Dark Secret - II

Africa, the 'dark' continent, shares secrets we're just now realizing are relevant. Like the kingdom of Meroë, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum.

In the background, the remains
of the capital city of Meroë; ever
heard of it?

The Nubians became rich from trade on the Nile.  Around 750 B.C., they moved their capital to Meroë between the Atbara and the Blue Nile where they flow into the White Nile.  It was a green and appealing place for many reasons.


Protected on three sides, they felt secure, and the environment gave them food and industry.  Unlike the arid climate of the Nile valley further north, Meroë had summer rains sufficient to support their crops even at some distance from the rivers.  With spacious grasslands surrounding them, herds were easily maintained.


Meroë became a thriving economy, and the demand for exotic goods by rising Greek and Roman prosperity fueled their growth.  Meroë was richly endowed with iron ore and the timber needed for the great quantities of charcoal the smelting process required.  Their metal industry produced farm and carpentry tools, shears and even tweezers, as well as weapons of war.  Spears and swords, shields and axes, all in great demand.

The region was broadly successful.  Like Egypt, much evidence remains in Meroë of an expansive civilization, pyramids and walls with sculpture and bas relief along with text.  Although the written language has yet to be deciphered, the engraved stone illustrations tell us of kings and queens, wars and conquest, and of a grand kingdom.  Centuries of stability passed until environmental degradation made their end inevitable.  Trees to fuel iron-smelting furnaces were felled faster than new ones could grow.  Deforestation led to erosion and a loss of topsoil.  The region that had supported thriving agricultural populations for a thousand years could be farmed no longer.  In a brief period, the civilization disappeared.

The region had a 'carrying capacity' that was finally exceeded.

That's the secret, by the way.  In any given model, any actual region, resources are finite.  There's a max-extraction/max-consumption rate or quantity that determines the region's 'carrying capacity'.

 Interestingly, the region has yet to recover from the uninformed exploitation.

Thanks and a hat-tip to John Reader, A Biography of the Continent, Africa.

Meroë was thriving when the world's population was perhaps 200 million people. Today, population density for such developed regions is two orders of magnitude higher, and we're seeing similar problems in a high-speed replay.

Deforestation is troublesome, of course, but that's where the land is that we need for food production. Rivers are being drained before they reach the sea because our need for water now exceeds their natural capacity.  Did you know that it takes around 300 gallons per person per day for food production.  In the western world, the figure is around 900 gallons.


Seventy percent of the world's fresh water goes to agriculture, and sources are under increasing pressure.  Aquifers continue to decline with overuse.  

Humanity devotes more land to food production than anything else - roughly a third of the earth's surface is dedicated to food production.  Much of it used to be forested, of course.  

Increasing production of food hasn't kept pace with demand with a resulting price increase of 100%+ (inflation adjusted) in the last two decades.  The UN estimates that we'll need to increase food production by 70% by 2050 to feed the world.  If production doesn't rise, prices will increase, and hunger will spread.  We've made real progress against hunger in the last 40 years, but it's precarious and now increasingly difficult to continue.

While humanity has a reputation for innovation and creative adaptation, this isn't just one more hurdle.  The reality is that we're reaching natural limits of our world's 'carrying capacity'; limits that can't be pushed back.  


Reducing world population by half would resolve many of the difficulties that we face, of course.  China tried that without success, only managing to slow their growth.  In historical similarly-sized circumstances, the death rate due to deprivation balances the equation.

The next thirty-five or so years will not be business as usual.  Such reality suggests we might begin now to understand the effect it will have on our children who will have to deal with it in their lifetime.  Can we equip them to cope rationally?  Of course.  Know how?

Time for a change; always exciting!  Forecasts by economists and the prophets of old suggest we should probably not be content with the status quo, nor should we hide our heads in the sand now that change is imminent.  

Dark Secret - I

The dark continent ... Africa.

"Africa has been woefully misunderstood and misused by the rest of the world."

"... In western imagery, Africa is the 'dark continent.' A synonym perhaps, but also the potent symbol of a persistent inclination to set Africa and its inhabitants apart from the rest of humanity.  The 'dark continent' does not refer only to the depths of Africa's equatorial forest, to the density of its tropical shadows, to the blackness of African skin, or even to a widespread lack of knowledge concerning the continent.  Above all, the phrase tacitly labels Africa as the place where a very particular form of darkness is found - the darkness of humanity.  In this context, Africa is where people do terrible things, not because the aptitude for such behavior is characteristic of all humanity, but because Africa is believed to be inherently more barbaric and less civilized than the rest of the world."

Thanks and a hat-tip to John Reader, A Biography of the Continent, Africa

Terrible things have been done in Africa, it's true.  Unfortunately, history shows us that such behaviors are not exclusive to Africa.  Today in Syria and Afghanistan, in the last century in Bosnia, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, China, Japan, Cambodia and Vietnam, and in the century prior, in all of the Americas.  Genocide, massive war casualties without cause, millions of civilian war victims.  Manifest destiny was one of dozens of excuses for driving out the current population or killing them.  Racial superiority fed many national egos as reason for domination, and slavery persists today.

We are all one, and of the same stuff, and share a common mind.  Our roots, genetically speaking, all begin in Africa, and there's little of consequence to distinguish us once you get past color and language.  Similar awareness of good and evil, similar goals for ourselves as individuals and for our communities, similar hopes for our children.

Too, we find a similar willingness to succeed at the expense of another, similar desire to be above and not below, upper rather than lower, above-average at least.  We're virtually giga-tuplets when it comes to such traits.

To be accurate, we might suggest that the darkness did indeed begin in Africa.  And it spread across the world when we did.

So then, how does one go about stepping out of the darkness and into the light?

There's nothing 'upper' about upper class.

With the foundations of racism crumbling however slowly, now the issues of class-based discrimination come into question.  Am I caught in it?  From an outside viewpoint, am I being an idiot?

Upper class tantrums ...
Told that the table she wanted wasn't
available, she threw what can only be
described as a tantrum and used the ace
up her sleeve, her daddy.

Andrea Benitez is the daughter of
Humberto Benitez Trevino, who happens
to be the federal attorney general for
consumer protection.

Faster than you can say "do you know
who I am?" Andrea had called her father's
department, which promptly turned up at
our local neighbourhood bistro and closed
it down on spurious administrative grounds.

There's nothing 'upper' about the upper class, by the way; nor 'low' about the lower class folks. Such distinctions are based on an economic culture that disproportionately supports the wealthy few at the expense of regular folks farther down the economic scale.

The 'rising tide' fiscal policies, all of them it turns out, don't raise all boats.  Our best attempts at a fair marketplace are perhaps 80% beneficial and not uniformly so across the population.  The marginalized and the disenfranchised are in every case left behind.  They're just as intelligent, just as creative, just as innovative, and often harder working.  Worthy in every way, but not included.

The 'classes' we so casually include in our thinking are categories based on wealth and influence.  The implied 'worth' and 'status' attending the classes are a discrimination point like 'race' has been.  Class is another way to put yourself above some and perhaps below others.  Walk it through, talk it through and see for yourself.

Then ask yourself some fun questions like:

Am I impressed by celebrity and wealth?
Do I care what the current 'A list' has to say?  
Do I aspire to a life of plenty and a well funded retirement?  Is my version of the American Dream defined by house, comfort, and income?
Do I interact with the 80% of the world that lives below what for me is the poverty line?

It's embarrassing to discover that we've given intellectual assent and we've chosen behaviors to fit the class game. Most of us in the developed world have.  It's part of the culture. It's difficult to shed the comfortable thinking and then choose a better, reasoned path. It's even difficult to hold on to the the issue. That's where you run across something like this and forget it even before you set the mirror down.

Now, what do we do with what we know?  Anything, literally anything at all, as opposed to nothing.


Tell the rich folks to quit being so full of themselves and so impressed with their own possessions, which are here today and gone tomorrow. It's not their merit that made them wealthy and others less so. Tell them to go after God who is generous to us all - and tell them to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasure that will last, gaining life that is truly life.

          1 Timothy 6:17-19 

Which lives matter?

Welcome to the 21st Century's unexpected task.

We thought we'd finished with prejudice and other such wrong thinking at least in our own country.

There remains not a single defensible position for racial discrimination.  All the remnants of those arguments are ignorance, fear, and unreasoning hatred.

Did you know that skin color changes with location and UV levels; your family was probably a different color somewhere in the past.  In a hundred generations (the blink of an eye) and without interbreeding, a population can change color from light to dark or dark to light.  Melanin magic; ensures we can make the vitamin D we need but not get too much UV damage. Pretty cool design. Color is really neat; I'd prefer green next.  Not that it matters.  Color is NOT reliably distinctive of anything other than where your family lived for the last hundred or so generations.  HA.  I wonder if Governor Deal and the Wilcox Georgia town council could stand knowing that.

We so have many reasons to be thankful for the legacy of our forefathers. So much good has been bought and paid for by men and women of good conscience.  Many died that we might live in liberty.

   Not all that has accompanied the process has been noble, however.

      Some of the leftovers like racism were just wrong.

Scientifically wrong.
Morally wrong.

... and we thought we were done with lessons about race.


When western expansion was young, we were told that the lands we saw were ours for the taking, and that we need have no concern for the indigenous savages.  We did that in Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Colonialism.  And manifest destiny.

Slavery and slaughter filled the years.  White superiority made sense to some.

They told us there were quality differences among the races with the white people being superior to the colored ones.

We were told that the dark ones weren't smart and couldn't learn much.  It has taken two hundred years to pull that one down.  So far.

Emerging from the lockbox of cultural constraints, now non-white talent and skill, leadership and erudition have emerged and taken their place at the top of relevance and significance in human history.

Fifty years ago, it was illegal for a white to marry a person of any color.  In 1959, a bricklayer and his wife pled guilty in a Virginia state court. A trial judge sentenced them both to one year in prison, suspending the sentence on condition that they leave the state and not return for 25 years. In considering his verdict, the judge wrote:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

OK, that's embarrassing, but it gets worse.

The US Supreme Court overturned all such laws in 1967, but many laws against interracial marriage actually remained on the state  books for decades.  It wasn't until 2000 that Alabama finally voted to remove that anti-miscegenation provision from their state constitution.  It wasn't a landslide; 40% voted to keep the provision in place.  OK, that's worse.


Of note at the turn of the century, mixed race families have crossed the line from lamentable to admirable in most common public conversation.  Unfortunately, their acceptance is not yet uniform across the country.

Just this year, we hear of a Georgia high school having their first integrated (multi-racial) prom in history.  A group of courageous students are doing it against the expressed will of the majority of residents including the town council and parents groups.  APR 12, 2013, the governor, Nathan Deal (R), declined to comment, saying he didn't want to take sides on the issue.  DIDN'T want to TAKE SIDES on SEGREGATION?!!!!!?  Give us a break gov, it's the 21st century.  (His spokesman called the all-included-prom a "silly publicity stunt.")


  

Got troubles?

There are things about government and the progress of nations that intimidate, even overwhelm us.

We forget that liberty is right and good, but not free for the taking.  Most folks have no such luxury as to expect to be treated fairly. Most of the world, in fact, has no voice in government, no right to petition for redress of grievance.  Justice isn't a given.  We're fortunate, but it requires our participation to continue.

Trouble, as I was reminded by my wife; when teenaged government troops break into your house and kill members of your family and cut off your hands and rape the girls, then you've got troubles.  By comparison, when someone at work hurts your feelings or when someone in the community doesn't acknowledge your contribution, those aren't troubles.  They're not significant, not worth the days of anger and bitterness they're often given, and not an adequate basis for life decisions.  They're small stuff, and so are we if that's what occupies our thinking.  Real troubles are things that interfere in the larger context with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, perhaps.

Can we tackle the big problems?

So then, are we swept along by big business, by big government, by the world order?  Or do we establish ourselves with understanding in a place which we can in good conscience defend?  Then, with clear thinking and good courage, we too can dedicate our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to that which is good, and not just for ourselves and our families, but for mankind.

Can you tackle the NSA issues, the FBI's misbehavior, and Congress?  Can you make your faith relevant? Of course you can, and it's worth a cautionary note that going along with the media hype is inadequate.  Is there risk?  Of course there is, and a price tag as well.

"We can win no laurels in a war for independence," Webster acknowledged in 1825. "Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us ... [as] the founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defense and preservation."

Vegas Street

Play for money is ancient, but we understand the Vegas mentality today all too well.  High risk, smart plays, and you just might hit it big.  If you could gamble with someone else's money, you'd have a ball!  Someone loses, someone (perhaps you) wins; it's appealing on many fronts.


There's little today to distinguish the casino floor from the trading floor in the financial marketplace.  Over the last century, the similarities have synced up rather nicely.  Two decades of deregulation; then in 2000 with CFMA, we legalized betting (credit derivatives, or credit default swaps; ), removing the last semblance of responsible management from the banking communities worldwide.  (It was illegal during most of the 20th century under the gaming laws, but in 2000, Congress gave Wall Street an exemption and it has turned out to be a very bad idea.) After the change, financial firms went wild.  Countries that refused to play found their national economies battered down by the international activity.  2008 gave us the first price tag; many Americans lost a quarter to half of their savings.  Many elsewhere in the world just went hungry and more than a million died in just the first year of fallout.

Vegas casino floor and Wall Street trading floor, much the same down to the last detail

Many things that happen on Wall Street and in London's financial district are "socially useless," says Lord Adair Turner, chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA). The values that are created there are often not real or of any use to society, Turner adds. Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, once remarked that the only truly useful financial innovation in the past 20 years is the ATM.

"The sector's high salaries tend to attract the best and brightest university graduates. The members of this youthful elite don't devise new products that make people's lives better, nor do they found new companies that further progress. Instead, these young financial wizards invest a great deal of money and effort to develop sophisticated financial products, the sole purpose of which is to generate more profit for both their employers and, ultimately, for themselves -- sometimes at the expense of other market players or even their customers."

"The truth is that the financial markets are controlling the politicians. If Sarkozy interrupts his vacation, the markets interpret his sudden return as a sign that the situation there is worse than they thought -- and promptly set their sights on the country. And if there is an argument between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, then the markets target Italy, because they doubt that the Italian government is serious about introducing austerity measures. The markets take advantage of every weakness and every rumor to speculate against one country after the next.

In doing so, they aggravate the crisis. Once a country has become the subject of rumors and speculation, other investors become nervous. Fearing further price declines, pension funds and insurance companies also start selling stocks and bonds. In the end, fear nurtures fear and a panic ensues."  ~Spiegel.De DIETMAR HAWRANEK, ARMIN MAHLER, CHRISTOPH PAULY, MICHAELA SCHIESSL AND THOMAS SCHULZ

 

Governments had the chance following the crash to reign in the financial industry and significantly reduce the allowable risks, but they failed to do so.  Regulatory changes, constrained by the influence Wall Street wields in governments, are known to be inadequate.  Title VII of the act is subject to numerous exemptions that will limit its effectiveness.

This morning's news, JP Morgan has posted a $6.5 Billion profit for the first quarter this year.  They provide no goods, no services, no resources, no consumables, no benefit to society.  These are their gambling winnings taken from the world economies.

Wall Street doesn't need to be regulated.  On the basis of behavior, it needs to be walled off, locked down, disconnected, and abandoned until they've zombie-ized and eaten each other instead of us.  Or, perhaps we should move them all from New York's Wall Street to the Las Vegas strip where everyone plays the same games.  At least then we could quit pretending they're somehow different.