I wish to talk about something that is highly probable a lot of people all over the world is experiencing in these last days of the year 2011. I am referring to a sense of frustration and impotence (not in its sexual meaning, of course) that is pervading our consciousness any time we are listening a TV News or reading a newspaper or browsing a news website. Every day for a minimum of twice a day we are listening or reading always the same messages. I mean that some words are recurring more and more times. These words are: economic crisis, social cuts, deficit, spread, sacrifices, "zero" growth, more taxes, less public costs, privatizations, welfare reductions.
Well, unless you are too young or you have a short memory, in England, for instance, under Margaret Tatcher's "kingdom" or in United States under Ronald Reagan's presidency, we have already listened this kind of language. The only difference is that this time it seems to have a wider sense of urgency and the tone is more dramatic. For sure the form is a bit different, but the sense is still the same. The sense is: we are in big troubles and we need to take some measures to save our economic future. Maybe there is another important difference: it is the first time that this language is used on a global scale.
Said this, now I would like that you make some reflections as I did. For your info the way I use when I make reflections is very easy and is the following: I wonder about the problem I am analysing trying to get all the possible answers, independently if these answers are or not solutions to my problem. When I am sure I have got all the possible answers then I will try to find at least three answers that better can match with a possible solution. Once I get these three answers I choose only the answer that can match almost 100% to the problem, I mean that I choose the answer which is the better solution to apply to the analysed problem.
It is almost a year I have been trying to answer myself the following question: is the actual economic crisis really true or is it only a trick invented by an evil mind or some evil minds to get a huge amount of profits on a large global scale in a relatively short time?
For a strange case of the destiny, while I was looking around and around to finally get the right answer, almost one month ago I got the answer through a person I have never met but, in this moment, this person represents for me a sort of enlightenment I was looking for many years. The name of this person is Elisabet Sahtouris. She is 75 y.o. and was born in New York but she is actually living in the Balearic isle of Palma de Mallorca (Spain). She is an evolutionist biology and a futurist. Below you can see her picture as follows:
(Picture courtesy of Philip Lavere)
On November 14, 2011 on the back-cover of "La Vanguardia" newspaper published in Barcelona (Catalunya) appeared an interview with Mrs Sahtouris which is, in my opinion, a special piece of wisdom that it should be taught to students in primary and secondary school. If not, at least at university level her theory should be a must for all types of students of any universitary course. At least, this is my opinion.
Since the interview has been made in Spanish, if you understand Spanish language you can follow this link and go to: http://www.lavanguardia.com/lacontra/20111114/54238863691/esta-crisis-es-biologica-o-cooperamos-o-nos-extinguimos.html if you wish to understand why I consider Elisabet Sahtouris an intelligent, smart, clever and brilliant mind which can help us to understand the actual economic global crisis.
If you don't understand Spanish and you wish to understand why I consider so much important Mrs Sahtouris' point of view on the historical moment we are living all together, I will try to help you resuming the interview into the most important points of her theory on how to approach the crisis. For sure the vital point is already in the title of the interview that says: "This crisis is biological: or we are going to co-operate or we will extinguish ourselves".
Elisabet Sahtouris informed us that analysing the Past, with the purpose to understand where we are going in the Future, discovered a maturity cycle into evolution. She assumes that Darwin's Evolution Theory is based on competition and Kropotkin's Evolution Theory is based on co-operation. If you merge both theories in a unique theory you get a theory much more complete.
In short she teaches us how the first forms of life on Earth should pass through a dilemma: if they wanted to survive they had to come into "maturity" step from a previous "youth" step. In the "youth" step all species are very competitive and creative. Then they come into a "maturity" step when they understand it is much more convenient to co-operate. This is due to the matter they understand co-operation is much more efficient.
At this point of the interview we are going to know something absolutely astonishing, if you are not a professional biology researcher like me. Half of Evolution happened when bacteria were the only living beings on Earth. During their "youth" step bacteria caused an impressive trouble on global scale. They ate all glucose and free acid available on the planet. As a matter of fact they caused a world famine, but the crisis urged bacteria to be more creative.
So bacteria invented food using sun, water and minerals. In other words they invented photosynthesis. This invention was a real success but the consequence was a global pollution because from photosynthesis you get a residual gas i.e. oxygen.
Paradoxically oxygen was a pollution agent because it is a lethal gas at molecular level (Mrs. Sahtouris at this point of the interview remind us this is the reason why everybody take so many anti-oxidation agents). At the beginning earth and oceans absorbed most part of the oxygen. The remaining went to the atmosphere, which is composed by a percentage of 21% of oxygen.
However the result was a very fragile balance because if atmosphere has a 1 or 2% oxygen more everything could be burst and if atmosphere has a 1 or 2% oxygen less we couldn't breath. Delicate situation as you can easily understand.
At this point the interviewer ask to Mrs Sahtouris how it was possible to get the right balance. She answers that oxygen was killing a huge quantity of bacteria. Some of them escaped into earth. On the other side some bacteria developed like a solar shield and started crushing food (molecules) absorbing them. In this way they learnt to breath. These bacteria had more energy to spend because they were technologically much more developed. They invented the "electric engine".
This is the second moment you get astonished, as myself, I suppose. The kind of "electric engine" which is talking Elisabet Sahtouris is something very similar to human sperm, she says. They use this engine to swim, exactly like human sperm.
So at this point you get the third and most astonishing revelation of all interview. The revelation is the following: we, the human beings, are much more similar to bacteria than anything else ever appeared on Earth between us and them. None of other natural specie caused so many global problems like us and them.
I don't know you but, at this point, I got an enlightenment and said: oh my God, this is true, absolutely true. We are behaving exactly like a bacteria because we are destroying everything all around us exactly like bacteria did millions and millions of years ago.
Luckily and even with this adverse scenario in mind, Mrs Sahtouris reassure us explaining that we are at a crossroads. The crossroads is this: actual crisis is biological, so we must decide if we want to extinct us or we want to co-operate.
Personally I hope and believe that if bacteria understood how important was co-operation to avoid their extinction then, if we are so similar to them, we should understand we are at the same point. Co-operation is the only way to save our world. If we are not going to do so, well, this means we deserve to disappear from this planet. Sorry, my dear readers, but this is the only sad truth. So, please, do a favour to you, not to me. Next time you have the instinct to refuse to co-operate in your family, your job, your school, with your home neighbours and any other situation or moment of your life, remember please, as me, the "bacteria lesson". If you forget it, next time even forget to be still alive. Good luck everybody!
Since the interview has been made in Spanish, if you understand Spanish language you can follow this link and go to: http://www.lavanguardia.com/lacontra/20111114/54238863691/esta-crisis-es-biologica-o-cooperamos-o-nos-extinguimos.html if you wish to understand why I consider Elisabet Sahtouris an intelligent, smart, clever and brilliant mind which can help us to understand the actual economic global crisis.
If you don't understand Spanish and you wish to understand why I consider so much important Mrs Sahtouris' point of view on the historical moment we are living all together, I will try to help you resuming the interview into the most important points of her theory on how to approach the crisis. For sure the vital point is already in the title of the interview that says: "This crisis is biological: or we are going to co-operate or we will extinguish ourselves".
Elisabet Sahtouris informed us that analysing the Past, with the purpose to understand where we are going in the Future, discovered a maturity cycle into evolution. She assumes that Darwin's Evolution Theory is based on competition and Kropotkin's Evolution Theory is based on co-operation. If you merge both theories in a unique theory you get a theory much more complete.
In short she teaches us how the first forms of life on Earth should pass through a dilemma: if they wanted to survive they had to come into "maturity" step from a previous "youth" step. In the "youth" step all species are very competitive and creative. Then they come into a "maturity" step when they understand it is much more convenient to co-operate. This is due to the matter they understand co-operation is much more efficient.
At this point of the interview we are going to know something absolutely astonishing, if you are not a professional biology researcher like me. Half of Evolution happened when bacteria were the only living beings on Earth. During their "youth" step bacteria caused an impressive trouble on global scale. They ate all glucose and free acid available on the planet. As a matter of fact they caused a world famine, but the crisis urged bacteria to be more creative.
So bacteria invented food using sun, water and minerals. In other words they invented photosynthesis. This invention was a real success but the consequence was a global pollution because from photosynthesis you get a residual gas i.e. oxygen.
Paradoxically oxygen was a pollution agent because it is a lethal gas at molecular level (Mrs. Sahtouris at this point of the interview remind us this is the reason why everybody take so many anti-oxidation agents). At the beginning earth and oceans absorbed most part of the oxygen. The remaining went to the atmosphere, which is composed by a percentage of 21% of oxygen.
However the result was a very fragile balance because if atmosphere has a 1 or 2% oxygen more everything could be burst and if atmosphere has a 1 or 2% oxygen less we couldn't breath. Delicate situation as you can easily understand.
At this point the interviewer ask to Mrs Sahtouris how it was possible to get the right balance. She answers that oxygen was killing a huge quantity of bacteria. Some of them escaped into earth. On the other side some bacteria developed like a solar shield and started crushing food (molecules) absorbing them. In this way they learnt to breath. These bacteria had more energy to spend because they were technologically much more developed. They invented the "electric engine".
This is the second moment you get astonished, as myself, I suppose. The kind of "electric engine" which is talking Elisabet Sahtouris is something very similar to human sperm, she says. They use this engine to swim, exactly like human sperm.
So at this point you get the third and most astonishing revelation of all interview. The revelation is the following: we, the human beings, are much more similar to bacteria than anything else ever appeared on Earth between us and them. None of other natural specie caused so many global problems like us and them.
I don't know you but, at this point, I got an enlightenment and said: oh my God, this is true, absolutely true. We are behaving exactly like a bacteria because we are destroying everything all around us exactly like bacteria did millions and millions of years ago.
Luckily and even with this adverse scenario in mind, Mrs Sahtouris reassure us explaining that we are at a crossroads. The crossroads is this: actual crisis is biological, so we must decide if we want to extinct us or we want to co-operate.
Personally I hope and believe that if bacteria understood how important was co-operation to avoid their extinction then, if we are so similar to them, we should understand we are at the same point. Co-operation is the only way to save our world. If we are not going to do so, well, this means we deserve to disappear from this planet. Sorry, my dear readers, but this is the only sad truth. So, please, do a favour to you, not to me. Next time you have the instinct to refuse to co-operate in your family, your job, your school, with your home neighbours and any other situation or moment of your life, remember please, as me, the "bacteria lesson". If you forget it, next time even forget to be still alive. Good luck everybody!
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