What do The George Guidestones say?

THE MESSAGE OF THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.

3. Unite humanity with a living new language.

4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.

5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

8. Balance personal rights with social duties.

9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.

10. Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.

Who is behind these guidestones?

We, the sponsors of The Georgia Guidestones, are a small group of Americans who wish to focus attention on problems central to the present quandary of humanity. We have a simple message for other human beings, now and in the future. We believe it contains self-evident truths, and we intend no bias for a particular creed or philosophy. Yet our message is in some areas controversial. We have chosen to remain anonymous in order to avoid debate and contention which might confuse our meaning, and which might delay a considered review of our thoughts. We believe that our precepts are sound. They must stand on their own merits.

Stonehenge and other vestiges of ancient human thoughts arouse our curiosity but carry no message for our guidance. To convey our ideas across time to other human beings, we erected a monument — a cluster of graven stones. These silent stones will display our ideas now and when we have gone. We hope that they will merit increasing acceptance and that through their silent persistence they will hasten in a small degree the coming age of reason.

1. In 1980, as these stones were being raised, the most pressing world problem was the need to control human numbers. In recent centuries technology and abundant fuels have made possible a multiplication of humanity far beyond what is prudent or long sustainable. Now we can foresee the impending exhaustion of those energy sources and the depletion of world reserves of many vital raw materials.

Nearly every nation is now overpopulated in terms of a perpetual balance with nature. We are like a fleet of overcrowded lifeboats confronted with an approaching tempest. In the United States of America we are seriously overtaxing our resources to maintain our present population in the existing state of prosperity. We are destroying our farmland and we have grown dangerously dependent upon external sources for oil, metals and other nonrenewable resources. Nations such as Japan, Holland and Haiti are even more seriously overpopulated and, therefore, in greater jeopardy.

2. Controlling our reproduction is urgently needed. It will require major changes in our attitudes and customs. Unfortunately, the inertia of human custom can be extreme. This is especially true when those for whom custom is a dominant force are uninformed of the need for change.

In these circumstances, reproduction is no longer exclusively a personal matter. Society must have a voice and some power of direction in regulating this vital function. The wishes of human couples are important, but not paramount. The interests of present society and the welfare of future generations must be given increasing consideration as we develop mechanisms to bring rational control to our childbearing.

Irresponsible childbearing must be discouraged by legal and social pressures. Couples who cannot provide a decent income and support for a child should not produce children to be a burden for their neighbors. Bringing unneeded children into an overcrowded lifeboat is evil. It is unjust to those children. It is harmful for the other occupants and all living things. Society should not encourage or subsidize such behavior.

Knowledge and techniques for regulating human reproduction are now in existence. Moral and political leaders throughout the world have a grave responsibility to make this knowledge and these techniques generally available. This could be done with a fraction of the funds, which the world now devotes to military purpose. In the long run, diverting funds into this channel could do more than anything else to reduce the tensions, which lead to war.

3. Four large stones in the central cluster are inscribed with ten precepts, each stone carrying the same text in two languages. In the English version the message totals fewer than one hundred words. The languages have been selected for their historical significance and for their impact on people now living. Since there are three thousand living languages, not all could be chosen.