A long time ago, people used to play a game called “hopscotch.” And in hopscotch, the idea was to cast stones and so forth, into this thing you drew on the ground, as a kind of playing field; and you would hop, on one foot, from one location to the other. The object, among other things, was not to step on one of the cracks that you had made by drawing this schema on the ground. This extended, also, in that period of time, into the way in which sidewalks were constructed of concrete.

Now, the concrete sidewalks were made by pouring cement mixture into a metal framework, which would contain the quasi-liquid cement, which would then dry and harden in that framework, and then the framework would be removed. Now, the way in which these sidewalks were constructed in the course of time, the sidewalk blocks, defined by this framing, would crack. So you had two kinds of cracks: You'd have the crack which had originally been created between the blocks which formed the concrete sidewalk; and then, you would have the cracks, which had additionally developed as a result of the breakdown, shall we say, of the subsoil, and so forth.

So, if you saw a fellow hopping along the street, walking very strangely, and you would look, and you would realize what he was hearing in his mind. He was hearing a ditty, a little rhyme: “Step on a crack, break your mother's back!” A little belief in magic: that he somehow must not step on the crack, or his mother, wherever she was, would break her back!

Now, the way in which society functions today, contains many elements of that kind of pathological, or shall we say, simply pathetic mentality, superstition. And, that's the case with economy.

Now recently, in Northern Italy, in both the city of Vicenza, which is in the Veneto district--that's the northeastern Italy area, which is relatively prosperous, in terms of industry, employment and so forth--and also later, in Milan, the address I gave to a group in Milan, at a mini-parliament--I'll just summarize it again to you today.

The Development of Eurasia

The general scheme for the recovery of the world, is that we have, in Asia -- in East, Southeast, and South Asia -- the greatest concentration of population, and of growth of population on the planet. Together with Europe, this is the majority of the human population. Now in this area, chiefly along the coastlines, in the case of China, you'll find that there are very few, or relatively few, mineral raw materials, relative to population-density. Whereas the greatest concentration of raw materials within the biosphere, that is, the fossil area of several kilometers depth on the top of the Earth, [...] you find most of the minerals that you need for human existence, at least from today's technology.

Now therefore, the problem is to develop this area of Central and North Asia, which includes an Arctic tundra region, which is not considered the most habitable, by modern Pennsylvania standards, but this area could be developed. The development would require, of course, large-scale development of systems in transportation, power, water management, and so forth, and urban systems. In that case, then, we could have a balanced system in Eurasia, where we could manage the consumption and production of these mineral raw materials, according to human need. We don't have it, presently; but obviously, it would be sane to do that.

Now, this compels us to look at the situation, in a more profound way: in the way the famous Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, for example, broadly defined the problem. The universe, as I've said many, many times, is divided among three phase-spaces, using Bernhard Riemann's conception of phase-spaces. And these three, are defined in terms of physical chemistry, or, biogeochemistry is the way Vernadsky defined it. On the one side, you have those processes, which express universal physical principles, which coincide with the range of non-living processes, as we define non-living processes. The second range, is that area of principles which define phenomena, which do not occur in non-living processes, but only in the presence, and under the influence of living processes. This is an area, not only of living processes, but of fossil products produced by living processes. For example, the top layer of the Earth's surface is largely composed of, and dominated by fossil forms, that were produced by living processes. Typical are the oceans. The oceans were produced by living processes, and could not have come into existence any other way. The atmosphere was produced by living processes, and could not have come into existence any other way.

Well then, this involves some problems. Most of the mineral resources we tap into, or the greater range of them, have been arranged within the fossil area of the biosphere--that is, this area of fossil rock, and so forth, below the surface--have been arranged and located there, because they were deposited there by living processes, or under the influence of living processes--as distinct from the distribution of material below the level of this biosphere, that is, where the fossils are located.

Now at present, in certain areas of the world, we're using up the fossil minerals from the biosphere, more rapidly than they are being regenerated by action of the biosphere on the lower part of the planet, where the same materials exist, but they exist in a different way.

Managing the Biosphere

So therefore, the problem we have in developing society, is to develop some long-range understanding--scientific and otherwise--as to how we can take control of the management of the relationship between the biosphere, as such, and the mineral uses from the biosphere, and the non-living or the abiotic part of the planet. How do we manage that? How do we define our policies, on the use, and selection of use of certain kinds of raw materials in certain areas? How do we make long-term planning, which generally means thinking 25 to 50 years ahead, in terms of our requirements, to develop the kinds of systems, which will ensure us, that we will have what society needs in all parts of the world, for their needs.

So therefore, we are faced with this kind of problem for the future.

Now, this coincides, right now, with the situation in Europe and Asia: On the one side, in Europe, as you see the collapse of Germany's employment, up to about 5 million probably, or more, actual unemployment. At that level, the German government can not raise and spend sufficient tax revenues, to maintain society at its existing level of existence.

We have a similar situation in the United States. At present, at least 46 of the 50 states have no hope of balancing their books without killing people, that is, without cutting costs of government, which will have the effect of increasing the death rates and the general sickness rate; and will not allow people to develop, in terms of education and so forth, to the level where they will be productive, by modern standards, in the future.

This thing can not work. We have an insane President, sitting there in the White House, an insane government, which is not based on reality--refusing to face reality--under these conditions.

So therefore, the first problem we face, in every part of the planet, is to increase productive employment. And by that, I mean productive employment--not make-work, white-collar jobs. In that case, where we will be producing more wealth than we have required to maintain the balance of normal activities of life; we'll have enough income, from tax revenue, to pay for maintaining Federal and state and local functions; we'll have enough income, enough employment, so households and private firms, and so forth, can live less uncomfortably, at least, than they're living now.

The same thing is true throughout most of the world.

So therefore, international cooperation depends upon looking at this problem, first of all, and secondly, beginning to look at, more seriously than ever before, the problem of managing the biosphere, in terms of the relationship among human population; human development, in terms of technological progress; raw materials requirement; and management of long-term raw-materials supply.

An Advanced Language-Culture

Now, you can't do this, with a globalized system, for an elementary reason: The progress of mankind depends upon developing concepts, whether new or old concepts, but through processes of education of the type that I demand, in opposition to what's going on in schools and universities today. That is, the individual must go through the experience of re-enacting discoveries of old principles--that is, principles already known--in order to master them as principles, and know them as principles, not as formulas for quick answers on a multiple-choice questionnaire. It don't work, hmm?

So therefore, we have to develop the society; we have to develop the culture--and we have to develop the culture in such a way, that it advances; that mankind's mental abilities are increased; that new technologies can be introduced successfully, because you have a population, which is mentally capable of understanding these new technologies. Thus, we have to have a culture, which can do that. And a culture which can do that, is based on a language-culture.

Now, a language-culture is not simply a vocabulary of terms. You can not develop a language competently, on the Internet, by looking it up, in some kind of vocabulary text or that sort of thing. Nor can you find it in the normal teaching of education today, in which people learn to write, and think, as if they were a teletype machine putting out text, dot-dot, dot-dot-dot, dot-dot. They don't have any sense of communication, they're just babbling away! Babbling radio announcers, television announcers, and so forth.

A language contains elements which are not in the vocabulary. They may be reflected as changes in the optional interpretations of words in the vocabulary, but they don't exist in the vocabulary, as such. They exist in the ironies and metaphors of comprehension, which exist within the use of the language among the people, not within the literal language itself. And, the same thing is true with a lot of things that go into a culture.

So therefore, cultures can develop, only to the degree that people develop them, in terms of a living language, in terms of the ironies and metaphors in that language, and similar kinds of things. And thus, they can think: think about ideas, about principles. Whereas, if you had a population of a world, which knew only a vocabulary of the type you could look up on the Internet, you could not have technological progress, because you could not have mental development of the population. And the danger today, is that we are reducing populations to this kind of blab-school, babbling vocabulary, with no understanding of the implications of what they're saying.

Sovereign Nation-States

So therefore, we have to have separate cultures, which means separate, sovereign nation-states. Therefore, we require a system of separate, but cooperating nation-states, which are sharing certain common problems. These common problems include the management of the biosphere, on a much broader scale--ultimately globally--than the territory of a nation-state.

So therefore, that's what we're up against. That's the challenge before us, presuming we get out of this hell-hole, which George Bush and his friends are trying to create for us now. And that should define the way we think about society; the way we think about ourselves; the way we think about politics. And people who don't think about politics, in terms of those combinations, are like superstitious people, walking through life, walking in a peculiar way, for fear that they might step on a crack, which will break their mothers' back. And, that's the situation we face today.

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