A Brief History of Humankind: The Commodity Theory

A Brief History of Humankind: The Commodity Corollary

Recently I read the book entitled “A Brief History of Humankind: Sapiens” by Israeli professor Yuval Noah Harari.  In one volume he has ably and succinctly summed up the history of our species and in so doing gives a new spin on ancient history. He hypothesizes that in many ways people who lived in the time of the Agricultural Revolution were worse off than their hunter gatherer counter parts who lived concurrently. Are we really better off because of the Agricultural Revolution?  For example,  are we happier today as a species then say the ancient Egyptians?

It may not be possible using present day research methodologies to actually answer these questions; but I would like to take the discussion one step further.  Out of the Agricultural Revolution came many things including the domestication of animals, loyal pets such as dogs, traitorous cats, along with improved technologies, numbering systems, more sophisticated languages and many commodities still used today.

It is now in fact possible to come to a simple understanding of our seemly complex modern world through the insights provided by one single theory.  The Commodity theory through several corollaries, including the Caffeine Corollary are instrumental in explaining the intricacies and progress of mankind from hunter gatherer, through the Agricultural Revolution, to the present day.

Imagine for a moment, if you can, a world without caffeine.  Rhetorically, where would we be without coffee? Our entire free enterprise system, many of our traditions, norms, customs, habits and rituals depend in fact on the intake of coffee.  Certainly there is an argument that the very vitality of our economies correlate directly to the input of coffee at every level of society.  How can high level executive decisions be rendered, assembly lines run efficiently, or our entire supply chain function in a timely fashion without savoury caffeine laden coffee.

What do workers from retail to the corner offices do to ease their tensions from the work place?  Coffee Breaks.  What do these same workers require to sustain high paced productivity, again coffee.  Without these essential inputs of coffee at key times in the production cycle we as a society would face low productivity, causing our high tech economies to lose their competitive edge in world market places.  Our western coffee based culture likely would quickly cease to exist.  We must face the reality that we as a people need coffee to succeed.

History, before the written word and before coffee (BC), nestled around Neolithic Villages were not exactly intellectual think tanks.  Change did not happen . Our static ancestors led dull boring and brutally short lives.  Those that could drew on cave walls, and worshipped fertility gods.  They did not drink coffee, expectations of such people was very low, eventually, on sheer random fluke they invented agriculture.

Fortunately, some good did come from these primitive early agricultural communities, about 2500 years ago the coffee tree was first domestically cultivated.  The entire panorama of world events flows outward in increasingly complex intertwining patterns in ever widening and tumultuous historical arcs from the first coffee tree up to the present pattern of global development.

By the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century most of Europe from the Upper Classes on down had the opportunity to get acquainted with coffee and tea (both rich in essential caffeine).  Perhaps, unfortunately, the magnitude of consumption led to the inevitable demand for sugar.  Sadly, that had other global consequences which caused the slave trade to flourish producing global socio-economic repercussions still reverberating through American society today. 

In order to support coffee, tea and sugar distribution, and other commodities of popular merit, the British Empire and other European Empires flourished in order to develop a global distribution network thereby providing a constant supply for all users.

In a nut shell the system works in accordance to this mechanism: caffeine acts as a stimulant to greater productivity, which in turn leads to rapid economic growth.  In the case of European Empires, increase demand for coffee resulted in the need for ever larger distribution and supply chains, in turn allowing people to consume coffee and tea more often.  Greater consumption, more productivity, which in turn served as a catalyst for the next stage in world history…The Industrial Revolution.

We have developed to the Information Age based on our long and proud foundation based on caffeinated products.  Our futures are founded on continued consumption despite the occasional threat and temporary set backs from fringe decaffeinated products.

Are we happier today then our hunter gatherer nomadic forefathers?  The Agricultural Revolution was not a waste of time, even though people of that era had a decline in their quality of life their domestication of the coffee tree has brought our own civilizations to its pinnacle.

Country Roads

Country Roads

Gravel roads leading to 

nowhere,

driving for hours yet never

arriving.

searching, not finding, 

content in motion yet not

happy.

Got tired,
A little sad
is all.
A rest,
Just away
To be alone
and think
in the quiet.
No people,
just wind,
remnants of snow
on open gravel roads
That led me away.

What destination?
Bluer skies,
Forgetting for a time
what was back there.
Looking ahead,
only dust in the mirror now.
Thoughts and images
in my mind
of what is good,
but past of what is not
but could be.
full of Possibilities.

Dust in your eyes on a country

road

on a heavy day.

Sun falls to night,

relax, close your eyes

believe you were there

on a country road laying in the

grass.
The road kept on...

Old Man and the Sea: Monterey Bay

The Old Man and the Sea

With difficulty the old man lifted himself from his bed,

his bones ached and pained him where the kayak’s

stiff seat had bored into him after endless hours

of otter and seal hunting.

His brow burnt, having gone out during the early

morning fog, the day had suddenly turned clear

and hot baking him in the kelp beds miles up the

Monterey coast.

The otters seemed to mock his feeble efforts

as with choppy stroke he laboured through the thick

kelp.  It snared his paddle, slowed his progress causing

him to weary.  Yielding to nature, he rested his paddle

across the fragile craft slowly moving as the currents directed.

Cormorants and gulls glided over powerful ocean swells,

wing tips kissing the water’s grey surface.

Stroke and pull.

He attempted a slow, continuous rhythm.

Beyond the kelp lay the infinite open ocean.

Here the deep breathing swells of sheltered water changed

to a hostile formidable barrier.  Turning from the barrage

boldly stroking for the the rocks off the point,

a visible landmark, where seals basked in bright sunlight,

like tourists on a Cancun Beach.

Swells evolved to breakers crashing skyward against

immobile grey granite in a singular crash of salt spray.

A silvery grey seal gracefully emerged ten feet

from the bow warily examining the approaching stranger.

Cautiously, it dove as the old man fumbled for his camera.

Ponderously, with aching shoulders the old man made for shore.

A Tribute to Roald Asmundsen

A Tribute to Roald Asmundsen

I will not sit behind

merely watching life pass beyond.

I seek my victory on polar ice

having vested far too much to 

give it up and turn around.

Left behind the ropes

I set a southern course.

I hand picked those with the

brightest futures to guide the

dogs and pull the sledges.

Realizing,

Success, a potential of mind and soul,

beware the competition and mis-directions.

They shoot the weak to feed the strong.  

I strike out for the pole at dawn.

A man may move without ambition.

Letting

Other men engage immortal condition.

I close the door to storm the cold.

There will be no obituaries as

fate is handed down to posterity.

Monterey Bay: John Denver

Monterey Bay

The armada had returned from the sea,

The lawyers, doctors, businessmen and such,

moored their sloops and yachts under

blue tarps and grey skies, returning to their

corner offices, while tourists claimed the beaches,

the gulls and seals the harbours.

Century old cypress trees slanted toward shore

testimony to relentless trade winds

creating askew geometry on craggy shorelines.

Restaurants on the wharf full as always.

Bored waiters offered up clam chowder to

passing crowds

hoping to lure them in, one by one,

to seafood meals in noisy rooms.

Commercial boats, their nets rolled on open

stern decks

still ply their trade heading for open sea

circled by raucous gulls

they disappear, absorbed by morning fog.

Vietnamese and Hispanics fish the pier

using squid as bait not knowing the English

names of things they catch.

Behind, the bike path streams a steady flow,

bikers, joggers, walkers, runners, families on

clumsy quadracycles labouring up small hills.

The sun clears through the noon fog, as a small

plane flies out over the bay.

Dedicated to John Denver

Adopting dogs...

Yorkton SPCA

Lonely, piercing,

sad, brown eyes

peering longingly

behind cold iron bars,

sitting on bare cement.

Guilty of what crime?

Hoping for adoption,

a little friendship,

some love perhaps,

the right family,

a slight wag of the

tail as we approach,

more enthusiasm

hoping to lure

the young girl in

the bright yellow ski

jacket.

Meanwhile,

down the row of cages

her Dad stops briefly

just to quietly chat

with each pup behind

wire walls, gently patting

each inmate whispering

a few words, comforting.

“Listen little you, just don’t

whine so much, the pity

approach only works for the

puppies.

You aren’t, so get with the program.

be brave, sit proud, tall,

the right someone will come for you.”

At the next cage with 

three Husky-like puppies

he advises them to stick

together, strength in numbers,

canine solidarity, “Puppies do go first,

play the cute card.”

Finally, the saddest of all dogs

that cold Saskatchewan night,

the deep desperate eyes,

“Get over all that separation anxiety.

You will never endear yourself

by chewing on sofas to work

out rage issues.  Chill my friend.”

Their visit over,

their mission complete,

Daughter and Dad

made their way

to the frozen car.

 (Christmas visit to Yorkton 2003)

Walking Through Woods

Walking Through Woods

A brisk -28 as I walked my Golden Lab along the banks of the Athabasca.  The trek likely as beneficial to my dog, Kennedy, as it was for me.  Kennedy had the opportunity to chase ravens, a futile endeavour, fetch sticks and bury his infantile head in deep snow, just because he could.  Any version of dog heaven would include those activities.  Kennedy was relentless and never tired of getting any number of sticks I could throw.  Certainly, he never ever came close to snaring a Raven.

I do my best thinking in cold weather, on quiet walks, with my unruly dog.  Walking, a buffer to a tedious and tense day.  There is solace in the wind through the Spruce trees, and in  the language of the Ravens as they smugly cackle peering downward from high perches. While on the trails I focus my thoughts, soothe my pains, and ease my soul. I revel in the simplicity of the moment until Kennedy finds something other than a stick to pursue.

The dry snow makes a distinct crunching sound underfoot as we make our way around a five km loop.  Occasionally pausing, listening to the intense volume of the silence, punctuated by a distant snowmobiler on the frozen river.  This day the sky is an intense blue, the sun shines brightly, with little warmth, given its low angle in the February sky.

Kennedy is unmanageable when other hikers approach, especially if with other dogs.  His juvenile enthusiasm and super strength are difficult to control.  He rarely comes when called, only on a whim and if it pleases him. 

I often play a game to get him back on leash.  The stalking game.  It is instinctual, maybe for man and beast. I approach him slowly in a crouch, as if to attack.  He in turn crouches for a counter-attack, as I approach he launches and darts quickly right or left to avoid my grabbing his collar.  I usually tire first and hope he will follow.  I continue the walk and slow the pace.

Doug grooms the trails for the city of Wood Buffalo and practically lives out here with his dog, Grizzly.  He stops to talk to me as he parks his snowmobile, used to groom the trails. We spoke about the intelligence of Ravens.  He had seen a Raven abandon his nest  on top of a Spruce tree for no apparent reason only to build another only a few trees away.  About a month later the tree on which the original nest was built fell over in a severe wind storm.  That Raven could gauge the structural integrity of the tree.

I had actually seen a raven on a cold McMurray night cover the photo electric cell on a street light using his wings.  This action turned on the light prematurely and offered the Raven heat on a cold night.  

Ravens know.  

Now I do too, my walk is done.

I look about and shout…

“Kennedy, where are you?’