Thursday, March 26, 2020

HUMANITY VS. NATURE: COVID-19

 It is Nature against Human kind.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
Nature encodes itself in DNA/RNA. It succeeds by mire geometric replication in millions  of ways. This "survival" of the fittest" strategy has generated millions, if not billions of varieties of combinations and forms of life. One of which is the human species. Another is the Corona Virus.                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
We are one species that has rebelled against Nature and created our "Own" form of DNA  called Society and  RNA called CULTURE. As we have evolved we are following the same path as Nature (we have to because we are a part of Nature's experiment despite our  modern arrogance to think we are apart from Nature).                                                                                                                                                       
Where Nature encodes its formula for a species in the genes, Humans encode the formula for their society in Culture. A simple society has a simple Culture with a simple technology that can be passed from generation to generation through example and teaching. A complex society encodes its cultural "DNA", in its physical and intellectual technology and its cultural "RNA" in the extensive and diversified knowledge and skill base that is taught and stored in its institutions and the members serving them.                                                                                                                                                               
The current pandemic, CONVD-19, is an attack by Nature against the Human Species. It  is just another test of  the human model by Nature. These tests are coming more frequently and globally as our numbers and our impact on the planetary environment increases. In Human terms of time, such attacks are infrequent. But  Nature's time table they are more frequent and test our weaknesses as an opportunity for a new variation of life. We help Nature when our population size expands, our ease of travel increases, our social networks become more complex and we become more depend on technology to satisfy our individual and collective  needs.                                                                                                                                                            
The current pandemic is only 100 years away from the last in 1918. Between and now we have had such plagues as polio, SARS, Ebola, AIDS, to mention only a few. Each has tested our species' genetic weaknesses  and technological adaptability.                                                                                                                                                      
Biological Species adjust through Darwinian adaptation. Societies adjust through technology adaptation. Just as different gene sequences carry the variations of the trait that is being tested, so different social and  technological structures carry the variations of human adaptability being tested. Today, March 26, 2020 we are being tested. The question is “Will we pass the test as a Species?" or "Will we fail the test as a Society?"                                                                                                                                                       
The Dinosaurs evolved over some 200 million year and today some scientist believe survive in their genetic  adaptation as birds. Humans are mammals, We are primates. 
                                                                                                                                         
 Homo Sapiens are one species of this general class. Just as the today's birds are represent the survival of the dinosaur class. Homo Sapiens have been especially successful over the past 200,000 years (more or less) because of their unique adaptation, This is the ability to organize into complex social units, adapt our technologies to the great diversity of the physical environments we inhabit, adapt our cultural processes for defining meaningful  problems and methods for  solving them through technological adaptation. This is the physical and behavioral side of CULTURE.                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
Culture has a mental side as well, we call TRADITION. Traditions require learning the collective knowledge of the society and the transmission of that knowledge to the develop the skills to use that knowledge. In the Modern Global Society, it is the skills and skill level of a SOCIETY and Human SOCIETY as a whole that is being tested by NATURE.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Today, this minute, we are focused on the latest pandemic and wonder how we can survive it, as individuals and as communities. But Nature does not care. The Virus is an equal  opportunity species that attacks the biological human host. Our natural response to it is  determined by chance and our unique DNA's ability to  ward off or to be susceptible the Virus.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Our Society and communities, however, are complex structures represented by the supply chain of goods and services that make the structure work. Any break or constraint in that  chain imposes boundaries on our environment. These limits determine our ability to survive as individuals and in many cases as communities. Nature can be and has been contained within these environments. But as we become more unified as a species, Nature exploits these new avenues to test its adaptations. The history of the planet demonstrates how Nature  expands and contracts and how species emerge, flourish and become extinct. We are NOT an  exception.                                                                                                                                                               
To assume that this current threat will pass without a longer term cost is irrational. We must find the opportunities that exist within the threat and exploit them if humanity is to survive.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Pandemics, among all species, exist because they follow the food chain. The food chain of the virus and the food chain of the host, And the food chain of the host is the food  chain of the Species. For the human species, the food chain of the SOCIETY, And finally,  FOOD is anything and everything that the biological individual  and societal CULTURE value that sustains and gives meaning to life.                                                                                                                                                   
To fight the current pandemic and prevent future pandemic we (as a species and as individuals) must think and act in tune with our one and only home -- Planet Earth. This struggle between Humanity and Nature is the Biblical Armageddon. It is the test of  Humanity's ability to recreate a mythical garden of Eden or sink into the fossil record as just another experiment by Nature.                                                                                                         




Saturday, March 7, 2020

CONSUMPTION PATTERNS --- NEEDS, WANTS, DESIRES – PART 3


As one proceeds up the SUPPLY CHAIN, and from the human animal thru the human social animal and sociocultural system, we find that the paradigm, NEEDS, WANTS, and DESIRES, repeats itself on each level[1]. This paradigm reflects changes in the power relationship between Buyers and Sellers in the transaction space. The power relationship can be divided into two parts – survival and replication.

Survival and replication takes place in all living systems. 

Humans have evolved two basic exchange systems that take place between individuals and/or social systems. These are a barter system and a monetary system, Exchange systems have a cultural significance that derives from the meaning and value of the products exchanged to the Buyer (recipient) of the product and the Seller (offeror) of the product. These exchange systems are barter and monetary, discussed below. In either system, the buyer seeks to acquire a good or service that meets a personal or social NEED. The seller offers to exchange a good or service in order to acquire a product that fills his/her NEED.

A barter system is a social system of exchange that creates the status/role set of a “buyer and seller” that both parties to the exchange occupy In a barter situation each party acts as both a Buyer/Seller. The value of the items exchanged is relative. The value is determined by the ratio of supply and demand at the given moment in the given place where the exchange takes place. Each party engages in a search process to find an interested BUYER for their good/service. And they act as a SELLER of the product they seek to exchange.
   
A modern exchange system involves a unique commodity, Money. Money serves as an intermediary in an exchange system and separates the roles in the system, by separating the Status of Buyer from Seller. Money is the physical and ideational manifestation of a cultural expression of value for a good and/or service. The value of a commodity is determined by the buyer and seller acting as members of a sociocultural exchange system.

Value is expressed as a ratio between the supply of the product and the consumer demand for it.  Money, in this instance, is just another commodity. In and of itself, Money has no intrinsic value. It only derives its value based on what individuals and cultures give to it. It is symbol and may be represented in physical form or an entry in a journal.

Money, as a cultural commodity, becomes a store of value for expressing this ratio. When a willing Buyer offers and the willing Seller accept a quantity of money in place of a good or service, money becomes the medium of exchange that captures this relationship. Money, by serving as an intermediary commodity, gives cultural meaning to the value (ratio) of the exchange by serving as a “neutral” unit of account shared by and equating the Buyer’s willingness to pay and the Seller’s willingness to accept a transaction.

The monetary situation separates the Buyer and Seller roles. The Buyer has specific needs, wants, and desires while the Seller has a specific product, (a good or service) to offer that may satisfy a particular need. The Buyer is thus engaged in a search for the “best deal” or an exchange rate that gives him/her the best or greatest future return or benefit (utility) for his/her investment in a Seller’s offer.

The Seller is focused on the “best deal” from selling the product of his/her investment in time and effort to produce and sell the product. This “best deal” is defined in terms of finding the Buyer or situation where she can find the greatest Need (demand) for the product and gain the "best price."

Finding and creating the “best deal” is an uncertain event. The difference between the best deal and a good deal is risk each actors assume by accepting a deal. Here is where a monetary system captures the uncertainty (or risk) of a “best deal”. Money, in exchange for a current good or service, enables the Seller the opportunity to concentrate on production and sell it when it is ready.

Money allows the Buyer to acquire the product in the amount and at the rate she/he wishes to consume it, rather than depending a single producer or single opportunity. The differences in the risk of holding or using the product is transferred by the monetary  system. The risk value of holding (storing) or using (consuming) a good can be measured in terms of the discount rate, or interest paid for holding the money between transactions.

The Agricultural example

The good example here is agricultural production. Here the farmer requires seed at the beginning of the growing season to begin production of a crop. In a barter system, he would have to reserve some of last year’s crop production for seed to use in the next season. This exposes him to the risk that not having enough for food or trade between harvests. In a monetary system, the farmer can borrow Money from a “bank”today, at a known interest rate or risk premium, to use to buy the seed needed today. Assuming that the farmer has a good season both he and the bank prosper when the farmer pays the loan owed plus interest, from the proceeds from the sale of the future harvest.

If it is a bad year, some of the risk has been transferred to the Bank and might be postponed for another season via another loan and interest rate. The Bank becomes an intermediary between the planting and the harvest, i.e. the capital investment  and the investment's return. The Bank shares the risk and would lose its investment should it  chose to foreclose on the loan.

By transferring risk, the farmer is taking out “insurance” today against the potential failure in the future. Here failure is a metaphor for the risk to “survival” and the “insurance” a metaphor of the potential for “replication.” These are cultural tools that humans have developed to spread risk and to bind social groups through an exchange system.

The questions facing every Buyer and Seller are: “How do I manage my consumption to maximize my chances of survival?” and “What steps do I take to insurer that I can replicate and/or improve my survival?” These are the two different questions we will address next.



[1] See my earlier essay Consumption Patterns: Needs, Wants, and Desires