The gray swan, the economy to come and parallel internet networks

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Published by Giuseppe Masala and Dario Dongo on April 14, 2020

Covid-19, the gray swan

Covid-19 is not a 'black swan', that is to say an unpredictable and imponderable event. (1) The zoonoses and the 'species leaps' of viruses, starting with measles and the plague, in the Middle Ages are not new (2). And the most recent zoonoses, from avian flu to the coronavirus family (including MERS and SARS) had already revealed pandemic potential. (3)

It's a gray swan, rather. An event that, like many other catastrophes, could and should have been considered. One need only look at the list of epidemics and crises - diplomatic and military, economic and environmental - that have plagued humanity throughout history to identify the real problem. Unfair society and dull economic systems, geared towards maximum profit. Capitalism characterized by foolish accounting, and exposed to the cyclical implosions of fictitious (financial) capital, has failed. (4)

The end of the 'economistic' economy

Economic 'sciences' - completely divorced from historical, diplomatic and military knowledge (as well as sociological, anthropological and cultural) - they are confirmed as fallacious. And it is time to put in a position never again to harm the regiments of 'economists' so far seated in guru and helmsmen of the destinies of the planet. The world cannot be governed by fragile economic paradigms.

The need for a system cheaper more resilient and resistant to shock exogenous - such as the crises and epidemics that often, perhaps not surprisingly, follow you (5,6) - is now there for all to see. And it won't free us until its understanding forces a structural shift in political economy. This fundamental principle will bring about significant changes in global value chain.

Keynes's teaching

John Maynard Keynes - in Aeconomic utarchy and at the Bretton Woods Conference - he hoped for a world made up of states that collaborated with each other but each aimed at national self-sufficiency. Strongly rejecting, at a mature age, globalist liberalism which is a source of profound distortions, economic injustices and conflicts. (7)

'Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel, these are the things that by their nature should be international. But let the goods be homemade whenever this is reasonably and practically possible. And, above all, that finance is eminently national. ' (John Maynard Keynes. Economic self-sufficiency.

The economy to come

'Easy Earnings' linked to the intercontinental delocalization of 'low added value' productions have caused the death from Covid-19 of over 110 doctors in Italy, forced to work without having the necessary personal protective equipment. While Germany blocked biomedical exports to those countries, such as Italy and Spain, which have abdicated their production in the name of intra-European 'market efficiency'. And it is the tip of theiceberg to show how national companies must re-program their supply chains, to ensure self-sufficiency on essential goods and services.

Autonomy will guide the strategic choices of States, in various sectors:

- food. The retail, current protagonist of the agri-food supply chains, is destined to include the strategic value of short supply chains. Agroecology, as already recommended by FAO, will have to be incentivized precisely to guarantee the food sovereignty. Quantity and variety of local productions will reduce exposure to sourcing risks related to shock and tensions of international price lists,

- pharmaceutical and biomedical. The shortage of medicines and biomedicals - linked to export bans in emergency situations, as has just been experienced - highlights the need for each country to be able to produce and maintain strategic reserves on its territory,

- power. Individual countries will invest in a greater capacity to produce energy, relying on a more varied mix of sources. Above all, renewable, to overcome the carbon era that is primary cause of climatic emergency. With the idea of freeing oneself from external dependence (on oil and gas), as well as give risks of nuclear power,

- electronics and technology. All countries will tend to produce on-site visit the essential components in the technological and electronic fields,

- communication networks. Security needs e continuity management could lead other countries to redesign their communication networks, starting with Internet. The idea of a network that can be disconnected from the rest of the world and continue to function autonomously, like the one just created in Russia, deserves consideration, (8)

- primary industry. It is easy to predict that all nations, in the medium to long term, will create a buffer which allows them a few months of production autonomy in primary industry (steel, aluminum, chemicals), to deal with any shock. With a possible driving force for the development of new industrial processes with a lower environmental impact, in the NIMBY logic (not in my back yard),

Parallel internet networks

The re-design of networks Internet imposed by the States for security reasons will offer further stimulus to the construction of parallel internet networks, not controllable by central entities. Just as it was Internet, in its early days. Networks are already being studied Mesh Networks on LoRa protocols (Long Range), for transactions with crypto-coins, without the possibility that central authorities can control them (and deactivate them) on the Internet.

The censorship strategies - introduced at various levels (international and supranational), at the instigation of the authorities and / or with Corporation who have a global monopoly on social - de facto deny the rights of speech, news and opinion formally recognized in the constitutional charters of the users' countries. As has happened for years to the writer (Masala and Dongo), on Facebook, whenever divergent thoughts are expressed with respect to the Orwellian Big Brother.

Disaster Radio e social networks 'confederates' are therefore the new frontier of freedom to be removed from the censorship of central entities (States or Corporation) who can censor them. In addition to systems peer to peer - integrated with crypto-coins and blockchain - for sharing videos, documents, books. The vanguard cyberpunk it maintains a fundamental role in the construction of the future world, possibly a better one. To action (by States and Corporation), in the name of security, follows the reaction (of the social avant-gardes) for freedom.

Giuseppe Masala and Dario Dongo

Note

(1) Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2nd edition, 2010. ISBN 9780812973815)

(2) Furuse Y, Suzuki A, Oshitani H (2010). Origin of measles virus: divergence from rinderpest virus between the 11th and 12th centuries. Virol J 7: 52. doi: 10.1186 / 1743-422X-7-52

(3) De Sabato L, Lelli D, Faccin F, et al. Full genome characterization of two novel Alpha-coronavirus species from Italian bats. Virus Res. 2019; 260: 60–66. doi: 10.1016 / j.virusres.2018.11.007

(4) Gianfranco Bellini. The dollar bubble, or the days that will shock the world. Odradek, Rome, 2013. ISBN 8896487269

(5) Kenneth Kahn, Oxford University (UK). The 'Spanish' Influenza pandemic and its relation to World War I. http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/?p=2190. The 'ecological factor' is also referred to in Pierre-Olivier Méthot, Samuel Alizon. Emerging Disease and the Evolution of Virulence: The Case of the 1918–1919 Pandemic Influenza. Classification, Disease and Evidence. 2015; 7: 93–130. doi: 10.1007 / 978-94-017-8887-8_5

(6) Correlations between environmental pollution and the spread of SARS-CoV2. Some ideas on https://www.egalite.org/inquinamento-atmosferico-e-diffusione-di-covid-19-studi-scientifici/

(7) John Maynard Keynes. Economic self-sufficiency, 1933. Italian text on https://www.panarchy.org/keynes/autarchia.1933.html

(8) Jane Wakefield. Russia 'successfully tests' its unplugged internet. BBC News, 24.12.19/XNUMX/XNUMX, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50902496

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