Realities of future as first-order conditions for the survival of humankind
Issues affecting the future scenario of the development of mankind are put and discussed. The authors give the results of a careful analysis of historical and modern scientific sources that are related questions including theoretical understanding of the world civilization development, its various options; understanding an essence of social nature; identification and justification of the factors that determine the functioning and sustainable development of the society; philosophical and sociological approaches to the development of futurological projects and scenarios for the advancement of the human community. It was concluded that despite the different approaches to understanding the future and the mechanisms that determine it, almost all researchers rely on common philosophical grounds that have a fundamental order specified by unified laws and regularities of functioning and developing of nature, society, man and space. On the basis of the results of many years of experiments the authors come to the conclusion that the modern world community has exhausted the development resource allotted to it by history based upon capitalist form of management and stands on the cusp of global social changes that will lead to it to a new era that has been predestined. Situation that must be heeded now calls for the development of a unified Strategy for the Development of the World Community in the medium and long term (50-100 years), which should have a high level of scientific justification including virtually all spheres of peoples life of our planet. This is possible only by uniting the intellectual potential of all the passionaries of the world community. The development of this strategy should be based on the futuristic forecast of the world civilization projected growth. Of the many possible ways for the development of mankind the authors determine the unity possible - the construction of the noosphere representing mankind's way of preserving the planet Earth, the survival and further progress of world civilization. It is believed that in the near future all of humanity (or most of it) will unite behind planet-wide and cosmic idea of the great Russian thinker V. Vernadsky. The peoples of the world community will direct all their vital forces to strengthening cooperation and unification on the principles of mutual assistance and support. Although, are possible two other variants of events leading humanity to gradual degradation. Ultimately, the way in which humanity will continue its development is to be determined independently, based on the common sense of simple survival.