Abortion is not about population numbers and most often summarily not about unwanted children. There are deep sociological questions behind abortion. It is an extremely difficult matter, ironically usually most heatedly argued by men. We know of no woman who has an abortion gladly. 

There are almost 50 million abortions performed every year. That’s an average of 136,000 abortions per day. Approximately 360,000 babies are born per day. You’re eyes are not deceiving you: world wide, one third of pregnancies end in non-natural abortions. In fact, the number of abortions per day almost equals the number of people dying per day.

You may be pro-life or support certain forms of control over the human right to live or perhaps you do not consider the fetus as human. Whatever your view, you’ll find someone to debate abortion facts with.

Ray Comfort of Living Waters Publications felt so strongly about abortion that he produced 180:Movie in which he compares it with war and calls it the “American Holocaust.” Millions have viewed the video and perhaps you should too, whatever you view on abortion.

The facts stated in the video will, like all other “Did you know?” videos, leave you to think deeper about the changes affecting the modern world and your responsibilities to it. 

Consider this: “92% of American children have an online presence by the time they are 2 years old.” More than 6 trillion text messages are sent every year. Worldwide, almost every person has a mobile phone, with more than 5 billion cellphones in use. Internet access – access to information – has never been easier.

Yet, education is in crisis. As the video states, “80% of high-school students’ daily classroom study is low-level mental work.”

George Carlin said in his Paradox of Our Time: “we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgement  more experts, yet more problems.”

It is time to redesign, retrain and rebuild the education system.

Did you know? video 5:

On the topic of the number of children born into the world, Mother Theresa gave a strong opinion: “How can you say there are too many children. That is like saying there are too many flowers.” 

While 59 countries now produce fewer children than are needed to sustain their populations – 18 of those characterized by the United Nations as developing nations – the growth in the countries with strong population increase tends to be in the lower income group.

Considering that every year some 60 million people move to cities from rural areas – further impacting the cities’ population growth by birth – and that people are living longer, the challenge to administrations across the world is serious. A serious challenge for energy and resources. It is, of course, a simple matter of arithmetic.

Professor Albert Bartlett shares a few numbers that explains the challenge the world faces. His presentation is titled “Arithmetic, Population, and Energy.” Millions of people have viewed and shared this video, calling it “The Most Important Video You’ll Ever See.”

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman explains that the actual experiences you go through in your life most often does not collate of how you view your own life. You are much more inclined to “know” your life from just a few memories – consisting of just a few minutes – you kept over directly or indirectly from those experiences. 

The reason is that there are two yous, so to say. The you that experience every moment and the you that remembers just a few moments. You often perceive your life differently than it really is.

In the TED talk, Kahneman reveals how the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self” can be two very different characters and that your actual well-being is only how happy you think you are.

Excerpt: “Now, the experiencing self lives its life continuously. It has moments of experience, one after the other. And you can ask: What happens to these moments? And the answer is really straightforward: They are lost forever. I mean, most of the moments of our life — and I calculated, you know, the psychological present is said to be about three seconds long; that means that, you know, in a life there are about 600 million of them; in a month, there are about 600,000 — most of them don’t leave a trace. Most of them are completely ignored by the remembering self. And yet, somehow you get the sense that they should count, that what happens during these moments of experience is our life. It’s the finite resource that we’re spending while we’re on this earth. And how to spend it would seem to be relevant, but that is not the story that the remembering self keeps for us.”

About Daniel Kahneman, quoting from TED: “Widely regarded as the world’s most influential living psychologist, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel in Economics for his pioneering work in behavioral economics — exploring the irrational ways we make decisions about risk.”

We – although not all of us – seem to be working harder than the Romans did. Under Claudius, who was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54 AD, the citizens had the privilege of 159 public holidays, 93 of which were set aside for public games. 

But what about receiving money instead of spending it? Is money a big motivator for performance at the work place? Alas, again no. Time and again research has shown that for most people money is not the most important matter in their working life. Basically, the feel-good factor is the biggest motivator. Thus, again, status, albeit perceived status. That great feeling of contributing and appreciation… which money cannot buy from the best of people.

Marilyn Monroe put it perfectly: “I don’t want to make money. I just want to be wonderful.” And Coco Chanel summed it up well: “There are people who have money and people who are rich.”

So, what motivates us to do better? Dan Pink explains the surprising truth about what motivates us best.

The Fed, as it is known, is often the subject of conspiracy theories and much derided because of the secrecy of operation of the organization. Some believe the management of the organization to be responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 because of his Executive Order 111110, designed to curb the power of the Fed executives or even break up the bank.

Albeit a product of conspiracy or not, the history of the Federal Reserve bank is well studied and its purpose and role in society is well debated.

The documentary “Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve” offers an indepth look at the history of the Fed and addresses many questions surrounding the Fed’s real strategy. As the producers mention, “Alan Greenspan is not, we’re told, happy about this 42-minute blockbuster. Watch it, and you’ll understand why.”