ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses human and natural values spoiled or destroyed in affluent societies, as well as the failure of the scientific community to organize a systematic effort against the desecration of life and nature. The society is highly expert in controlling the external world and even the human mind, but our relationships with other human beings and the rest of creation are constantly diminishing in significance. This society has more comfort, safety, and power than any before it, but the quality of life is cheapened by the physical and emotional junk heap people have created. The vision of the future, as seen in the light of the new intellectual pessimism or of the dismal optimism of some technologists, would be terribly depressing if it were not for the fact that it so much resembles visions of the future throughout history.
