Letter to Ansh — 13: On learning practical skills

Dear Ansh

It is 15th of March 2020. You are still in India visiting our grandparents and extended family. I miss you and your mum very much.

The world as of now is in the midst of a pandemic caused by the nCovid-19 virus. It spreads very rapidly, although thankfully is not extremely fatal. It is more dangerous than your typical flu but as long as you have a good immune system you should be able to fight it off.

Older people and those with already weakened immunity are in for a dangerous time.

But thankfully children are among the least impacted.

It has however grounded the entire world economy to a screeching halt.

International travel seems to be coming to a freeze and I hope I see you back in my arms soon. However if it comes to it you are probably safer in India at this present time. It will likely start getting hot in India while we cool down here in the southern hemisphere and your maternal family has a bunch of doctors.

Either way I believe this too will come to pass.

It is not going away quick and the world is going to see some severe repercussions in the short to mid term, but eventually it will be history.

What it has exposed however is some of the dangerous flaws in our current society.

I am a big believer in the free market. If you are good at hunting and I am good at cooking, then it is best that you focus on hunting for both of us and I cook for the both of us. There is no point me trying to waste my time hunting and doing a poor job of it and you trying to cook.

By co-operating, specialising in areas of our expertise and exchanging value in return of commensurate value we all come out ahead.

However there is a fatal flaw in the system.

A free market system leads to specialization and consolidation.

Those who are good at farming, focus on farming and create food becoming the breadbasket of the world. And those who are good at creating clothes eventually become the provider of clothes for everyone. Those good at creating machinery do the same.

This process repeats again and again till the world becomes fine tuned, delicately balanced system of the highest efficiency.

We all reap the rewards of the highest productivity and are materially better off.

But there is a catch.

For such a system to work perfectly, its supply lines need to be perfect. Each cog of this delicately balanced machine has to work flawlessly and all the time. A single failure (or a relatively small number of failures) has the potential to cascade and bring the entire system down.

The system usually rebalances and is able to absorb a small number of shocks.

However a few critical blows can floor it all down.

And when that happens it is very hard to bring it all back up, as demand is basically destroyed. Left to its own devices the system will take forever to restart.

This is exactly what brought the era of free trade based on the gold standard to an end.

The only way demand could be restarted was if the state started created it by taking on new projects. But the state did not have money (or gold) to do it.

So the simple solution was governments across the world ended up dropping the gold standard.

Not an elegant solution but it worked.

Time and again we have seen this cycle repeat. Free trade leads to massive economic booms and consolidation/specialization and then the system comes crashing down.

Why am I telling you this?

There is a very important reason.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants. The giants being the generations that came before us. They brought civilization to where it is. We do not have to hunt for food, we do not live in caves. You can order a pizza on your cell phone.

Heck by the time you grow up they might be able to teleport it, or print it for you in your own home.

You will probably end up having a profession based on a particular niche.

And that is a good thing. You will end up becoming a productive member of society.

But do not forget that while you enjoy the fruits of civilization, such a civilization is not for a given.

Destructive forces can bring it to its knees.

Or you could get separated from it due to a succession of events beyond your control, such as getting lost in a national park while hiking.

Enjoy the fruits of civilization, specialize by all means but you must learn the basics that are needed to survive.

You should be able to cook, do basic mathematics, use basic tools and have enough worldly sense to see the day through if faced with an adverse scenario. It is fine to be able to google everything (this might be an antiquated term by the time you read) or be able to use the computer to do calculations, but if you land in a scenario where you do not have them, you should be able to fish and catch food, find which way is north and south, put two and two together and find your way back.

If you ever end up becoming a pioneer in a different world, you will need these skills even more. You might be setting up humanity on mars, ganymede or simply on the vast oceans right here on earth. You must be able to do the basics.

As you grow up I fully intend to teach you all of that and where I fall short in my knowledge I will provide you the exposure you need.

Be part of the modern society but be capable of surviving if you get displaced from it.

However basics are not just about practical skills, they are also about practical thinking or what is known as first principles thinking.

We will discuss that in a future letter.

Your loving father

Moresh