May you live in interesting times

If we are living in a simulation, Player 1 was supposed to press skip on 2020 but definitely slept on the job….

Remember the supposedly Chinese phrase curated in the faux-Chinese ‘Confucius he say‘ style ; ” May you live in interesting times”. It of course counts both as a curse and a blessing. If the Chinese did not say it, they should have for our sake – we are definitely living in the most eventful times in the history of our species.

If we are by any chance living in a simulation, Player 1 was supposed to press skip on 2020 but definitely slept on the job. We have never been here before, at least in my lifetime and we never consciously anticipated that nature would act this way though in theory, it was inevitable that a pandemic would arise in this century. No one can ever predict when rare tragedies challenge our resistance to foreign forces.

In Elightenment Now , which is currently my favorite read of all time, Steven Pinker argues the idea he calls entro, evo, info and as always blows my mind with his precision of expression in Chapter 2;

The first keystone to understanding the human condition is the concept of entropy or disorder, which emerged from the 19th Century Physicist Ludwig Boltzmann …. Closed systems inexorably become less structured, less organized, less able to accomplish interesting and useful outcomes, until they slide into equilibrium of gray, homogenous monotony and stay there.

This is the famous Second Law of Thermodynamics  which is grounded in the principle and follows that any perturbation of a system, whether by the movement of its parts or a whack from external forces will, by laws of probability, nudge the system towards instability. Why this happens is not some mystery but simply because there are more ways for a system to be disorderly than there are to be orderly. I am convinced and hope to press this idea of enlightenment that the reason why systems move into unstable states, however you define unstable, is not something to spend ages debating or looking for some conspiracy theory either for comfort or reason to attack – entropy is your answer. The natural transition of any system is the movement towards instability – in everyday language, this simply means – things fall apart.

The second idea which is fundamental to understanding how the world works is that the laws of the universe, including other forms of nature do not care about you or me. Predators, parasites, pathogens are constantly trying to eat us, and pests and spoilage organisms try to eat our stuff. This makes us miserable but that is not their problem. In the same way we do not necessarily spend our days thinking about the animals we keep for food – some protest, not about the killing of chicken but how they are slaughtered : “slaughter them nicely”, they say. It is highly absurd to reason that accidents and diseases always have perpetrators which even poverty some make it their life’s mission to discover who to blame – as Adam Smith  pointed out, poverty needs no explanation, wealth requires a great deal of it. This is not to say that the world is without malevolence but to argue that pathogens are sent or are here to somehow to teach us some lesson is ignorance on rampage – they are on a survival path and sometimes the human body become the unfortunate host.

My highest goal is to be strive to be an accurate thinker by developing a feedback loop system that reduces biases as my life progresses. This has led me on the path of collecting ideas about how the world works, destroy some of my most loved ideas which I discover to be biases and ask some difficult questions which most people would rather leave alone. Human intelligence currently, until further notice remains the benchmark for any known form of intelligence – this is on a high level scary knowing how biased our systems can become and on a lower application level inspiring understanding that we can channel energy through knowledge  to stave off entropy and win against any form of enemy to advance human destiny. This is what encourages me in the face of any tragedy and even now facing the 120 nanometer biological mutant – COVID-19.

Unlike the Black Death in the 14th Century where death was the ultimate warning of danger , this time science took a lead to guide decision making in the political sphere. While medieval people never discovered what caused the Black Death, it took scientists just two weeks to identify the novel coronavirus, sequence its genome and develop a reliable test to identify infected people. It is incredible how the medical society, though caught off-guard like the rest of us was equipped intellectually to meet the challenge.

Information technology via several platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc.) became an incredible channel to raise awareness, inform the world about the necessary measures, some very drastic but necessary that we had to take to save ourselves and our families from the venomous predator. Compassion and empathy surfaced in incredible ways not only to look out for our immediate neighbor exposed to the virus but to be concerned about a fellow earth citizen in a foreign part of the world – surely there are better angels in our nature. Kindness rules our streets, not only in generosity but simply understanding that staying at home means limiting the spread of the virus through contact and one person indoors is several lives saved. Never in my life have I seen such weaponization of empathy on a global scale.

On an institutional level – politics, financial industry , medical institutions, small, medium & big businesses; “Unprepared” is the echo coherent across the board. But who could have been prepared of such a disaster? It is necessary that we are surprised; that is when true leadership is tested , values are remodeled and fundamentals can be revisited. The conflict between business and human life surfaced in 2020 – which in all rationality, it is essential to save human life rather than save an economy. Is it not so obvious that it is the ingenuity of the human mind that produces an economy and not the other way around? Should we at this point with our level of consciousness be debating such matters? It is paramount for the far reaching success of the human race for all institutions to treat science and its principles with respect. In this instance, we require guidance not from economists but scientists and medical practitioners – every war has its commander.

Those who are guided by reason desire nothing for themselves that they do not desire for all mankind. More than ever, reason, science & humanism remain the keys that will guide us into the future. In all tragedy are incredible opportunities to improve the human condition – necessity is surely the mother of invention. We are already discovering new ways of working , incredible ways of communication and collaboration, enlightenment towards need for global cooperation not division. Once again we are reminded – we are all connected.

Stay Alive – you and me have a future after COVID-19. May we all continue to live in interesting times.