Strolling through
a model home
that look like something
only heavens can hold
mind slowly descended
into a trance like state.
Perched on my shoulder, a broker sat
who whispered softly
this home is a cream puff
a diamond in the rough,
a similar opportunity
may never come.
But before I can act
and write the check,
there was a thunderclap,
rain drops fell
and the fever broke.
I am now back
in my musty home
but $500K sitting intact
if the safety of a bank.
It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change. Leon C. Megginson
There are many parallels between politics and evolution. To understand equivalence, first a brief introduction to evolution.
Evolution is a change in the characteristics of living things over time. It’s the process through which populations and species change with time. It is a process that led to longer necks for giraffes over time.
The driving mechanism behind evolution is natural selection. It is the process where organisms with traits that favor survival and reproduction tend to leave more offspring than their peers, causing these advantageous traits to increase in frequency over generations. The mechanism of natural selection is an elegant concept and has a far-reaching explanatory (and predictive) power. Its sweep is so wide that it may sound like a triviality in that if something does not exist then it must not have the advantageous trait to fit the environment.
Passing along of the advantageous traits to a larger pool of offsprings leads to the evolution of different species, a process known as speciation (the process by which populations evolve to become distinct species).
To summarize, natural selection resulting in evolution of species is like a game played in an arena where different species, and sub-species within a species, are vying for a limited amount of resources and the ones that have the right traits to garner the available resources are best suited to survive and reproduce. As a result, such traits become slowly speciated and a new species evolves.
One such advantageous trait is discounting the future (also known as temporal discounting). It is the tendency of humans and animals to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.
Take two species in the arena that has limited resources to offer. One species is short sighted and focuses on immediate gains while the other is a planner and tries to anticipate the future and plans for that. The mechanism of natural selection favors the first because the future is uncertain, and what one prepares may not occur.
Now let us return to another game played in the arena, i.e., politics.
In the game of politics
· limited resources are the limited voting pool that different politicians are fighting for.
· advantageous traits are winning strategies that garner those votes.
· Lastly, equivalent to survival and reproduction is getting elected.
Strategies that succeed in cornering larger fraction of voting pool help in getting elected (and reelected). The advantageous strategies might also become speciated among the other, or in the next generation of politicians. For example, Trump using unique brand of politics, if continues to be successful, may become a widely followed strategy.
Extending this parallel between the game of evolution and politics is also the notion of discounting the future.
Similar to the fact that discounting the future is an advantageous trait for natural selection and evolution, it is also an advantageous strategy in the game of politics. In politics it is not advisable to appeal to the voters for the good of humanity 50 years from the present and hope to win. The advantageous strategies for winning the vote, by discounting the future, focus on the present good for the voting pool. [Note — it is only when the voting pool itself has the betterment of generation to come in their psyche that politicians will think about not discounting the future]
The consequence of discounting the future in politics, however, can be devastating. Living in the present, however, we do not realize how.
The consequences include runaway climate change because appealing to the good of the future at the expense of the current populace is not a winning strategy. The social security trust fund in the United States may be declining and may be only 10-years away from running short of pay off, and yet, since the solution for the future population may involve a sacrifice from the current generation, no politician wants to propose a solution on their watch.
And yet, while discounting the future, we keep debating about trivialities like abortion rights, legalizing pot etc. and keep going in circles. It is hard to realize that discounting the future may bring us to a dystopian future where current debate and conflicts would not even matter.
And so, although the game of politics and evolution have lots of parallels, discounting the future in the game of politics is a terrible strategy for the future of humanity.
Ciao.
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese? Charles de Gaulle
I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University — William F. Buckley, Jr.
16 February 2024, the headline in the local newspaper says, “The House has embarked on a 12-day winter recess, joining the Senate’s two-week recess and leaving a long list of critical unfinished business on Capitol Hill”. All we can do is roll my eyes and say Really, WTF?
The Congress is going on a recess when the US government does not have an approved budget to function, and it is almost three months into the budget year. For now, it is only authorized to spend a limited amount of money to meet its obligations and the current authorization for some government agencies to stay open will run out on 1 March 2024, which is just two days after the Congress returns from their winter recess. Immediately after they come back, to keep the government functioning, there would be a flurry of finger pointing, negotiations, extorting etc. to pass another temporary authorization.
Instead of going to the recess, members of the Congress should all be tied to their chairs and not allowed to leave the chambers until they have completed their primary job of passing the budget before the fiscal year begins. Their lack of responsibility barely registers in the psyche of the nation.
The Congress does not have the time to pass the budget and yet has time to spend on frivolous activities like engaging in the impeachment of a Cabinet Secretary or harboring dreams of impeaching Joe Biden, all for the sake of petty tit for tat. Sometimes, it seems like we have elected a bunch of toddlers to the Congress and each one is engaged in some random act of nonsensical behavior hoping that when all is summed together would make some progress.
If we were not to do our job, the Congress would take the high road and preach to us on our responsibility, our moral duty, and incompetence. At a more basic level, if we were not to do our job, we would be shown to the door by our employer and told not to return. Of course, someone would raise their hand and point out that if members of the Congress are incompetent they could be voted out. The election process, however, is so rigged, or the voters so complacent that the norms of democracy no longer work.
Perhaps it is the case that we get what we deserve. If the world goes up in flames, humans as a species become extinct, or return to dark ages depicted so often in dystopian movies, it is what our collective ignorance asked for.
One has to wonder why the US Congress is so dysfunctional? Was it always like this? Why do the opposite sides of the Congress have to disagree on every proposal? If one says it is day then even if it is bright outside, the other has to insist that no, it is night. They must feel a moral obligation to do so. Is the electorate they represent so different from each other? One wants basic health care, and the other does not. One wants basic human dignity, but the other does not. Do basic human needs across the blue and red states differ that their elected members shall oppose each other?
In the end, the fundamental goal of the members of the Congress is to get reelected and perhaps making the legislative branch so dysfunctional helps them win the election. Perhaps they go back to their electorate and brag that I worked my ass off to make sure that no decisions are made and deserve to be elected again.
There should be a clause in the job description of the members that if they do not pass the budget before the start of the fiscal year, they will be fired from the position they hold and will not be allowed to seek reelection.
The way things currently stand, in the front of Congress there ought to be a plaque that carries the inscription “We bicker, therefore we are.”
Hope you can tell that I am frustrated (and venting) at Congress to go on the recess while Rome burns, and so should you be. It is frustration of the feeling of impotent that there is nothing the eight billion people on this planet can do against the likes of Trump and Putin.
The world is going downhill, and the caretakers of our government have the gall to say, “Sorry, Gone Fishing.”
Ciao.
Also worth browsing:
Congress has long struggled to pass spending bills on time
The Congressional Fundraising Treadmill, July-September 2021
In the cosmos of increasing entropy
that my Inbox is,
A supernova bursts forth,
"My Impending Retirement,”
says the subject line,
of an email
from yet another colleague,
who weary of the dance,
and lengthening varicose veins,
is ready to step
off the stage.
Months from now,
close to the date of exit,
I will drop an email,
"Enjoy the next phase
after a successful career,
and stay in touch,
if you can."
And yet, I know
these words are perfunctory.
Our world lines, once entwined,
now being sucked in
by the gravity of life's
next big surprise
will no longer cross.
Each day a different spreadsheet takes the floor,
Each one a unique dancer in the financial lore.
One, named Net Worth, in a low-cut satin gown,
Elegantly tracking numbers going up and down.
In her high heels, Asset Allocation takes the stage,
Balancing my portfolio with wisdom and sage.
Underneath, a thong, a daring choice,
Taking the risks that want to make me rejoice.
Then there is Cash Flow, a sight to behold,
If inflow in tops outflows, when I am old.
A real looker, when the balance is right,
Pumping financial decisions, day and night.
Amidst them all, one sits all alone,
In a black dress, a presence of its own.
A sickle for a necklace, a cold delight,
Counting down the seconds, from morning to night
It is short sightedness in us that lets people elect leaders like Trump into positions of power, and thereby, immediately increase the probability of our extinction.
The future is all about probabilities. In some cases, it may be a heavily loaded dice and it is easy to fall in the perception of certainty. Psychologically it also helps to perceive the future as deterministic. I get on the plane at Dulles International Airport on the way to Geneva, and while boarding, there is never a thought that there is non-zero probability that the flight may never get there. In my mind, I am already visualizing checking into the hotel, taking a shower, and weather permitting, heading out to take a walk along Lake Geneva.
In my mind’s eye, it all feels so natural and the way the universe functions.
A good thing about the probabilities associated with future alternatives is that our actions in the present can change the probabilities of possible outcomes. Eating healthy foods and exercising does not completely eliminate chances of getting hit by some catastrophic ailment in the future but it does tilt the odds against that it may happen. A good example is to quit smoking and the influence it has on reducing the probability of getting lung cancer. But then, I have also been told that the longest living person on the planet was a smoker.
But don’t let this factoid make you think that it could also be you or that you are invincible and reach for another cigarette. Odds are much higher that you would come to regret it later.
If the future is associated with probabilities, what is the probability of human extinction? While we are at it, it would also be good to think about how my (and our) actions in the present affect the probability of human extinction. Let us not for a moment be lulled by the notion that it is an impossible outcome. The history of evolution is rife with examples of species that have gone extinct, some because of evolutionary pressures while others because of catastrophic events, like the impact of a celestial object burning up in the atmosphere.
The probability of our extinction depends on how many ways the Earth can become an inhospitable place for us to live. Some of the ways things can go wrong are beyond our control — a super volcano shrouding Earth in a blanket of darkness, or the trajectory of a primordial black hole intersecting with the trajectory of Earth.
Then there are ways that are within our control and our (collective) behavior in the present has the power to alter the probability of our extinction. The unfortunate fact is that some of the factors that could lead to the self-extinction of human civilization are of our own creation.
While incredible advances in science and technology have raised the lot of humanity, they have also created novel pathways that could lead to human extinction — nuclear weapons and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), climate change, some scientist tinkering with the genes of viruses. Among them climate change holds a unique place in that it is driven by our ever-growing need for energy.
To fight against the ravages of entropy, our body needs external sources of energy (calories). Other technological advances catering to human convenience, desires for a better life etc. also require energy in addition to what is needed to simply sustain us. In fact, the former is now much bigger than the latter.
Until we do find cleaner sources of energy, we have to rely on fossil fuels, a consequence of which is changes in the atmospheric composition and increase in CO2 and other gases that are changing climate patterns to which our social and agricultural norms adapted to. Indications are that changes in Earth’s climate and its consequences (e.g., rising temperature, changes in extremes events, melt of sea ice in polar caps and sea level rise) are predicted to create social and ecological havoc, unless…
…unless we decrease our energy consumption from fossil fuels.
Perhaps one day new innovations will lead to cleaner sources of energy (e.g., fusion) and issues we have created will find solutions, but until then, an effort is needed to reduce our energy consumption and try to increase reliance on cleaner sources of energy that are already available to us.
Individually we can do something, and indeed we do but is that going to be effective? The idealist among us would say it does, that the ocean is made of individual drops, that efforts by individuals can turn the tide, but they are just feeling good cliches and in reality not going to make a dent in the issues that we are now facing. Instead…
…what we are going to need to enhance the probability of our continued survival as a species is a collective action, and importantly, a collective transformation in psychological traits that helped us survive and reproduce (for example, psychological traits like urge to dominate, kinship bias, preference to discount the future etc.). Is there any chance that could happen?
In the end, the increasing the probability of human civilization will come down to assessing the probability of collective evolution of humanity in shaking off psychological traits that are deeply embedded in our psyche.
One of the primary psychological traits that is likely to be our downfall is discounting the future (i.e., our tendency to prefer immediate rewards over the ones in future). The propensity of humans and animals to discount future returns for short-term benefits has a logic to it. This trait likely evolved because it was beneficial in environments where the future was uncertain and immediate rewards were critical for survival.
The bottom line is that how we act today is continually altering the probability of our eventual survival. That combined with our tendency to discount the future is a recipe for sharply increasing the probability of our extinction.
Perhaps, we will become extinct (or slide back to dark ages) is not an impossibility but an evolutionary imperative. It happens to all civilizations that may have come into existence in various parts of the universe but went extinct and is the reason we have not been visited by aliens.
Ciao.
Selection shaped our brains and bodies to maximize reproduction at enormous costs to human happiness - Randolph M. Nesse
Consider some numbers along the timeline of the universe. The age of the universe is estimated to be about 13.3 billion years old. The age of the Sun and the Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old. The age of establishment of agrarian societies is estimated to be 10,000 CE (Common Era) or about 12,000 years ago from now. The age of emergence of writing was 3,000 CE or about 5,000 years in the past. The age of the World Wide Web is about 35 years old.
To put these numbers in a relative context, if we consider a year as the lifespan of the universe, the human civilization (beginning from the agrarian societies) would be about 15 seconds of that year. We are just a small flea in the vastness of time, and yet, we have already reached a stage in our evolution that we now hold a position from where we are flexing our muscles.
We are now in the enviable position to be the self-appointed managers of the Earth (although by looking around, our management responsibility is not going too well).
In a relatively short span of time, we have made astounding strides. We have unraveled basic laws of nature (physics), we have understood how atoms and molecules interact and made some new ones (chemistry), we have deciphered the basis of living entities (biology).
We have managed to leave our home, the Earth, have learned to manipulate genes, have developed artificial intelligence. On top of what we have already achieved, there are lots more technologies on the horizon.
We are beginning to think about the old age not as an inevitable part of the natural process but as a disease that can be cured, and talking about the natural process like aging…
… relying on our advances in technology and medicine, we have also freed ourselves from the pressures and constraints that natural selection traditionally operated under. We have overcome diseases, and along the way, have doubled our life expectancy; we can move faster than a cheetah, we can put on a skin tougher than a rhino; we can move in the air, in the water, and on the land.
We have reached a state of development where we use our consciousness to question the meaning of our own consciousness.
And yet, standing at this juncture we do not know where we would end up in 100 years, 10,000 years, or a million years from now? We do not know whether in future there will be us around wanting to look back wanting get familiar with our history?
Can we consciously engage in activities that would enhance the probability that from 10,000 years from now we will still be around? Just like eating healthier foods, exercising regularly, avoiding risky behaviors can enhance the probability of our lifespan, can we do the same and enhance the probability that as a civilization we will continue to exist.
By overcoming physical and biological challenges that governed natural selection we have certainly enhanced the probability of our continued existence. Advances in medicine have reduced the chances of extinction due to pandemics becoming a reality. By finding new ways to tap energy we have managed to sustain our growing numbers on the planet.
By adding to the advances, we have already made over a short period of time, we are also trying to develop technologies to reduce the probability of our future extinction due to other exogenous possibilities. We are working on technologies to deflect large asteroids that might be on collision course with the Earth with the potential to wipe us out. Venturing into space travel we are setting the stage for technologies that one day would allow us to leave the single point of failure our current home could be.
Are those measures sufficient? Possibly not.
In addition to what we have already done to improve the probability of our survival, an additional effort we need to urgently make is to conquer some of our psychological traits that benefited us during the evolutionary process. These are the psychological traits that we now carry as a consequence of evolution and natural selection itself because having those traits helped in our quest for survival and reproduction.
Some examples of these psychological traits include preference for people of our kind (kinship), being more attuned to negativity (that helped us to recognize dangers lurking in the wild), engaging in risky behaviors (in our quest to be the alpha male), discounting the future (present being more important than an uncertain future) to name a few.
It is overcoming those psychological traits and that would further enhance the probability that we would be there.
Collectively we need to rise above the psychological traits that aided our journey through natural selection, but going into the future, the same traits could be detrimental to our futures. Now the biggest possibility of future extinction is us, and collectively we have to overcome our own undesirable shortcomings.
Collectively we have to agree on what it would take to be there in the future, and then agree on actions to take, and then make those actions a reality. As we already know, it is not going to be an easy task and will require a whole lot of things to happen just the right way.
As we stand here we do not realize that an infinite number of things had to happen in a certain way for us to be here. A small deviation in the trajectory of the universe and who knows what may have happened. In an analogous manner, things have to play out in a certain way for us to be there in the future. Technological solutions may widen the cone of our misbehavior that universe would tolerate and without driving us to self-extinction, but technological solutions cannot give us a blank check to mismanage the world we live in beyond a point.
Ciao.
Yesterday, sitting together,
At the two ends of our grey, worn-out sofa,
We looked into each other's eyes,
With a silent acknowledgment,
That our endless discussions on,
Where to retire, where to live,
Cannot drag on forever, for
Time, once abundant,
Now feels limited.
We realized, that now is the time,
To simplify our needs:
A small postage-stamp home,
Somewhere in the Lowcountry,
Where four seasons color the pages
Of the wall calendar in different hues,
Will suffice,
And yes, a Total Wine,
Within a thirty-minute drive.
In that place, we can settle,
Living together and learning,
How to be alone,
After one of us departs.
Most dystopian, classic, and contemporary, paints a future world that puts a twist on present society — a future world that could plausibly happen — Lauren DeStefano
The word “dystopia” often conjures up stereotypical images, likely influenced by futuristic science fiction movies depicting dystopian worlds.
Imagine a world enveloped in darkness and cold, where people huddle around fires for warmth. Buildings, once bustling with life, now stand as hollow shells. The streets are eerily silent, save for the occasional gust of wind stirring up dust and debris. Suddenly, a drone whirs overhead, its red scanning light sweeping the area. Figures quickly take cover behind dilapidated cars, their breath hitching as they wait for the drone to pass.
Why are there more movies devoted to dystopian civilizations than their utopian counterparts?
It is because dystopian worlds are inherently more interesting and adaptable for compelling narratives. Emerging from a dystopian world makes for a captivating story, where the protagonist triumphs over the evil running the police state and restores harmony.
Dystopian worlds provide fertile grounds for heroic journeys and recreations of epic tales like the Odyssey.
In contrast, what story can one write about a utopian state? A place where every day mirrors the previous one, and nothing really happens. Meanwhile, in dystopia, a new story of bravery or treachery unfolds every hour.
Or perhaps the prevalence of dystopian movies is because science fiction writers’ sense that dystopia is a more probable outcome?
If I were to wager, that is where I would place my bet. Deep down, we realize that achieving utopia would require collective human traits we currently lack, and furthermore, what utopia may require could contradict some fundamental laws of nature.
Why so?
Maintaining a utopia would necessitate traits like empathy, compassion, tolerance, and a sense of equity. It would require humanity to adopt a growth mindset, devoting their time to constructive activities and defying the adage that “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” After all, this proverb is rooted in the observation that a person with nothing productive to do is more likely to engage in harmful activities, and a bored mind is more prone to negative behaviors or thoughts.
Considering our current state and the state of our world, having such collective traits seems highly unlikely. Of course, we may wise up as we evolve, or after surviving a few calamities (for example, the inevitable consequences of climate change), we might finally realize that if we do not change, there may not be a tomorrow, or we may not get another chance.
The sight of everyone engrossed in their smartphones on the subway or at the airport does not inspire much confidence that we are collectively heading towards a growth mindset or wisely using our time.
Another formidable adversary of utopia is the universality of the bell curve.
The human mind and traits are bound to deviate from the norm necessary to maintain utopia, requiring external control to nip them in the bud. These deviations from utopian norms need to be weeded out before they amplify due to positive feedback. This scenario was vividly depicted in the novel Divergent.
Can we have a utopian society with the freedom for humanity to live on a bell curve? Can we have a utopian society whose norms include freedom of speech, lack of central authority control, and the right to bear arms?
Discussing external controls to minimize deviations from utopian norms certainly echoes elements of dystopia.
Returning to our initial discussion about the prevalence of dystopian worlds in science fiction and movies, it may be rooted in our gut-level sense that a stable state of utopia is an impossible achievement. Furthermore, it seems much easier to descend into a dystopian state than to ascend to its utopian counterpart.
And then there is the undeniable fact that dystopian worlds make for more intriguing and captivating stories.
Ciao.