``The most important fact
about Spaceship Earth:
an instruction manual didn't come with it."

      The East India Company was started in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I. Their trading ships brought to Britain, along with boatloads of booty, inventories of the world's vitals: metals, foods, fuels, peoples, products. In 1800, Thomas Malthus, East India's head bean-counter, was the first human with a complete bill-of-goods for Planet Earth. He added up the world's resources, then divided by its population. The quotient: Too many Humans, Not enough Stuff. And, since population was growing faster (geometrically) than our (arithmetically increasing) production abilities, not only was there not enough to go around, it would only get worse.

      People had suspected this for millennia. Even before Darwin's "survival of the fittest," they intuitively knew that to survive, for their family, their clan, their nation to succeed, they'd better grab some Stuff, the same Stuff everyone else wants. Morals and ethics were fine, but the facts told a different story: It's either me or you, us or them. That means conflict, and that means war.