how much will I put in my pocket, how much will I give to the management? These people cannot manage anything, not to mention deciding anything!

So we are asking him to do one thing only: to help us with the administration, that’s all. We have trained teachers, educators, lecturers. We have prepared all that is necessary. Let us work in this environment and help us in that, which means provide us with some resources on the media, on local TV, at the entrance to schools, universities, etc.; we will do all the rest. When will you see the results? In five weeks, not in five years!

You will see an immediate result in the first month of our work. After one lesson, you will see totally different people. You will see how they change immediately.

Of course, it is great work to change human nature, but the first changes are immediate. Suppose a person is seriously ill and you suddenly notice a great improvement in his condition, an inner adaptation, understanding, recognition, and feelings.

People will not go out to the town squares to shatter windows anymore. They will begin to maintain a clean environment and the incidence of violence and street crime will decrease sharply.

You will profit economically, qualitatively and quantitatively and then we try to invest the resources that were saved in integral education and teaching.

At first we don’t need anything at all. In a couple of weeks without investing anything, you will find out that it works: on a certain group, in a certain kindergarten, at school, on students, in some plant or in a small neighborhood. We will start with four to five places in which we will work with the people and after several lessons you will see what happens to them and how they change.

At the same time, you will be able to accurately calculate your economic profit, not to mention the good atmosphere that is created and all the other things.

The point isn’t even the economic benefit, but in the fact that the accelerating crisis will bring millions into the streets and you will have to do something with them. These aren’t just people whom you have to feed so that they won’t eat you, but people will be murdered, robbed, raped and will burn everything around them. Having nothing to do, they will simply degenerate. We, on the other hand, offer you to raise people to a higher level.

So the benefit of implementing integral education and teaching is unquestionable.
[89148]
From KabTV’s “The Integral World: The Formula of Integral Society,” 7/1/12

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Question: Where is the borderline between suppression of material desires and gaining spiritual ones?

Answer: We do not suppress our desires! We only discuss them and immediately assign more weight, greatness to the next, higher level of desires, the ones that drive us to unity and integrity, since they are far more important, better, higher, superior, and valued than our egoistic inclinations. It’s so even if our egoistic desires are seemingly of a positive kind, such as wanting to listen to a certain type of music, or read some kind of literature, or go to the ballet, or watch a football match, or go to a men’s club, or eat a special type of food—whatever it might be.

In other words, at this phase, with the help of the group I must receive a very serious and strong impression that these collective integral global standards are of a next level. They are not one step up, but incomparably more advanced than our aforementioned animal instinctive desires that nature automatically aroused within us and we, like slaves, tried to realize them quickly.
[88220]
From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/1/12

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Question: A person comes to an integral group from the “outside.” He already has certain worries related to the material world, conflicts, problems with children, and so on. How can one transition from his routine predicaments to integration?

Answer: Everything has to be discussed in the group. However, it should be done specifically in the attempts to rise above corporeal problems. Various problems related to gender or character, to anything that might transpire between us have to be raised and discussed. We are a research group; we scrutinize ourselves. This is why we have to be ultimately sincere and interested in detaching from our animal “I” and rising above it into our integral “I,” which gradually is turning into “we.” So, there is nothing we should hide from one another.

At the same time, we shouldn’t concentrate on, dig into these issues too much: your personality against mine, somebody’s attractiveness, or animal, hormonal, drives… We have to discuss these things in brief in order to help each and everybody rise above them and keep ourselves specifically in this state while we continue understanding and sensing them in our animal body, as we know that they don’t exist at the next level.

We’ll constantly be “hanging” in the gap between our internal layers as if between the sky and the earth. This state will emerge in us and bother us for a long period of time: We’ll constantly be getting urges upwards and downwards. This is what our work is all about.

Within the inner states that we go through, we have to test our internal baggage of doubts, impressions, and aspirations in order to firmly position ourselves on the ground, to fly up as a balloon from earth to the “ceiling,” leaving behind our egoistic properties, ambitions, desires, and impulses. I am still aware of all of my problems, but internally I want to identify myself with the “ceiling,” meaning with my next step.
[88223]
From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/1/12

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Question: Let’s say that a woman, whose missing husband is still on a “spree,” managed to rise to the integral level with the help of the group. Will her problem be resolved by itself or will she just regard it from a different perspective?

Answer: You should understand that the world is the way we draw it in our minds. We cannot ascertain objectively what, in fact, is real and what is actually going on. Everything is subjective. It’s all about how we sense and imagine it.

As soon as the woman begins to understand that her husband needs more social interaction and she is willing and able to give him a replacement that is of a higher and better level, his family, social, and economic problems will cease to exist. He will stop burning money with his friends in a pub or at a football stadium since he will have a new, contented attitude toward the world he lives in and to his family.

But we have to fulfill him somehow. We have to show him what we offer, that it is a replacement.

For dozens of years, world governments have been investing in massive team sports since an enormous number of fans unite around them. It distracts them and gives them a chance to unite, according to their affiliation with various sport teams. Such unity bears an egoistic nature since they need an opponent in order to unite. Governments realize that they should distract people by providing them with outlets and letting them experience warmth from belonging to various groups, clubs, etc.

However, we must gradually show people that connecting around something that is against something or someone is flawed; it destroys society. We see that there is no room for friendliness in sports. Competition only leads to drugs, sales, and buying players. There is nothing to it except financial cunning, “Give me another couple of billion, and I’ll make a team for you that will defeat everyone out there.” This scenario really cannot serve as a foundation for those who aspire to unity. Who exactly am I supporting? Are a couple of Africans or South Americans bought for money and brought to my favorite team supposed to defend my city or my country?

The same egoists do not want to look at all this because it really is not what they want to see in their passions.

We can raise the level of awareness of people to where they won’t abide such an attitude to sports. When we become a member of a club in order to unite with others, we generate a sordid type of connection. We beat our neighbors in order to somehow satisfy our dormant herd mentality that comes from ancient times, instead of one that leads us forward.

Therefore, there must be a serious explanation. We are quite capable of providing this explanation using humor and satire and showing how it is constructed, from football to beer to any teams or sports clubs, no matter if it is a local or national team, from the primal, underdeveloped nature of man, from his need to unite. And then, little by little, we can bring him to another level
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 3/1/12

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