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Food Shortage Panic?
I guess my other thing with the whole global food “shortage” line of thinking goes like this: I work with dogs on a daily basis. One of the things I’m tasked with doing is making sure the pack (usually anywhere from 9 - 16 dogs) doesn’t go crazy and attack one another. Dog police work, basically. We have rest periods every twenty minutes, which helps everybody calm down and reminds the dogs on a very regular basis just who is in charge of the situation, and who is the leader of the pack.
One of the more challenging parts of working there is, of course, calming the dogs down when they get really riled up. And they can get rowdy at the drop of a hat, mind you. If somebody walks by the window, they’ll flip out. Never mind the million and one other dumb reasons they’ll start going at it. But the thing is, when one dog starts barking and acting upset because of some stimulus (real or imagined), the other dogs respond to that dog and basically copy one another’s behavior. So if one starts barking, another will start and then another and it becomes a chain reaction.
One thing I’m constantly doing, then, is reassuring them. “It’s alright guys. It’s just somebody walking by. Nothing to get upset about.” I’ll find myself saying that kind of thing again and again each day - especially during our break periods, where we’re supposed to keep the dogs quiet. It’s not that the dogs necessarily know what all our words mean, but they can tell a lot by your tone of voice. If you can remain calm and exude a feeling of calmness to them, they will model their behavior after you - the pack leader. But if you get upset along with them, and get swept up in their excitable energy, it’s easy for the situation to get rapidly out of control and for dogs and people to get injured.
Thankfully it doesn’t happen too often that things get out of control, and I’ve only been semi-seriously bitten once (knock on wood), but I realize more and more that people exhibit pretty much exactly the same group behavioral patterns as these dogs. That pack or herd mentality. That thing where we kind of sit around and look to see what everybody else is doing and consciously or unconsciously model our behavior on others.
With the food shortage issue, I’m worried that we’re going to see these kinds of pack-dynamic chain over-reactions multiply over time, and that things could slip out of control in the blink of an eye. In emergency situations with people, what tends to be important is that there are not necessarily just strong leaders, but strong role models and people who can set a good example of appropriate behaviors so that things don’t spiral out of control.
My question becomes: what, then, is the appropriate behavior to model and exhibit in such a circumstance so as not to unnecessarily spook the herd and make things worse than they need to be?
Or maybe this will all just blow over and we can go back to our normal lives - whatever the hell they are!
April 24th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Well, With dogs according to the theory of “circuits of consciousness” the first two circuits are the same as we have. The bio-survival circuit and the emotional territorial circuit. But what makes us both more advanced and also screws us up more is the third circuit-the time binding semantic circuit.
Through this circuit, people can get stressed out by imagining worse case scenarios even when nothing is going on. We build mental models and constructs. Dogs don’t have this problem.
I also would relate this to the enneagram. I think a lot of people that write on the internet are enneagram 5 “the observer.” They naturally fall into it.
This is a type I am familiar with. The pitfall of this type is that they often get really caught up in mental models they build. That’s why there is so much of this dark conspiracy theory stuff, peak oil, the crash etc. But then dogs don’t worry about that shit. In a way its not really real, otherwise dogs would react to it too.
It is possible to predict trends, but there is a point where people just get caught up in dark imaginings.
So anyway, the sign of leadership, is to take responsibility for real problems and to implement a plan to solve them. That is what it means to integrate from enneagram 5 to enneagram 8 “the leader”
April 24th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Yeah, I agree with what you’re saying and have often thought this way about so-called “world problems”: if the dogs don’t see it, then it simply isn’t happening. That said, it doesn’t take a *real* event to get people to actually and truly panic.
For example:
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEn...;feedName=oddlyEnoughNews&rpc=69
April 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
yeah well you know, most of us aren’t in any position to quell actual panic when it happens, but i think one super-nifty thing to do is to share stuff with people. if somebody’s freaking out because they don’t have enough rice, give them some of yours. eat half of what you would have and give half to somebody else. exhibit a spirit of cooperation and solidarity and other people’ll naturally do the same.
a couple of other thoughts that came to mind:
- the ‘on the ground’ food shortage at costco etc. is currently limited to white rice. apparently whole pallets of brown and basmati rice are still sitting there. i find this pretty amazing, considering the nutritional value of white rice is so low. i’ll gladly exchange a bag of white rice for someone else’s brown rice any day of the week.
- something you don’t hear much about when considering the people this is affecting: in order to buy bulk food, you need a car of some kind, and in many cases you need to be strong enough to carry the food. so if you’re too poor to afford a car, or too sick/weak to carry a 50 lb bag, how does this affect you?
April 24th, 2008 at 10:47 am
[…] This is how the legal system works: you use one high-profile case (lynch a pack leader) to deter certain behaviors among the rest of the herd by way of example. Actor Wesley Snipes faces up to three years in prison and a fine of $5 million when he is sentenced Thursday on federal tax evasion charges. […]
April 24th, 2008 at 10:49 am
There you go, perfect! I’ve been finding more and more people who believe in this same basic principle lately. And it works out so well!
April 24th, 2008 at 11:08 am
yeah, sharing is good. Nothing to argue with there. Often people share beauty with all passers by by having a beautiful flower garden in their front yard. Often people with vegetable gardens offer free veggies on a table. Its not the main distribution model that is in play though.
Alternative political ideas often come up when things seem not to be working well. Because of this, very often people with alternative pet theories, anarchists, marxists, John Birchers, etc. are the ones that fan the flames of panic.
But there are ways that the dominant paradigms can be improved. its happening all the time.
That’s why anymore I am into free market solutions to social and ecological problems. Green businesses, green architecture, sustainable development.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Meanwhile, 1,200 workers at the oil refinery in Grangemouth, Scotland have decided to run a Peak Oil Drill for the good of the people - no, hang on, that should read ‘are striking because they think their final salary pension scheme something something…’ - and the good people of Scotland are responding with some classic panic buying:
“The Scottish government has urged motorists not to panic-buy. John Swinney, the finance minister, said supplies of petrol and diesel would last well into May if buying levels remained normal.”
Cripes, when i hear stuff like that I want to go out and fill up the tank myself, and I don’t even have a car. Just like our brilliant year 2000 petrol shortages, the complete absence of any shortages is about to become very real shortages through the magic of panicky dumb people!
Personally, I think the government gets this wrong every time. Saying “Do not panic” clearly doesn’t work, it just makes it look as if the government has responsibility and then they end up getting blamed for the whole situation. If I was the guvment, I would say:
“If the Scottish people want to deny themselves a steady supply of petrol they have every right to panic as much as they want and make life even more difficult for themselves. It is not our place to stop them. Obviously, the shelves will be empty of any product if everyone goes out and buys ten times what they usually would. It is impossible to legislate against this kind of thing, so I’m glad the Scottish people are getting this opportunity during a time where there is no actual crisis going on to understand that the power to avoid shortages lies exclusively with themselves, and that the only way we are ever going to avoid this kind of thing is if every individual takes personal responsibility to do so, if we all commit to mutual social solidarity to avoid shortages, and if there is communal cultural unity such that it becomes shameful and socially unacceptable to hoard any resource at a time of restricted supply.”
It wouldn’t work, of course. But then, that’s why I’m not a politician. Choosing the most amusing option rarely gets you ahead in the polls.