Entries in the 'News' Category

Accepting Same-Sex Marriages

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Reuters): “Most adults in developed countries favor gay marriage or some type of legal recognition for same-sex couples and think they should be able to adopt children, according to an international poll released on Tuesday.

“With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to rule on gay marriage this month and France’s recent decision to legalize same-sex unions, an Ipsos poll for Reuters showed that 52 percent of people in 16 nations favor full marriage equality for gays and 21 percent support legal recognition but not marriage. …

“In Sweden, Norway, Spain, Belgium, Canada and France, where gay marriage is legal, a majority of people supported full equality for same-sex couples, along with most Germans, Britons and Australians.”

My Comment: As a result, the recognition of same-sex marriage and the legalization of drugs become the method of reducing the pressure in society, and that is why the trend will continue.
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Why Advertising Works

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from EurekAlert!): “Researchers at Duke University who study how the brain values things – a field called neuroeconomics – have found that your feelings about something and the value you put on it are calculated similarly in a specific area of the brain. …

“Now, after a series of experiments in which subjects were asked to modify how they felt about something either positively or negatively, the Duke group is arguing that emotional and economic calculations are more closely related than brain scientists had realized.

“’This changes our frame of reference for thinking about these things,’ Huettel said. He said advertisers have long been using emotional appeals to get people to value their products, ‘but they didn’t know why it worked.’ …

“’It’s not the case that you never want to reappraise a positive emotion,’ said Huettel. But when buying a house or a car, it’s a good idea to dampen your infatuation down a bit, he added.”

My Comment: Time does its thing: Personal egoism came into conflict with the integral forces of nature, and people lose their desire to work for clothes and impress others. And others will find brands ridiculous. We will slide down against our will or rationally accept ease and convenience as style. And our desires will direct us at the invisible goal – the meaning of this life…
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More Food Is Produced Than Humanity Needs

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Washington Post): “It’s a question that keeps crop scientists up at night: How are we possibly going to feed the world over the next few decades?

After all, consider what we’re up against: The global population is expected to swell from 7 billion today to 9.6 billion by 2050. …

“Farmers are doing everything they can to squeeze more productivity out of their farmland, but they’re starting to hit a biological ‘wall,’ a limit on how much yields can keep rising.”

My Comment: Actually, the only problem is that food is distributed unevenly between different countries. And its even distribution depends only on people, on their care for each other. And no international organizations will solve this problem.

Otherwise, in full abundance, we arrive to the point that half of humanity throws out surplus food that would suffice the second half. And the hungry half raises riots and wars. Nature forces the human being to change himself.
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“Humans: The Real Threat To Life On Earth”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Guardian): “Earth is home to millions of species. Just one dominates it. Us. Our cleverness, our inventiveness and our activities have modified almost every part of our planet. In fact, we are having a profound impact on it. Indeed, our cleverness, our inventiveness and our activities are now the drivers of every global problem we face. And every one of these problems is accelerating as we continue to grow towards a global population of 10 billion. In fact, I believe we can rightly call the situation we’re in right now an emergency – an unprecedented planetary emergency.

“We humans emerged as a species about 200,000 years ago. In geological time, that is really incredibly recent. Just 10,000 years ago, there were one million of us. By 1800, just over 200 years ago, there were 1 billion of us. By 1960, 50 years ago, there were 3 billion of us. There are now over 7 billion of us. By 2050, your children, or your children’s children, will be living on a planet with at least 9 billion other people. Sometime towards the end of this century, there will be at least 10 billion of us. Possibly more.

“We got to where we are now through a number of civilisation- and society-shaping ‘events,’ most notably the agricultural revolution, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution and – in the West – the public-health revolution. …

“By this point initial signs of the consequences of our growth were starting to show. … There are now more than 7 billion of us on Earth. As our numbers continue to grow, we continue to increase our need for far more water, far more food, far more land, far more transport and far more energy. As a result, we are accelerating the rate at which we’re changing our climate. In fact, our activities are not only completely interconnected with but now also interact with, the complex system we live on: Earth. It is important to understand how all this is connected. …

“The only solution left to us is to change our behaviour, radically and globally, on every level.”

My Comment: It is gratifying to see how the awareness of the issues change: The cause is becoming more obvious—the human being; he must change his behavior! But how? There is no other method, but integral education and upbringing! This is because by doing so, a person attracts the influence of the upper Light on them, even if he has nothing to do with Kabbalah. By his actions to rise above his nature, he advances towards the properties of the Light. And thus, he attracts its influence to himself.
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EU Summit To Solve Unemployment

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Reuters): “Angela Merkel’s summit on youth unemployment in Europe is an attempt to paper over the economic consequences of the austerity policies she championed in the region, a leading member of Germany’s opposition Social Democrats (SPD) said on Tuesday.

“With unemployment in the euro zone at a record high above 12 percent, Merkel will gather the leaders and labor ministers of more than 20 EU nations in Berlin from about 2 p.m. local time (8:00 a.m. EDT) on Wednesday.

“The stated aim is to agree efficient ways to spend the 6 billion euros ($7.82 billion) EU leaders have allocated to fight youth unemployment in 2014 and 2015, as part of a new ‘Youth Guarantee’ to provide jobs, training and apprenticeships.

“In recent months, as unemployment in southern Europe has soared, Merkel has adjusted her rhetoric, emphasizing the need for growth and jobs.”

My Comment: If these funds were directed at establishing a network of integral education courses, we would see changes in people and their lives within the first month of studies. Otherwise, it will be the usual European budget “cutting.”
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The Banking System In Short

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (from War and Peace): “Because so few people know how the system works, nearly nobody sees how – in an almost mechanical way – banking with thin air parasites society like a cancer tumor and reduces people to cogs to appease its financial hunger. …

“The solution of all these problems is as simple as its cause. We have to create a bank that is of all of us, a state bank with the exclusive right to create money. There must be a prohibition on creating balances out of thin air and on lending out balances. A state bank does not need capital and does not need profits. The interest can stay very low, or be compensated by fiscal measures.

“The interest flows back to the community. A money system with such a state bank does not need money growth, profitability growth, inflation, productivity growth, competition, exploitation and unemployment. When decided democratically, the government can take over the collective services again and execute them in the interest of the citizens.

“Also, investments can be directed to where such is desirable for society and not where the safest and fastest financial gains can be obtained. The government won’t depend on the bankers anymore. The public debt will be of the past. Collectively we can turn to sustainability and wellbeing, instead of devouring, wasting and pressing out employees to please money-lenders.

My Comment: It is impossible to do without correcting people; otherwise people will still find a way to cash in on each other.
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The Citizens’ Summit Sets The Tone For The EU Summit

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Euronews): “Some 400 people gathered in Brussels for the first-ever ‘Citizens Summit’ on Monday and Tuesday.

“Delegates included policymakers, journalists and NGO workers. Their aim was to make their voice heard by the EU institutions.

“Monika Kosinska of the Civil Society Contact Group told Euronews: ‘After almost five years now of frustration, the European civil society has decided that we are not happy with the decisions and conversations that are happening in our name, in the name of citizens from across the European Union.’

“Sarah Czichowsky, a member of Ghana Forum in Germany, said politicians should engage more with civil society to ‘make the EU more human.’

“Marie Huguet, an employee of the education NGO CEIPES, explained: ‘It’s easy to complain, but it’s much more difficult to actually act. I hope the people here will share their opinions and ideas.’”

My Comment: Of course, it will help to get together and talk, but there will be no result except the “release of pressure.” While egoism reigns over us, those at the top never cared for and will never be able to care for those at the bottom.
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The Crisis In Art

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Nikita S. Mikhalkov, Soviet and Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers’ Union): “The president of the International Moscow Film Festival Nikita Mikhalkov explained why most of the festival are characterized by gloom and despair and summed up the results of the 35th film festival.

“Gloomy movies are a reflection of the global trend; a movie from any major festival triggers ‘the desire to put a bullet in the forehead of oneself or one’s neighbor.’ We are in a state of severe human crisis. Just a conflict between two persons, which are in abundance in literature and were many in movie, is not enough. We need to be scared through 3D. People have developed a habit of an internal disaster; the death of the screen has stopped worrying. ‘We have lost respect for life, for people, and this very crisis if born out of this,’ Mikhalkov suggests.”

My Comment: But the question arises, why doesn’t art make people interested in a new world? It is because the artists do not see a way out of the crisis. However, they do not want to hear about the need to correct people. I hope that the fall of art will bring them to the need to accept Integral Education as a necessity and that they will base their artwork on it for the mass audience. After all, art is a means of educating people.
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How To Convince A Person To Change

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from bakadesuyo.com): “Behavior change is not easy. But there’s a great TED talk that shows a simple way to influence people to do the right thing. And it leverages a principle we can all use in our daily lives.

“Alex Laskey spoke about how we can use the psychology of behavior change to get people to reduce their energy consumption.

“Grad students hung signs on people’s doorknobs, asking them to turn off their air-conditioning and turn on their fans. What varied was the message the signs used.

“Which message do you think was most effective?

‘Save money’

‘Save the planet’

‘Be a good citizen.’

Actually, none of them were.

Nobody paid attention. Nobody turned off their air conditioners.

“But a fourth message did work:

‘Your neighbours are doing better.’

“When surveyed, 77% of your neighbors said that they turn off their air conditioners and turn on their fans. Please join them.

“This is Social Proof at work. Robert Cialdini, author of the classic book Influence, explained it in my interview with him: ‘People will be likely to say yes to your request if you give them evidence that people just like them have been saying yes to it, too.’

“We don’t like to think that we’re influenced by other people’s behavior but we all are. And one of the best ways to cause behavior change is to tap into that.”

My Comment: Kabbalah uses this great property of the influence of the environment on people for their correction. Under the influence of the environment, a person is ready to do even altruistic actions. That is why, when placed in the correct environment, he will be ready to submit himself to it without prior consent. So, instead of trying to influence a person, we need to create the right environment around him.
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The Deadly Symptom Of Capitalism

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Valentin Y. Katasonov, economist, Professor of Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Chairman of the Russian Economic Society): “I see in the plans of Europe’s transition to a negative interest the signs of overhaul of the entire banking system of usury capitalism.

“Negative interest rates on bank deposits is the evidence of the halt of the economy, which has ceased to grow, without getting any credit support by banks and diversion of money from the real economy to the financial markets. Banks are parasitized by the wealth accumulated by humankind and through the real sector of economy. …

“Today, the parasite has exhausted almost all the juice out of its victim and is on the brink of life and death. The traditional (economic) methods of parasitism are ceasing to work. We are witnessing (and to some extent becoming the participants of) the transition of the world to another financial and economic model. So, much more serious events might follow after the introduction of negative interest. For example, there might be a decision adopted by bankers to “bring to zero” all the financial assets and liabilities on a global scale.

“In the new model, the role of money will decline sharply, and their functions will be different than they are now. There could be the establishment of a rigid dictatorship of world bankers, i.e. the use of direct violence with the aim of turning people into bankers’ slaves. It is obvious that in a slave society, the role of money is minimal; slaves do not need it, and bankers do not need much money to meet their personal needs. The “golden million” will be served by the “dirty billion.” Several billion people on the planet do not fit into the bankers’ plans (or rather, they fit into the plan for global genocide). …

“Civil conflicts (and even wars) will inevitably arise as a result of opposition to the dictatorship of the bankers. … First, we need to understand: the negative percent is a harbinger of major changes and upheavals in the world.”

My Comment: One thing is certain: We are witnessing the end of egoistic development of humanity and its transition to the new socio-economic system—the integral society of the “last generation.”
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