The E day

Author: Alfredo Colunga 

Let’s imagine a desert island. Ten people on it and food just for two. Could these people reach any democratic solutions? Obviously not. They are doomed to fight for survival.

Let’s imagine that island again. Ten people, this time with food for one hundred. Could these people reach any democratic solutions?

The answer this time will be, naturally, that it depends on what we call food for one hundred. Such food may be 100 food sources, each capable of feeding a person indefinitely or we could be simply referring one hundred food servings.

In the first scenario, things could be organised. Having one hundred food sources available, the ten people cannot only reach agreements but, at least for some time, grow and multiply.

However, if we are talking about one hundred food servings, once more, these people will not be able to reach any democratic sharing solutions. These ten individuals cannot aim to cooperate for survival, as sooner or later, the one hundred servings – or even one thousand, if that changed something – will run out.

So, maybe unconsciously at the beginning, but clearly more strategically as time goes by, these ten people trapped on this small island will start to measure forces to interrupt and take control, in their own benefit, over the food source of others, in order to enlarge their own survival as much as possible.

The dark side

Let’s become writers for a moment: if the parties are sensible, we will observe how surprisingly and mysteriously dark murders will start to take place on the island. Those individuals with lonely and shy personalities will disappear in strange circumstances together with their food servings.

Gathered round the first corpse, the survivors will understand that it could have happened to them and they will experience the need to form their own group or join an existing one in order to get protection. Supposing that there is no leader, who gathers round a group from the beginning, the leading group could be finally formed by smaller ones.

Faced with how closed the situation is and seeing that the early bird catches the worm, sooner than later an open war will start. If after one of the group wins, the scarcity of food reserves persists, and if such group has already got a well established leader, this will be the one administering his/her assistant’s survival by simply taking care of avoiding pacts. The more scarce food is the higher probability there is of assassination or leader’s isolation.

Would this process be exactly the same for any group of animals trapped on this island? Humankind stands out from other species for their modelling ability.

The higher or lower ability for the implied individuals to model future situations will have as a consequence the higher or lower ability to foresee survival strategies liable to appear.

The price of freedom? It may be. For a group of mussels in the same situation the die would be cast beforehand: they would live peacefully for ten days, ten of them well-fed and happy.

The persistence of memory

Let’s now go back to the case when the ten inhabitants have one hundred unlimited food sources. Would these perpetual food sources mean eternal happiness? Maybe when the individuals start to multiply and families start and grow, a hundred food sources may not seem so much any more.

However, when reaching this point there will be a difference with those who only had a hundred servings: it will be easier to reach agreements, as on the way, having enjoyed abundance will have changed each individual’s self-perception.

If energy limitation empowers the leader’s role as the only one who would lead to survival; energy abundance would facilitate the individual’s conscience as such and it will tend to generate in them the perception of an autonomous ability for food, which in turn will bring independence, valued as personal dignity.

History gives us plenty of examples of this process: along past centuries the phenomena of the bourgeoisie, the workers, women coming to power… have always been preceded by the generation of a previous economic independence.

The economic climb of bourgeoisie, the creation of the “caja única” by the trade unions, the access of women to paid jobs, were situations which promoted the generation of movements for their respective rights.

While their own survival depends on a higher structure, the individual will yield his rights to it in exchange for survival. However, if it offers him an opportunity for greater energy autonomy and rights, he will take advantage of it. Losing rights once they have already been obtained generates great resistance.

It is obvious that each new energy situation will generate “philosophies” to suit the circumstances which justify and order actions. However, having memory, this adaptation effect combines with the memory of preceding situations.

If individuals have been through abundance situations, in times of scarcity they will enjoy a wider perspective. This will facilitate their reaction when facing the evidence that such limitation forces them to join or fight other bigger and bigger groups, with a progressive and unwished loss of their individual rights.

While on the youth island, newly formed and directly facing energy scarcity, the idea of cooperation is unknown; on another island, which has enjoyed past abundance situations there will be individuals who will react in the face of progress and nearly drawn by.

Until now, some let’s say theoretical reflections on energy limitation. However, an energy limitation process cannot be stopped just by understanding it.

In a situation of energy limitation, the competence processes for it will not stop just by telling them to, as all competitors will wisely think that if they stop others will profit their rest and damage them.

If water gets stuck in the dam, we cannot just tell it not to press. In fact, this would be useless. Neither is it particularly useful to make theories about it while the water is pressing.

There is a need for a more pragmatic point of view. A drainage system must be built. Maybe the island leader did not wish for this process, but seeing it as unavoidable, he prefers it as a survivor.

What does making a drainage system mean? In this case it is equivalent to generating the conditions to establish agreements.

Although our planet is now living a time of energy scarcity, it is difficult to determine how many food servings remain: there are new promises for energy access in the horizon and furthermore, new energy use alternatives, technologies and applications are born every day.

We could simplify by saying that we are in the case of an island with ten individuals and one hundred food servings which have been running out. At the same time, although such food is not currently available, the individuals, having memory, have planted the seeds for a hundred new trees.

The trees are well taken care of. They grow beautifully. There is the promise for future. However, the island inhabitants are unable to agree on how to act in the current situation. Although there seems to be other solutions, the process to obtain the available servings seems unstoppable.

Agreement conditions

Two things are needed in order to reach agreements. The first is to clearly define what type of energy we are talking about when we say that it might be able to open the way for an agreement.

The definition is simple: it has to be so plentiful – independently of the fact that it originates in one or several sources – that the world contemplates the idea of sustainable growth without having to compete for it.

Or, more precisely, it has to be so plentiful that it allows growth with competition for usage not for possession. Just as the air we breathe for instance.

Such is the first requirement to reach an agreement and in fact, this would be the condition to reach plain democracy, understood as a state where each individual had enough energy to guarantee his survival.

All in all, we can say the individuals were right to plant the trees. But this is not enough. There is already agreement on this item on the island. We have already mentioned that the trees are growing beautifully.

The inhabitants of the island are convinced that the trees will provide fruit and feed them. However, it is not that they cannot reach an agreement; it is that they cannot even trust one another enough to sit down and negotiate.

The importance of a date

Obviously, one problem remains unsolved: although they are all convinced that these trees will provide fruit, no one knows when this will exactly happen.

If only they had the exact date when those trees would feed them, they could do something as simple as propose reasonable and optimized decisions to handle the available servings.

There are then two clear elements for the inhabitants of the island to sit and negotiate. Firstly, one energy or energies with such characteristics which allow them to reach agreements. But also, and equally essential, a clear and reliable date when the new energy will be available.

Deadlines, the magic word in any economic process. A calendar is needed in order to organize the process. A more or less real or metaphorical date is needed. The date is the E DAY. The day when a type of energy, apparently unlimited and able to substitute the current object of competence will be accessible.

Let’s suppose – with no pretension for it to be the most suitable example – that the definite solution to global energy supply, today under research, is fusion energy.

Base for agreements

The next step then would be to immediately establish a date to start its commercial exploitation. A date with a day, month and year, summarized in just one sentence. Something like:” The fusion energy will be available on 12th June 20XX”. The existence of this date will favour investments and reaching agreements.

Clearly determining this date has other advantages, as becoming an official date it allows the real economy to pose a reasonable question: What will I be able to I do on that date with that new energy?

The clear and reliable publication of such date, being by a Government o by a group of experts of proved credibility, will mean the possibility to direct private investment towards the generation of such energy. Duplicating some projects, advancing others...

Clearly establishing the E DAY date is talking of the date when profits will start. Once this has been accepted, any investment will be welcomed in exchange of a piece of the cake. Each new investment will also redound to bring this date closer to the present, which will make it more interesting.