A Shocking Future Picture of The Second Declaration

The Second Declaration

Wang Xiaoping

To get rid of the tribulation of aging, disease and death, is mankind’s eternal wish；To steal the heavenly fire of life is mankind’s perpetual dream. Can such a wish be realized? Yes! Can such a dream become reality? Yes! By the miraculous power of technology, mankind will realize the dream of eternal living step by step, achieving the leap from mankind to immortals. That is just the prospect drawn by Wang Xiaoping for future mankind, and the future picture displayed by her new book, The Second Declaration.
The Second Declaration is a unique futurological book，full of forward-looking, avant-garde, groundbreaking and challenging new ideas, new viewpoints and new theories. It is an epitome of her new ideas, new concepts and new theories, showing an array of shocking future images created by the author.

   Of all ages，thinkers and futurists usually like to talk about the future pictures of human society, and often devote themselves to the making of the future image of human society, but often neglect the overall research into mankind itself. Thus, from their works, it is hard for us to get complete and satisfactory future images to answer the hard question “Where is mankind going”, and find the best way to realize “the overall development of the human” mentioned by Marx. Wang Xiaoping’s The Second Declaration not only declares “Man has come from apes through evolution, and will surely evolve into immortals”, but also offers the image of the future immortal humans as “the wisest, best, happiest and freest”. Such a future image is not only an inheritance of the essence of the ideas of our great forefathers, including Marx, Mao Zedong and so on, but also a unique and complete innovation. It has combined the three elements organically, namely, “valuing people’s development, people’s overall development and people’s sustainable development”, building up a brand-new human-centered development theory and human-centered outlook of the future.

   When many futurists indulge in the study on the prospect of new economy and its impact on the future, The Second Declaration has already taken a step ahead, finishing its image design and shaping of the future economy after the new economy. It has transcended the future image of the new economy, highlighted the pulling role of high humanity demand in the future economic change, and disclosed the five major trends in the formation of new industries and future economy. Such a future economy picture originates from scientific forecast，is rooted in scientific bases, and displays the development mode of new economy characterized by integration of mind, wisdom and funds, and the human-centered productive force theory that goes beyond the traditional productive force theory. Undoubtedly, it will be greatly helpful for us in understanding the on-going fundamental revolution and its impact on the world.

In culture，The Second Declaration has also designed the future picture of the new culture. Obviously, it is designed for solving the two sacred and grand issues in human society, peace and development. The future picture of new culture takes mankind’s common interest and common ideal as the supreme value and its highest purpose is to avoid mankind’s “going down to hell” and lead mankind “up to Heaven”. In fact, such an image shaping has already offered new ways of thinking and practical approaches for the solution to the two problems, peace and development, and for promotion of flying progress of human society. (More in The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler)

Basically speaking, the charm of a futurology book lies in its successful designing and shaping of the future picture. The famous Dutch futurist, Polac, highly valued the social function of the future picture, in his book Picture of the Future. He thinks，the future picture shows people’s ability to imagine the future creatively, being one of the main factors pushing historical development, thus, it is a powerful impetus to the development of history. Most futurology books take the construction of the future picture as their task. Excellent futurology books have a profound impact on the progress of historical development. Without the classical research report of Limit to Growth of Club of Rome, there would not be the theory of sustainable development；Without such futurology masterpieces as Bell’s Advent of the Postindustrial Society, Toffler’s Third Wave and Devolution Diversion of Power, and Naisbitt’s Megatrend, people would have waited for many years to understand the true meanings of knowledge society, information society, knowledge economy and new economy. These future research findings have not only affected many political and economical leaders’ choice making and decision making, through the future pictures designed and shaped in them, but also exerted great influence upon several generations in understanding the past, guiding the present, and forecasting and the creating the future. I am sure，the future pictures designed and created in Wang Xiaoping’s The Second Declaration, in whatever aspect, such as anthropic, economic, cultural or other aspects, have outstanding shocking power. In enhancement of the future awareness, renewal of ideas, theoretical innovation, improvement of decision making, improvement of action projects and creation of an ideal future, these pictures will certainly contribute greatly to the public, the nation, and even the whole mankind!
The field of futurology is a subject that few people dare to touch, and it is also very hard to engage in it. It not only requires encyclopaedical knowledge，but also demands original thinking and penetrating insights. Without the intelligence of a genius or the profound wisdom of a thinker, it would be impossible for an excellent futurology book to appear. When Wang Xiaoping completed her futurology book, The Second Declaration，she was only 21 years old. She has contributed to the society the research findings unthinkable to ordinary people or even many futurists, which is indeed a great wonder and fortunate event in the futurology circle of our country.

The appearance of The Second Declaration and the springing-up of the future pictures challenging all kinds of stale ideas and traditional concepts have not only offered us chances to see the good prospect of researchers of the new generation in our country, but also made us even more confident of the future research undertaking of our country.
I recommend this great futurological book to the wide readership, and hope it will enlighten you, awaken you, and arouse your vigilance, or trigger your questioning and further thinking. What I hope more is that it will accompany you successfully in coping with future challenges and marching to victory.

(The author is Executive Vice-chairman of China Society of Future Research and Director of Institute of Future Research, an eminent futurist and a country-leveled expert with outstanding achievements)