Religions claim that a god or gods have created this universe. The simulation hypothesis explains how the gods might have done this. We could all be living inside a computer simulation run by an advanced post-human civilisation. But can we objectively establish that this is indeed the case?
There is sufficient evidence that we live inside a simulation, and it allows us to establish the most likely purpose of our existence. The book does not promote a specific religion. It goes along with science, but there are limits to what science can establish. God is beyond those limits.
The book addresses the following topics:
Why our existence is not a miracle that requires a creator.
Why the simulation hypothesis is not scientific.
How possible motives of post-humans can help us establish that we live inside a simulation.
Why there is no proof in real life, not even in science.
How our minds can trick us, and how to avoid pitfalls in our observations and reasoning.
How laws of reality can help us establish that we live inside a simulation.
Why evidence for the paranormal is not scientific but strong enough to count.
How to interpret religious experiences and miracles.
How to explain premonition, evidence suggesting reincarnation, ghosts, ufos, and meaningful coincidences.
How coincidences surrounding major historical events indicate that everything happens according to a script.
Why do many people see 11:11 and other peculiar time prompts.
What predetermination tells us about our purpose.
By reading the book, you will discover that the world makes perfect sense if we assume it to be a simulation created by an advanced post-human civilisation to entertain someone we can call God.
The book is freely available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. You can download your free PDF here:
The previous episode about money discussed some imaginary trades between you, a hatter, a lawyer, a barber and a fisherman. It is shown that if people promise to pay this might suffice for payment. So if the fisherman promises you to pay next week for the hat you just made, you could say to the lawyer that you expect the fisherman to pay in a week, and ask her if you can pay in a week too. The lawyer could then ask the same of the barber and the barber could ask the same of the fisherman. If all these debts cancel out then no cash is needed.
In most cases, debts cannot be cancelled out so easily. A hat may cost € 50, legal advice € 60, a hairdo € 30, and the fish € 20. If you are the hatter, you could lend € 10 to the barber and the lawyer could lend € 20 to the fisherman. Perhaps the lawyer doesn’t trust the fisherman because he smells fishy. But if the lawyer trusts the barber and the barber trusts the fisherman then the lawyer could lend € 20 to the barber and the barber could lend € 20 to the fisherman.
That could become complicated quite easily. And this is where banks come in. Banks can lend money because they know the financial situation of their customers. The fisherman can borrow money from his bank to make payments because the bank knows that he has an unstable but good income and a vessel that can be sold for cash if needed.
If the fisherman borrows money to pay for the hat you made, this money ends up in your account. You can use it to pay the lawyer. And so the fisherman’s debt becomes the lawyer’s money until she uses it to pay the barber. People that have a deposit lend money to the bank and the bank is lending this money to those who have a loan, in this case, the fisherman. Depositors trust the bank even though they do not know the people the bank is lending money to.
Most people think of money as coins and banknotes but more than 90% of the money just exists as bookkeeping entries in banks. When a fisherman borrows money from his bank, he can spend it on a hat. This means that the bank creates money and that this money is debt. Most of our money is debt so the value of money depends on the belief that debtors pay back their debts. This seems scary and it keeps quite a few people awake at night.
Some people argue that debts and banking are frauds because they are based on a belief. But banks and debts help to boost trade and production by creating money that doesn’t exist to start businesses that don’t yet exist to make products which will be bought by the people those businesses will hire with this newly created money. Banking and debts are the basis of the capitalist economy.
Banking as bookkeeping
Banking is more or less just bookkeeping and balance sheets. Balance sheets can be used to explain the magic trick banks do, which is creating money. Balance sheets are simple. There are no intimidating formulas, only additions and subtractions. The important thing to remember with balance sheets is that the total of the amounts on the left side must always equal those on the right side.
On the left is the value of your stuff and your money. On the right side is the value of your debts. Your net worth is what remains when you sell all your stuff and pay off your debts. It is on the right side too in order to make it equal to the left side. Your net worth can be a negative value. If that is the case, you might be bankrupt because you can’t repay your debts by selling your assets. The left side is named debit and the right side is called credit. Your balance sheet might look like this:
debit
credit
house
€ 100,000
mortgage
€ 80,000
other stuff
€ 50,000
other loans
€ 30,000
cash, bank deposits
€ 20,000
your net worth
€ 60,000
total
€ 170,000
total
€ 170,000
When you buy a car, you own more stuff, but also another loan or fewer bank deposits as you have to pay for the car. This is because debit always equals credit. When you drive the car, it goes down in value, as does your net worth, because debit always equals credit. If your salary comes in, your bank deposits as well as your net worth rise because debit always equals credit. If you pay down a loan, the amount in your bank account, as well as the amount of your loan, goes down because debit always equals credit. If debit doesn’t equal credit then you have made a calculation error.
Also for a bank, the total of the amounts on the left side must always equal those on the right side, so that debit always equals credit. Your debt is on the debit side of the bank’s balance sheet. You have borrowed this money from your bank. The bank owns this loan. Your bank deposits are on the credit side of the bank’s balance sheet. The loans of the bank are paid for by deposits. Banks lend money to each other. This may happen when you make a payment to someone who has a bank account at another bank. Your bank may borrow this money from the other bank until another payment comes the other way. The balance sheet of a bank may look like this:
debit
credit
mortgages and loans
€ 70,000,000
deposits
€ 60,000,000
loans to other banks
€ 10,000,000
deposits from other banks
€ 20,000,000
cash, central bank deposits
€ 10,000,000
the bank’s net worth
€ 10,000,000
total
€ 90,000,000
total
€ 90,000,000
How banks create money
Banks create money. How do they do that? It is easy if you understand balance sheets. Assume that you, the hatter, the lawyer, the barber, and the fisherman all have € 10 in cash. Together you decide to start a bank. You all bring in the € 10 you own so that you all have a deposit of € 10 and the bank has € 40 in cash. The bank allows everyone to withdraw deposits in cash. This is no problem as long as the total of deposits equals the total amount of cash. After everyone has put in the deposit, the bank’s balance sheet looks as follows:
debit
credit
cash
€ 40
your deposit
€ 10
deposit lawyer
€ 10
deposit barber
€ 10
deposit fisherman
€ 10
total
€ 40
total
€ 40
First, there was only € 40 in cash. Now there are € 40 in bank deposits too. You might think that the bank created money. Only, that isn’t true because the depositors can’t spend the cash unless they take out their deposits. In other words, the depositors don’t have more money at their disposal than before. If you look at the total, there is still € 40. This is bookkeeping. You have to write down the total twice as debit must equal credit.
But now things are going to get a bit wild. The fisherman comes to you and he wants to buy a hat. The hat costs € 50 but the fisherman has only € 10 in his account. To make the sale possible, the bank is going to do its magic. The fisherman calls the bank and asks if he can borrow some money. The bank grants him a loan of € 40 and puts the money in his deposit account so that he can spend it. And look:
debit
credit
cash
€ 40
your deposit
€ 10
loan fisherman
€ 40
deposit lawyer
€ 10
deposit barber
€ 10
deposit fisherman
€ 50
total
€ 80
total
€ 80
Who says that miracles can’t happen? The deposits miraculously increased from € 40 to € 80 so € 40 is created from thin air. There is still only € 40 in cash but the fisherman’s debt created new money. This is how banks create money. And that is only because bank deposits are money. This is all there is to it. So much for the mystery. The fisherman then pays € 50 for the hat. And so it becomes your money:
debit
credit
cash
€ 40
your deposit
€ 60
loan fisherman
€ 40
deposit lawyer
€ 10
deposit barber
€ 10
deposit fisherman
€ 0
total
€ 80
total
€ 80
And now comes the dreadful part that keeps some people fretting. Everyone can take out his or her deposits in cash. There are € 80 in deposits and only € 40 in cash. If you go to the bank and demand your € 60 in cash, the bank would go bankrupt, even when the fisherman pays off his loan the next day. You could bankrupt the bank by buying € 50 in fish with cash. If you go to the bank to get € 50 in cash it would not be there so the bank would go bankrupt before the fisherman can pay off his loan with the same cash.
A bank could get into trouble in this way even when debtors repay their debts. Clever minds already figured out a solution. Central banks can print money too. If the European Central Bank (ECB) prints € 20 on a piece of paper and lends this money to the bank, there would be enough cash to pay out your deposit. Banning the use of cash and only using bank deposits for payments would be another option. So, after the ECB deposited € 20 in cash, the bank’s balance sheet might look like this:
debit
credit
cash
€ 60
your deposit
€ 60
loan fisherman
€ 40
deposit lawyer
€ 10
deposit barber
€ 10
deposit fisherman
€ 0
deposit ECB
€ 20
total
€ 100
total
€ 100
After you pay the fisherman, he can pay off his loan, and the bank will have enough cash to pay out all deposits. The bank can repay the central bank and everything is fine and dandy again. In this case the bank could not meet the demand for cash but the value of cash and loans wasn’t smaller than the deposits (the bank’s debt). After the fisherman pays back his loan and the bank pays back the ECB, the bank’s balance sheet might look like this:
debit
credit
cash
€ 40
your deposit
€ 10
loan fisherman
€ 0
deposit lawyer
€ 10
deposit barber
€ 10
deposit fisherman
€ 10
deposit ECB
€ 0
total
€ 40
total
€ 40
If banks can’t create money, trade would be difficult. If the hat is € 50, the legal advice € 60, the hairdo € 30, and the fish € 20, and you, the lawyer, the barber and the fisherman all have only € 10, nothing can be bought or sold. If the bank lends € 40 to the fisherman, he can buy a hat from you, you can buy legal advice from the lawyer, the lawyer can buy a hairdo and the barber can buy fish. Debt is the basis of the capitalist economy. Nearly all money is debt, and without debt, the economy would come to a standstill.
How much money can banks create?
The amount of money a bank can create is limited by the bank’s capital, which is the bank’s net worth. Regulations stipulate that banks should have a minimum amount of capital. This is the capital requirement. If the capital requirement is 10%, and the bank’s capital is € 10,000,000, it can lend € 100,000,000, provided that there are enough deposits. If the bank makes a loan, a new deposit is created. If the deposit leaves the bank, the bank must borrow it back from another bank or cut back its lending. That is because debit must always equal credit.
debit
credit
mortgages and loans
€ 70,000,000
deposits
€ 60,000,000
loans to other banks
€ 10,000,000
deposits from other banks
€ 20,000,000
cash, central bank deposits
€ 10,000,000
the bank’s net worth
€ 10,000,000
total
€ 90,000,000
total
€ 90,000,000
When a deposit leaves the bank, it ends up at another bank. The other bank can use it for lending, provided that it has sufficient capital. There may be a reserve requirement, which is a minimum of cash and central bank deposits the bank must hold. If the reserve requirement is 10%, the bank can lend out as much as ten times the amount of cash and central bank reserves it has available. In the past, reserve requirements were important as people often used cash and could go to the bank to demand their deposits in cash. For that reason banks needed to hold a certain amount of cash.
Featured image: Deutsche Bank building CC BY-SA 4.0. Raimond Spekking. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
Money was invented because trade would be difficult without it. For example, if you are a hatter in need of legal advice, then without money, you have to find a lawyer who craves a hat. That is unlikely to happen. Maybe there is a fisherman dreaming of a hat, but he can’t give you legal advice. Maybe there is a lawyer in need of a hairdo instead of a hat. With money, all these problems disappear like magic. You can buy the services of the lawyer so that she can go to the barber. After that, the barber can buy some fish so that the fisherman can buy a hat from you.
Despite these mind-blowing advantages humans didn’t need money for a long time because they lived in small bands and villages where everyone depended on each other and everyone helped each other. This meant, for example, that when a fisherman needed a hat, you would make a hat for him, and if you needed anything, someone else would provide it to you. You did someone a favour so that he or she was obliged to do something back. Villagers produced most of what they needed themselves. Trade with the outside world was limited and was done with barter.
Uses of money
Later cities, kingdoms and empires emerged. People living in cities, kingdoms and empires didn’t know each other so it became difficult to track whether or not everyone was contributing. Favours and obligations didn’t suffice. They were replaced by a formal system for making payments and tracking contributions and obligations. Commerce and tax collection needed a means of payment as well as administration. It is therefore not a coincidence that writing and money were invented around the same time in the same area. The earliest writings were bookkeeping entries. Money has the following uses:
buying and selling stuff (payment) so money is a medium of exchange
saying how much something is worth, so money is a unit of account
keeping track of contributions and obligations (saving and borrowing) so money is a store of value.
Nickelodeon character CatDog
Money being a medium of exchange as well as a store of value is like your pet being a cat as well as a dog. The result is not really a success. The parts of the pet may often quarrel, for example, because the dog part wants to play while the cat part wants to sleep. If someone keeps some money for a rainy day and does not spend it, others cannot use this money for buying stuff. And this can be a problem. A simple example can explain this.
Imagine that everyone decides to save all his or her money. Nothing would be bought or sold anymore. All businesses would go bankrupt and everybody would be unemployed. All the money that has been saved would buy nothing because there isn’t anything to buy anymore. This is a total economic collapse.
In reality, it doesn’t get that bad as people always spend on basic necessities like tablets and mobile phones, and perhaps food. When people only spend money on necessities there is an economic depression, which is not as bad as a total economic collapse but still very bad. Saving can make you poorer, but only when there are too many savings already. Savings are used to invest in businesses and hire workers to make products and services. Only if there are more savings than investments, does money remain unused.
The value of money
Money has no value when there isn’t any stuff to buy or when there aren’t any other people to trade with. Imagine that you get the offer to be dropped alone on a remote and uninhabited island in the Pacific with 10 million euros. Probably you would decline the deal, even if you can keep your mobile phone. It is other people and stuff that give money its value. But how? The answer is remarkably simple. The value of money is just a belief.
People are willing to work for money and sell their stuff for money. And because others do this, you do the same. For example, you may think that euro notes have an appalling design as well as an unpleasant odour, but nevertheless, you desire to own them because other people want them too. The euro’s value is based on the belief that other people accept euros for payment.
This is just a belief as the following example demonstrates. Suppose that you wake up one day to hear on the news that the European Union has been dissolved overnight. Suddenly you may have second thoughts about your precious stockpile of foul-smelling unstylishly decorated euro banknotes.
Lord of the Rings character Sméagol
You may ask yourself in distress whether or not your precious bank notes still have any value. What is the value of the euro without the European Union? You may find yourself hurrying to the nearest phone shop in an effort to exchange this pile of banknotes for the latest model mobile phone.
And to prove this point even further, suppose that the phone shop gladly accepts your euros. Suddenly they become desirable again and you may start to have second thoughts about that latest model you are about to buy. It may not remain hip for much longer, so you may change your mind again and prefer to keep your precious euros because there may be a newer model next month. So, because the shop wants your euros, you wants them too.
Types of money
At first, money was an item that people needed or desired. Grain was one of the earliest forms of money. Everybody needed food so it was easy to make people believe that others accept grain for payment. In prison camps during World War II cigarettes became money because they were in high demand. Even non-smokers accepted them because they knew that other people desired them very badly. For that reason, cocaine can be money too.
Wares like grain, cigarettes and cocaine have disadvantages. They degrade over time so they aren’t a very good store of value. This makes them a great medium of exchange because people won’t save them. An example can demonstrate this. Imagine that apples are money and you want to buy a house. A house costs 120,000 apples but your monthly salary is just 2,500 apples of which you can save 1,000. It takes 10 years of saving to buy a house. Soon you will discover that apples rot and that you will never be able to buy a house. Then you will spend all your apples right away.
Saving is difficult with apples. This is where gold and silver come in. Gold and silver do have not much use, but humans were always attracted to shiny stuff. Gold is rare so a small amount of gold can have a lot of value because some people feel a strong desire for shiny stuff. Gold and silver coins can be made of different sizes and purity so that they are suitable for payment and can be used as a unit of account.
More importantly, gold and silver do not deteriorate in quality like apples, grain or cigarettes. They do not even rust after 1,000 years. This makes gold and silver an excellent store of value. But this should make us suspicious. A perfect cat makes a lousy dog so a perfect store of value can fail the test for being a good medium of exchange. People can store gold and silver so that there is less money available for buying and selling stuff. And this can cause an economic depression as we have seen.
Governments create money too, for example by printing “10 euro” on a piece of paper. Governments require by law that this money should be used for payments and taxes. This makes people believe that others accept this money too. Government money is called fiat currency or simply currency. The authority of a government is limited to the area it controls so in the past government currencies had little value outside the country itself unless this money consisted of coins containing gold or silver.
In fact, another reason why gold and silver are attractive as money is that the value of gold and silver does not depend on the authority of a government. This made gold and silver internationally accepted as money. In the 19th century, most government currencies could be exchanged for a fixed amount of gold. This is the gold standard. The gold standard boosted trade because gold was internationally accepted as money.
Most money is debt
Debts can have value and so debts can be money too. This may seem strange or even outrageous, but money is just a belief. For example, money is the belief that you can exchange a hat for money and then exchange this money for legal advice. Hence, if you believe that the debtor is going to pay, you can accept his or her promise to pay as payment. And if others believe this too, you can use this promise to pay someone else.
So if the fisherman promises you to pay next week for the hat you just made, you could say to the lawyer that you expect the fisherman to pay in a week, and ask her if you can pay in a week too. The lawyer could then ask the same of the barber and the barber could ask the same of the fisherman. If all debts cancel out then there is no need for cash. Most of the money we currently use is debt. In most cases, debts don’t cancel out and there are many more people involved so it would be complicated to keep track of all debts and savings. That is where banks come in.
Featured image: Close up of coin hoard CC BY-SA 2.0. Portable Antiquities Scheme from London, England (2010). Wikimedia Commons.
Other images: Nickelodeon character CatDog, Sméagol character from The Lord of the Rings [copyright info]
In the Bible is a story about a Pharaoh having bad dreams that his advisors could not explain. He dreamt about seven fat cows eaten. Then came seven lean cows who ate the fat cows. And then came seven full ears of grain. Seven thin and blasted ears devoured them. Joseph explained those dreams. He told the Pharaoh that seven years with good harvests would come, followed by seven lean years with crop failures. Joseph advised the Egyptians to store food. They followed his advice and built storehouses for grain. In this way, Egypt survived the seven years of scarcity.1
There is something that the Bible does not tell us. The Egyptians used this grain storage as a financial system. The historian Friedrich Preisigke discovered that the Egyptians used grain receipts for money.2 Farmers bringing in the grain received these vouchers. Bakers brought them back in and exchanged them for grain to make bread. In the meantime, these receipts circulated as money. The vouchers had value because you could exchange them for grain. According to the Bible, Joseph took all the money from the Egyptians.3 And so the Egyptians may have started to use the vouchers as money instead.
When you exchanged the receipts for the grain, you had to pay the storage cost. In this way, these vouchers gradually lost value over time. It worked like a negative interest rate. It may have helped to keep the money circulating and may have prevented financial crises caused by interest charges that prompted the Sumerians to cancel debts from time to time. During the reign of Ramesses the Great, Egypt became a leading power again. Some historians suggested that the Pharao’s wealth at the time came from grain money.
The money remained in circulation after the introduction of coins around 400 BC until the Romans conquered Egypt around 40 BC. The grain money survived for more than a thousand years. A holding fee on money and negative interest rates can create a stable financial system that lasts forever. It contrasts with the Sumerian interest-bearing debts that had to be cancelled from time to time to prevent permanent debt-slavery of the masses.
The Bible provides an explanation as to how the Egyptian grain storage financial system might have come to be even though the story probably is fiction. The Bible and the Quran also condemn charging interest. There appears to be a link between interest-free money with a holding fee and the Abrahamic religions.
Featured image: Joseph interpreting the Pharaoh’s dream. Illustrations for La Grande Bible de Tours. Gustave Doré (1866). Public Domain.
1. Genesis 41 [link] 2. A Strategy for a Convertible Currency. Bernard A. Lietaer, ICIS Forum, Vol. 20, No.3, 1990 [link] 3. Genesis 47:15 [link]
In 1854, the native American Chief Seattle gave a speech when the United States government wanted to buy the land of his tribe. You can read it by clicking on the above link.
Different versions of Seattle’s speech circulate. In 1971, a screenwriter wrote a text that became a religious creed within the environmentalist movement. It aims to make Creation sacred. This text differs from the first published text compiled from the memories and notes of an attendant of Seattle’s oration. In other words, this is not what Seattle said, but it makes a good story. And I added a few minor changes to make it more modern. After all, the message is more important than historical accuracy. And that message strikes at the heart of the matter. Nothing is sacred anymore. The pursuit of money destroys the balance of our planet and our human values. The white man may think he owns the land, while he does not. He may think he controls his destiny, but he does not. We share a common future, and whatever befalls Earth befalls the children of the Earth.
Perhaps, you care for our planet, but what do you mean by saving it? If a species disappears, the Earth is still there. Humans survived the extinction of the dodo. We will probably survive the demise of the rainforests. Humans have finished off other species for thousands of years, so why stop now? And maybe, things correct themselves. The active male sperm count goes down because of the poisons we leave behind in our environment, which is something men do worry about rather than overpopulation. Mr Lind, a professor at the University of Texas, so he probably knows something, wrote an article, Why I Am Against Saving the Planet. I will use it because he puts things so aptly, for instance, ‘Saving the planet has become the de facto religion of politicians, business elites, and intellectuals in the West, replacing Christianity’s earlier mission of saving individual souls.’1 He claims that environmentalism is rooted in German 19th-century Romanticism, typified by a bias against society and civilisation and a pantheistic awe before an idealised Nature.
In doing so, Mr Lind inadvertently tapped into another 19th-century German tradition, that of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche aimed at leaving all metaphysics and morality behind. He said, ‘God is dead.’ He meant to say that religion was a ruse to enslave us with a false sense of right and wrong under precepts imposed by a priestly caste. The higher humans can do without that. You end up with slaves and so-called superior people, his romantic heroes. And so, Nietzsche’s views could be an outgrowth of the same Romantic tradition. His thinking might do well with psychopaths, so Nietzsche’s opponents saw him as a nihilist, and his ideas inspired the Nazis but also Ayn Rand with her Atlas Shrugged, where she paints a world where the superior entrepreneurial capitalist heroes face oppressive governments and lazy workers stealing their property. There is no fundamental difference between caring for animals, plants, entrepreneurial heroes, indigenous peoples or Jews. It all comes down to caring or not caring. You might argue that Adolf Hitler cared about the human race and wanted to improve it. Indeed, you can get carried away by your emotions.
Mr Lind thus argues for doing away with false sentiments, ‘There are costs to mitigating climate change as well as benefits, and rational people can prefer a richer but warmer world to a poorer but slightly less warm one. All of these individual policies benefit humanity, so there is no need to justify them on the basis of a romantic creed that defines the planet or the environment.’ That may appear all nice and dandy from behind the desk of Mr Lind, but if you live below sea level or in an area under threat by climate-change-related natural disasters, you might hold a different view, and get the impression that Mr Lind stands in the way. Ten million Dutch live at or below sea level, and hundreds of millions more are at risk of facing a climate-related disaster. And other species will probably survive, perhaps even thrive, if the likes of Mr Lind go extinct, so let that be a warning. And then there is that issue of God turning out not to be so dead after all.
God created this world so we might consider being less presumptuous and stop claiming it is ours. So yes, the sacredness of Creation is a religion and, therefore, we should heed Mr Lind’s warnings. It will be hard to care for the planet or other people on an empty stomach. Meanwhile, many have followed the path of the white man, who is not white but pink by the way, so it isn’t only his problem anymore. Today, the red man exploits casinos, well, red, not really. The yellow man, who might be a bit too pale to be called yellow, is working even harder than the white man. And the black man, who is often brown, is about to follow suit. That is progress for us, more cities, more roads, more people, and more money. The latter seems to be the point of everything we are doing, our ultimate goal in life. But as our production and consumption increase, new problems emerge faster than we existing solve old ones with laws, technology, targets and other solutions.
Most of us think fundamental changes are impossible, but acknowledging the problem is the beginning of the solution. Our belief that nothing will help can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We need a new starting point, a new foundation for our culture, our beliefs and thinking and our place in the universe. Small steps cannot save us anymore. We need to change the way we live. God gave us this planet on loan. As long as we do not change our ways, our societies will not become more humane and respectful of Creation. God owns the Earth and it is not ours to destroy. And everything is interconnected. Other species survive if we kill off the rhinos, but actions do have consequences, even though we usually cannot know them. Western thinking, for instance, reflected in the scientific method, deconstructs reality to analyse the parts. In doing so, you can make more accurate predictions on details, but the whole can get lost. In the 1990s, the environmentalist group Strohalm issued a booklet named Towards a Philosophy of Connectedness.2 It lays out Strohalm’s vision for a sustainable and humane society. The principal founder of Strohalm is Henk van Arkel, a dedicated individual who remained its driving force for decades. Van Arkel is a moderate man who does not blame anyone in particular for our predicament.
Latest revision: 18 February 2023
Featured image: Earth from space. Public Domain.
1. Why I Am Against Saving the Planet. Michael Lind (2023). Tabletmag.com. 2. Naar een filosofie van verbondenheid. Guus Peterse, Henk van Arkel, Hans Radder, Seattle, Pieter Schroever and Margrit Kennedy (1990). Aktie Strohalm.
The Plan For The Future 