Errors are Amplified in the Mechanical World...
Technology amplifies the power inherent in the human hand, and thus amplifies our ability to change the world according to our desires. In the service of our physical needs, this has been of great benefit. It gave us plows, irrigation, housing, sanitation, medicine and heating . But in the service of our inner needs it has been far from beneficial.
Unconsciously assuming that these needs can also be satisfied by changing the world around, we have applied our creative energies and our technologies to the search for more and more powerful ways of getting what we think we want. As a result technology has not only amplified our power to change the world, it has also amplified the error in our thinking...with potentially disastrous consequences.
It is the demands we make of the world in our relentless search for inner fulfillment that lead us to consume far more than we physically need.
No other species consumes more than it needs....
This is because no other species has our inner needs, or the
means to amplify the demands they create. It is this combination that is causing us to suck the earth dry...
Seen in this light, the nuclear threat, the greenhouse effect, the destruction of the rainforests, the wide-scale extinction of species,
acid rain, soil erosion, the depletion of the ozone layer, the problem of atomic waste, pollution, the energy crisis, the North-South
crisis, the economic crisis, the food crisis, the water crisis, the housing crisis, the sanitation crisis, and the multiplicity of crises that humanity faces are all symptoms of a deeper psychological crisis...
The real crisis is in our thinking, in our perception of what it is we really want, and how to set about getting it.
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