“Price-Matching” – Are You a Free Spy for the Competitors?

             The competition for customers is becoming more intense and prevalent - if nothing else would persuade people to shop until they drop then at least the “price-matching” clause should prevail against the competitors. Thus, buyer, be aware of unpaid labor you are providing to corporations on this tough labor market. The ecstatic consumers will be actively haggling with Customer Service without realizing how they are actually working as free market-spies for the companies, or even worse - are helping to maintain the cartel discipline, that otherwise would cost thousands of research dollars.
             In the contemporary world many companies have highly diversified product portfolios to preserve the risk averseness; consequently, it complicates the competitiveness capability on the market, especially the assurance of profit-maximizing prices. Nobody is interested of pricing at marginal cost; the objective is to earn as much profit as possible for the effort of manufacturing and vending the merchandise to the consumers. Subsequently the question raises how to monitor the prices on the market to guarantee that your company is not left in the dry or how to convince your competitors to price favorably to your business, way above your variable and fixed costs?
             When there are several superstores in the same vicinity with extensively heterogeneous product mix within the store, it can become tremendously expensive and strenuous to keep track of all of their prices. Assuming that most of the ordinary customers are seeking the bargain, the business that is capable of pricing lowest, while still making operating profit, will clearly have the competitive edge, at least in one element of the market mix. Therefore, to survey the surrounding competitors, managements offer price-matching promise to the customers, who would then implicitly monitor the market and report the price differences of all of their opponents in attempt to get a fair deal. One would not think about this as anti-competitive strategy but there is an externality to the actions of consumers; albeit, this anti-competitive strategy is legal because the marketing clause is offered to the customers and not to the competitors. Unfortunately, the buyers are the ones that will lose in this market equilibrium.
             For example, Target advertises about cutting the prices and Wal-Mart will reply with the price-matching clause at which Target will correspond analogously. Preceding actions were not pro-competitive but contrary and actually reinforce the trigger strategies that maintain collusive behavior between these two superstores, even if it was unintentional. These clauses will guarantee that both of these stores will not attempt to undercut each other’s prices, because the option where one store prices high and the other low is beneficial to neither, Wal-Mart nor Target. The latter is unattainable equilibrium in the payoff matrix with the sequential strategies, where firms have frequent interactions, because the firm with higher prices will lose significantly in revenues and thus in profits. Both of them will not price low either because then they will have to price near marginal cost to assure that the opponent can’t price lower, which is not the best profit-maximizing strategy; thus, Wal-Mart and Target will both price high, like implicit cartel, knowing that if one lowers the prices then the other will too and thus in the sequence of strategies they will decrease their prices near marginal cost and will only hurt their revenues. The price-matching strategy here works like deterrent between the businesses that sell homogeneous products and neither store will have incentive to deviate from the high price. For that reason, shoppers will end up with higher prices than they would have otherwise, without the price-matching clause. This could be partly a reason why Target announced the cutting of its prices so early in the season, to give adequate time for the competitors to respond to its strategy and hence it would not have to cut the prices during the holiday shopping as much as it would have had to otherwise to lure the consumers to their stores; plus, one has to agree that the advertisement of price-cutting alone will entice anyone at least to window-shop and ultimately purchase something before they leave the store.
             While talking about the price-matching and-cutting during the holiday season, it is very important to keep in mind the time-window that is extremely specific for that purpose. The businesses have to guarantee that their price strategies will produce profit and the quantity sold will compensate the decrease in prices. From the point of stores the demand is highly elastic during the Christmas season because small percentage change in price can make a huge change in quantity demanded as consumers will just pick another store for gifts. As the dawn of Christmas day approaches and most of the people have concluded their shopping, the demand actually becomes an inelastic procrastinator demand market, where the stores can raise the prices without decreasing their sales that much because those last minute shoppers don’t have time to look for bargains and most likely don’t care about them either. At certain point, for some stores, the market could become almost perfectly inelastic and the businesses could post whatever price they want, ceteris paribus, without negatively affecting quantity demanded. For example, one could imagine an increasing concave function within particular time interval where elasticity is a slope of the function and at minimum, where slope is infinite, the market is highly elastic, in the beginning of Christmas shopping season, and at its maximum point, on Christmas Day, the elasticity equals zero because quantity demanded will be unresponsive to the change in price – the procrastinators will need their gifts regardless of the prices and the people who are done with their gift wrapping are already waiting the After Christmas Sale. Unfortunately to the businesses, hiking prices in almost empty stores will not make much difference at this point. Therefore, timing is incredibly relevant in conducting price-strategies and here the price-matching will help to abate the problem of the asymmetry of information between the businesses and allow the stores to utilize this particular time frame for holiday shopping more efficiently and profitably.
             In addition, the price-matching policy is actually a common element in Wal-Mart sales strategy, although its policy is quite ambiguous and often up to every store manager’s discretion. This prevailing strategy maintains its competitive edge on the local market and warns its opponents against cutting prices below its own; hence, one of the reasons why small stores with poor diversity in products are not capable of competing against Wal-Mart and have to exit the market after its entrance. When Wal-Mart offers a price-matching policy to the customers, its size and variety of articles alone guarantees the win on the provincial market because it can spread the loss of revenue from some items over the wide product mix, by increasing the prices of other items. While it price-matches the goods of the prey it can increase the prices on the other items, but since it has such a huge variety of goods it only has to rise the prices of other products slightly and thus from the customer’s point of view “penny here or there” will not make much difference in convenience of getting all your shopping done at one place. If a small store would try to do the same, it would have to hike the prices of other products considerably and thus will lose too many customers to avoid bankruptcy. Hence, it is very difficult for small mom-and-pop stores to offer price-matching policy and compete with huge stores, like Wal-Mart.
             Therefore, next time when you feel temptation of bringing your receipt to the Customer Service in the name of price-matching, think twice before you act to make sure that you are not the free spy for the competitor or the promoter of collusive behavior. As customers, we all love the competitive markets because their ability to offer us lower prices; thus, we have to do our own part in promoting the long term benefits over the instant gratification of a cheaper product.

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Why Would Smith Support An Increase In The Legally Mandated Minimum Wage?

             In the debate of growing inequality, Smith would suggest direct intervention into labor market. According to him the well being of laboring population should be in the best interest of any country, because without workers it would not be able to accumulate wealth which is the driving force of economy. For Smith, it is important to reduce inequality or at least attempt to reduce it by some civil means, because it would keep workers content; hence, it is beneficial to the economy. The laborers are valuable because they create the value added – the wealth – while the capitalists prepare the necessary conditions for the laborer to produce it.
              Smith would argue for the increase of legally mandated minimum wage to smooth out the growing inequality. He believes that one should avoid taxing capitalists beyond the essential public services and the expense of education, religious instruction, defense, and justice, the latter two for the security of rich from poor (771). The main reason is because the country’s economy grows only if its gross domestic product grows which is made up from wages, profits and rents. When government poses taxes, next to the wages of workers and rents of landlords, it will cut into profits of capitalists and that will influence the wages of workers. The increase in taxes would reallocate resources away from capitalists and therefore, lead to the diminishing revenue of the country. Smith believes that capitalists drive the wealth of economy and one should not strain that major source of economic growth. The more profit capitalists acquire the better it is, because they will invest it back into the economy, for example by expanding manufacturing, and that would create more demand for labor. “If one has more stock than what is sufficient he would naturally employ one or more journeymen with the surplus (79).” Consequently, this will increase the demand of labor which, while scarce, will augment the wages. Hence, increase in the national wealth originates from the increase in revenue and stock which naturally increases the demand for people who live by wage. As Smith argues that the countries that grow fastest are the richest and have the highest wages for the laborers (79).
              There are many reasons why Smith would suggest a wage floor in economy. One of the most important notions would be to make sure that workers are assured subsistence level wage, as to guarantee a minimum standard of living. As Smith is very firm in his belief that wages have to be sufficient to maintain man and his family (77).When the worker’s wages are reduced to bare minimum he would not be able to bring up his family and as a result the laboring population will diminish (287). It would be government’s responsibility to stand up for the workers, because their lack of education and living conditions often would render them unfit to judge their situation or voice their opinions (286). And it is not in the interest of any country to have its men miserable, because the starving people are driven to seek subsistence either by begging or by becoming violent (84), which is a recipe for a revolution or a war - “for a great calamity,” as Smith would say. Consequently, he coincides with Hobbes by noting that the country would fall into a rude state and would not be able to accumulate wealth at all.
              One could counter argue that if Smith has assumption of laissez-faire why should government then increase the wages to reduce inequality, because in the perfect competition they would adjust to the market naturally. Unfortunately, the market mechanisms that direct demand and supply of labor can naturally take hundreds of years (81, 163) to adjust, plus there are also many other constraints that can affect the labor market and, thus, the wages. At first, to afford to live, the laborers’ market wages have to be greater than subsistence wages. Otherwise, the worker would not be able to feed all his children and some of them could end up dying because improper nourishment or unsatisfactory health benefits. This would lead to the decrease of labor supply in the next generation.
              In agriculture there is always lot of uncertainty about the wages. They will often depend on the climate. When there is a flood or a drought the harvest would be dreadful and farmers will not be able to hire as many workers. This will cause the excess labor supply and the wages will be driven down. One would expect the laborers to migrate to another region that can offer higher wages, but often workers don’t have sufficient enough funds to do so.
              The notion of demand for products would adjust the demand for labor will not always work. Even if there is a huge demand for particular commodity it would not always be able to assure the increase in demand for labor, because that produce could be particular only to a certain area, knowledge or dexterity. For example, French wine can be only produced in France where are met the required natural conditions for certain grapes to grow. Or in the case of inventions it could take centuries before the particular knowledge becomes widely available and the monopoly of certain manufacturer or trader broken (68, 69). In these cases there is only a fixed number of labor supply that is needed to produce the commodity and the increase in demand for that product would not mirror in the augmentation of jobs. And even when the country is in good wealth and manufacturing sector is in surplus, it could still take a long time for the labor demand to go up and thus push up the market wages. Because capitalists could sometimes decide not to save and invest all of their profits back into the industry, or it could take a long time for the profits to flow back into economy, as factories take time to build, or there could be inadequate funds for the constant returns on scale to take effect.
              In conclusion, to diminish the mounting inequality the workers need higher wages, but to achieve that we need a healthy and wealthy economy. This, in return, requires capitalists to save and invest their savings back into economy, what means that it is in the laborers’ best interest that capitalists would make lot of profit, because as profits go up, so will the demand for labor and consequently the wages. Hence capitalists and laborers are not so diametrically imposed to each other, but quite dependent on one another’s success. Therefore, if there is a growing inequality it could mean that all the market mechanisms are not working as expected or fast enough naturally. In this case government could attempt to intervene by increasing laborers wages, because country can become opulent only if its laborers are taken care of as the workers are the ones that produce the wealth of the nation.

Häly Laasme

Works Citied.

Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. The Modern Library, New York: Random House, Inc., 2000.

DamNation

             Most of us probably never realize in the comfort of our beds and flipping the pages of the last bestseller how much the intricate web of every day life, filled with minute to minute scientific and technological advancements, is entwined into the symbiosis between society, technology and individuality. Sometimes we take for granted even the simplest things in our lives, like electricity and fresh water. They have become such ordinary utilities to have that considering them as luxuries would seem absurd, as almost everything in the world of the 21st century is based on it and has made us restless for thirst of more power, particularly hydropower. Professor Kader Asmal, the chair of the World Commission on Dams (WCD), has worded our desperation eloquently,

Consider: on this blue planet, less than 2.5% of our water is fresh, less than 33% of our water is liquid, less than 1.7% of fluid water runs in streams. And we have been stopping even these. We dammed half our world’s rivers at unprecedented rates of one per hour, and at unprecedented scales of over 45,000 dams more than four stories high. (WCD i)

             There is no argument against dams as a splendor of human accomplishments and it is not like we became narcissists who thought that they could control nature over night. We have tried to divert the rivers for thousands of years all the way from the ancient Mesopotamia. Roman Empire was prominent for its elaborate system of aqueducts, like superb El Puente in Spain that was built during Emperor Trajan in the 1st century AD. So, here we are in the 21st century and not shy to admit that dams manifest our desperate conquest over nature – as Don Blackmore, the chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission declared proudly in his radio interview, “I haven’t had one drop leave the Murray and go into the sea since November,” referring to more than a year (Leslie 237) - they are grandiose, magnificent and make us feel like Greek Gods on top of Acropolis. Or as 2002 Lukas Prize Winner[1] for "Deep Water" Jacques Leslie has said himself, “Take away Hoover, and you take away the American belief in technology, the extraordinary assumption that it above all will redeem our sins” (Leslie 4). In that case, China has begun the biggest atonement project in the history of mankind, The Three Gorges Dam on the scenic Yangtze River, estimated to cost at least thirty billion dollars (Three Gorges).
             In his book, "Deep Water," Jacques Leslie tries his best to be unbiased by showing his willingness to not underestimate the importance of dams in our lives and their contributive significance to the development of human civilization. Leslie depicts three distinctive cultures with similar socioeconomic struggles and consequences to show the entanglement of the national and social contexts around the dams. To fairly explicate the battles between the World Bank, governments and the people of particular country he has chosen an Indian environmental activist, an American anthropologist, and an Australian water resources manager to each share their reservations and convictions (Leslie 9). And there is no doubt that the managing of water resources is a highly sensitive and multifaceted subject. Just consider the predicament that by the year 2025 thirty-three percent of the internationally shared river basins will be under high or very high water stress; what that means is the tension over scarce water resources will become even more competitive between the nations and therefore exert even more pressure on their social structures (Alcamo 4). To show himself as a proponent of dams, he briefly even tries to attribute the victory in World War II to the dams (Leslie 3), but then very quickly he tumbles off that superficial ‘status quo’ ladder and turns from the mastering of technology to be mastered by technology. I would agree that it would be difficult to imagine our days without toasters, televisions, air-conditions, coffee machines, stoves, refrigerators or clean water running out of the faucets, but would one contribute the whole human history with its inventions and consequences to just dam technology would be questionable. One would also yearn to counter- argue the significance of hydropower by saying that there are many other ways you could acquire electricity; but then again, as we know, not every country has the knowledge base for creating nuclear power plants or simply lack resources for scientific research in the alternative areas, like geothermal, wind, solar and biomass energy.
             "Deep Water" leads the reader to a deeper understanding of the complexity of anthropology by untangling the feasibility of globalization and the micro-level sustainability. From the sacrifices of the tribes around the Narmada River to the disintegration of Tonga culture and to the disarray of the Australian aboriginals Leslie forms and reforms every valid opinion to an ‘anti-dam’ declaration. Unfortunately, when the disputes rise over the detrimental factors of the infrastructure projects we rarely sacrifice the development projects over natural or cultural assets. In the beginning, the professor Thayer Schudder, the world resettlement expert, is hopelessly trying to find that one ‘good’ dam which would reinstate his belief into viability of hydropower. Leslie follows Shudder’s every attempt to increase his influence on contractors and governments in restoring the resettled tribes from the African dam projects to at least their previous living standards (Leslie 129). Essentially, one would think that if government makes a petition on its citizens’ property it would compensate them accordingly or you would expect to find vigorous research to justify such acquisitions. However, according to Leslie’s accounts, often, opposite is true as the hierarchy in the society and in its organizations poses multidimensional challenges. Although, Shudder was well respected in his field for assessing the dams’ effects on the indigenous people he frequently struggled in persuading the dam and government authorities to conduct adequate enough research-assessments (Leslie 158). Like the science of environmental flow assessment that Shudder strongly supported, but it was often disregarded as a valuable tool for understanding the socioeconomic impact of the dams to the downstream inhabitants (Leslie 159). By using the ideas of the flow assessment, Leslie and Shudder try to analyze the dams and practicality of technology through the society’s failure in resettling the indigenous people and the detrimental impacts caused by altered river flows. The negative tone of the information alone could be the reason why the authorities are reluctant to accept this kind of reasoning and probably the reason why governments avoid these assessments. While, for example, Sri Lankan professor Malik Ranasinghe uses a bit more positive approach of the economic feasibility analysis. In his argument about infrastructure projects he determines whether the project can be expected to create more net benefits to the economy than any other mutually exclusive alternative, including the option of not doing it (Ranasinghe 1). Instead of pointing out every damaging fact about the dams, he tries to measure the economic value of the environment through its amenity, bequest, aesthetic, altruistic and other values (Ramasinghe 8). Leslie himself has also used positive technique while writing about the magnificent Okavango Delta (Leslie 166). His page after page extremely detailed descriptions of its biological diversity would make anybody scream for ‘damnation’ to infrastructure projects or in this case would actually change an exploitive multinational corporation to a saintly research initiator; as we can follow De Beers from the Orapa diamond mines, threatened by the slogan “Diamonds are for death” (Leslie 169) to its astounding enlightenment as one of the major donors of the Okavango Research Center (Leslie 178). By the end of Leslie’s African defense you would certainly find yourself empathetic toward thousands of villagers who struggle to survive their “rehabilitation,” but also puzzled over Leslie’s pessimism about the resettlement failures of the tribes since proving the repetitive nature of the disastrous socioeconomic effects seemed to be the main purpose of his narratives? While you are drawn to Shudder’s stubborn faith to technology and his new found enthusiasm over The World Bank’s newest project, Nam Theun 2 dam, in Laos and its possibility to grow from the hypothetical to realizable light in the darkness of failures (Leslie 217), all you get from Leslie is the voice of dissatisfaction from the countless tribal meetings, as he admits, “I finally grew tired of it, and asked the Voice leaders what they wanted from the government and the Bank” (Leslie 214).
             Leslie’s strongest argument against dams comes from India and the Narmada Valley projects. It would be difficult to find a better example of controversy between technology and society. In India Medha Patkar has desperately tried to prove how detrimental the ubiquity of modern technology can be and how pursuing of globalization is not in any way in the best interest of indigenous people whose resettlements often strip their human dignity. The common argument is that most of them never see the benefits of the dams and instead of promises for variety compensations end up as forgotten people in extremely worse conditions than they were originally. She values absence of materialism (Leslie 89) and seems to detest everything that is connected with dams, and even after Leslie’s comprehensive description of her every action, belief and argument you would still feel strongly ambiguous over her objectives - if she is against the advanced technologies all together as such, or just hydropower. The perception you get from Leslie’s interpretation over every account of Medha is that she would detest any kind of contemporary technology despite the benefits it could bring to millions. Her Andolan’s Gandhian/Chomskian/feminist/Mother Theresan worldview that denounces everything from the dams to globalization (Leslie 20) reflects in many ways the consequentialist moral theorists who never believe into the goodness of mankind unless their actions result ‘good’. She would probably never accept Kant’s position on priority of the good intentions, because she would not be able to see anything good in anybody’s intentions, even the noblest ones, if they don’t produce good consequences and dams, in her eyes, have only generated pain and suffering to Indian people (Solomon 279). Therefore, she is determined to drown herself, literally – to stay in the water until it immerses her, for the protest against dam projects and their created social injustice.
             The controversy between Indian society and the dam technology is strongly escalated by the history of their culture, especially because their beliefs. One has to understand the importance of water in their rituals and customs. It is considered as divine as its numerous Gods. Narmada (called the daughter of the moon), like Ganges that was a celestial river and helped to earth by god Shiva, is considered sacred and the pilgrims circumambulate it to purify themselves for three years, three months, and thirteen days (Dehejia 128).
             Fighting against modern technology has become very much symbolic in their society – “To someone looking through an Indian perspective, their prayers, songs, dances, and dress no longer seem rooted in a living culture, but rather in a desperate attempt to cling to their ethnic identity” (Fisher 286). And even though, ‘the western world’ often coincides its technological superiority with moral supremacy, Fisher specifically makes a point to say that the ‘white man’s methods, techniques, media’ - his technology (Fisher 285) - are the means of the technologically stronger – though not morally superior – aggressor (Fisher 286).
             However, to argue that it is not the dam technology what is detrimental to people, but the human factor that handles the technology, Leslie has depicted the third example for his book "Deep Water" from Australia. Yes, like other indigenous people the Australian Aboriginals were and are also susceptible to the same resettlement and ecological problems; but in this case we can also see some progress toward better common good. They have found the middle way and are trying to use the same dam technology that damages rivers also to fix and sustain ‘a healthy working river’ (Leslie 256). Their water recovery program consisted environmental flows that gave the water back to the river, went into effect in August 2002. Its long-term aim is to restore twenty-eight percent of the pre-dam downstream flow from the Showy Hydro dam (Leslie 269).
             In conclusion I would like to ask if this fight between technology and society is a cultural or technological confusion? While the twenty-first century is bringing us the globalization and the aims for sustainable development, we seem to get more and more reluctant to accept those same scientific and technological advancements that are supposed to help us to take care of poverty and world hunger. Concurrently, we also see ourselves as superior species who have ability to rationalize over moral and ethical principles; and, yet, cause increasingly more destruction in the biosphere from the harm to our own species to the extinction of hundreds of others. Poverty and water scarcity are huge disadvantages for the countries who wish to achieve the goals of sustainable development. How can anyone, for example tell to China, India or Africa, who struggle with their huge increase in population and need to accommodate their economic ambitions, that you are not allowed to have cheap energy and build dams so you could bring the essential necessities to the villages and towns. Yes, we all support the positive asymmetrical power relations between developing and industrialized countries and try to reduce the patterns of enclave[2] economies (Goldstein 399); but we can not stop these countries from pursuing the capital accumulation that is utmost necessary for economic development. The electricity brought us the industrial revolution and so do developing countries need this basic utility to produce the economic surplus that is required to achieve the desirable balance of trade. It would be very hypocritical to condemn the hydropower, but meanwhile to use it yourself, thus my biggest hope is that we will find a balance between humans and planet, otherwise it could happen as Jacques Leslie has said, “Dams. They’ll be reminders of an ancient time when humans believed they could vanquish nature, and found themselves vanquished instead” (Leslie 347).

Häly Laasme

Works Citied.

Alcamo,J., Henrichs, T. and Rösch, T. World Water in 2025 – Global modeling and scenario analysis for the World Commission on Water for the 21^st Century. Report A0002, Center for Environmental Systems Research, University of Kassel, Kurt Wolters Strasse 3, 34109 Kassel, Germany.” February 2000 Accessed: 24 Oct. 2006, http://www.usf.uni-kassel.de/usf/archiv/ dokumente/kwws/kwws.2.pdf.

CU. Columbia University. The Journalism School. "2002 Lukas Prize Winners." Accessed: 15 October, 2006, http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/events/lukas/2002/

Dehejia, Vidya. Indian Art and Architecture. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1997.

Encarta. "Aqueduct." Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Accessed: 24 Oct. 2006, http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761557948/Aqueduct.html

Fisher, William F. Toward Sustainable Development? Struggling Over India’s Narmada River. Columbia University Seminar Series. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1995.

Goldsmith, Edward and Nicholas Hildyard. The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1985.

Goldstein, Joshua S. International Relations. Brief 2^nd ed. American University, Washington DC, Westford: Courier Corporation, 2004.

Leslie, Jacques. Deep Water: The Epic Struggle over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Ranasinghe, Malik. Analysis of Unique Natural, Environmental and Cultural Assets threatened by Infrastructure Projects: The Case of Upper Kotmale Hydropower Project. Research Studies: Energy & Environmental Economics Series No. 8, April 1999. Sri Lanka Institute Of Policy Studies, 1999.

Solomon, Robert C. The Big Question. 6^th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth Group/Thomson Learning, 2002.

Three Gorges Dam. A Great Leap backward for China’s electricity consumers and economy – part 1. Campaign Archive, 16 Dec. 1999, Accessed: 24 Oct. 2006, http://www.threegorgesprobe.orge/tgp/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=1054

WCD. World Commission on Dams. Dams and Development. The Report of the World Commission on Dams. United States: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2000.

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[1]Columbia University Journalism School and Nieman Foundation at Harvard, 2002 Lukas Prize Project Awards for Exceptional Works of Nonfiction.
[2]An historically important form of dependency in which foreign capital is invested in a third world country to extract a particular raw material in a particular place. The capital is not reinvested back to that country, but goes to some other country according to the investor’s interests.

From Pyramids to Stem Cells

Looking at the CT scans of the 3,300-year-old pharaoh, Tutankhamun, you get this eerie feeling in the bottom of your stomach, like looking at your own thousands of years old reflection in the mirror of time. The great Egyptian civilization has kept us mystified through centuries and often even more than the unknown wilderness of the cosmos. They have left us with puzzles that appear to possess a question mark of infinity and make us wonder if that oasis of intelligence was lured there by the Valley of the Nile or was it just the result of many coincidences that happened to occupy the same relative position.
The thought has to go through one’s head - “Are we happier now than we were then?” Although, many things have changed in human lives since, our appearance has not evolved significantly throughout centuries, and we are still confined by the rules of gravity and freedom-paralyzing ideologies. Instead of being the slaves of the pharaohs, we are the slaves to the principles of our society. We still live in the constructions that root into “mother earth,” except, not to hide ourselves from the desert storms, but mostly from the perceptions and existence of other human beings; only our buildings are taller and easier to shatter. We don’t write picture symbols on the papyrus to communicate with distant loved ones, but we do write symbols for countless computer programs that convert information to images on the liquid-crystal display - our modern version of Rosetta Stone that is not a 3.9 in. and 2.4 in. black basalt.
The world of science is trying to solve the mysteries of the past, as it re-digests, bit by bit, everything we have studied from school books and tells us that what was believed, is not exactly what should be believed; like, in the instance of the boy-king Tut who, according to history, was once murdered. However, today, we are more confused about that assumption than ever before and have to beg for question: “Are we laughing at history or is history laughing at us?”
Thus, often our scientific and technologic advancements are opening the doors to more uncertainties than resolving the ones that already persist. They have evolved from the holy grail into a Pandora’s box with a sign “I hope it was worth it!” Even Albert Einstein, the genius of unattainable, had to admit that certain gates of science should stay closed, when he heard about Hiroshima. I wonder if James Thomson would feel the same way decades down the road over his own achievement of establishing the world‘s first human embryonic stem cell line?
I am sure on some starry nights the rulers of the ancient Egypt pondered over the fate of mankind; but would they have ever guessed that while they were figuring how to build the most grandiose pyramids, we would be deliberating over how to build “more durable” humans. That our civilization would be faced with the controversies over multipotent adult and pluripotent embryonic stem cells, and which ones are more ethical to use for the research.
Maybe we should look at it from Aristotle‘s standpoint, “In view of the fact that all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what is the highest of all goods achievable by action? It is Happiness.” (Ethics) Although, our definition of happiness may vary from his, one would still have to say that it should include the resolving of pain and suffering. If our science can give “well doing” and “well living” to people who can’t have it otherwise, why is it more ethical to let these people live in anguish and die? How is it a cannibalism to harvest immature stem cells that have no nervous system and have not differentiated into cells that can grow into body parts, but it is not a premeditated homicide choosing not to do so, knowing the potential that the research of regenerative medicine can offer for cures to various diseases. I guess, only healthy people are allowed to vote on this ballot of the century! Hence, we are fighting for the humans that “could be,” but give only a second of thought for the humans “who are.”
Yes, it is a scary thought that one day we could be able to replace every ailing part of our body with the new one or clone a copy of ourselves, but the truth is that Columbus left the harbor quite a while ago and there is no way he would choose to return any time soon, without any treasures from the lands unknown.
And to be honest, are we even fighting over the ethical and moral dilemmas in this subject, or are we just scared of ourselves? Maybe, what really worries us is not the fate of the clones or the outcomes of the research, but the level of our own intelligence to deal with the progress of science and technology - we are afraid of the possibility of becoming an inferior race.

Häly Laasme

Awful Diplomacy and Bad Politics

In recent years conducting politics has become as volatile as trading stocks on Wall Street; you can find yourself succumbed by the fear of opening the eyes to a brisk morning, as tumbling off the ‘status quo’ ladder can happen before your conscious gets out of pajamas. One would think that we have more than enough centuries on our shoulders to be able to negotiate with other human beings; that we should have developed adequate skills by now to articulate in a calm and clear manner what are our desires and requirements - but the truth is that it is not just a complexity of human nature that makes a diplomacy such a difficult instrument of foreign policy, but also the growing economic and political interdependence where the questions over the collective goods problems can develop into the nauseating migraine attacks.
Is it even possible in today’s society to be truly a free rider and benefit from everybody else’s provisions without inflicting a slow, poisonous death on yourself? The presupposition that one has to negotiate the agreements to strengthen their own state while neutralizing the opponents has evolved into the treaties for common good where, instead of backstabbing, you are supposed to collaborate with your rivals to reach a political and economic prosperity. The world is waking up to a dawn of sustainable development and consolidation of peace, but there are still plenty of those who are obstinately in touch with their egocentric side and disregard the inclination of most of the rivers to flow into the ocean; and forget that by ignoring the existence of the rest of the world by building a dam on it will not make their world more luscious, but instead the surrounding grass would wither and become more bitter.
Maybe we all are just too critical over political currents or how the diplomacy is conducted. Our society, simply, is not ready yet to be diplomatic when the good of humanity comes into question. In this race of globalization that the twenty-first century brought on us, the technological advancement is dragging the almost breathless economy with it, but our intelligence is still a round or two behind and will need a good training camp in Mount Everest to be able to catch up with it. That is why there are so many international disputes and crises, and it would be paradoxical to hope that tomorrow everybody will stop protecting his or her country's interests and become a pacifist. More now than ever we have to admit that the Political Maybach is speeding towards the trough, and it is not just a recession in the diplomatic relations that worries us, but its tendency to grow into the Great Depression.
Most of us expect the people who represent the states to acknowledge the basic guidelines of morality, like resolving conflicts of interest justly and promoting the survival of society, thus there should be enough lights beckoning the willingness of mankind to survive as a group and co-exist with each other. The question that continues to pester us is, if we believe in cultural relativism, that different people around the world have a right to their own moral code, or do we decide to be ignorant and believe that only our values are the right ones? In that case, there is no room for amiable foreign relations, since it is almost impossible to compromise with a country that believes in ethical relativism. There would be no considering what will be best for humanity as a whole, no willingness to share your resources with other countries, and no need for concessions. Hence, there would be nothing to negotiate over and the existence of multilateral frameworks, like the UN or the WTO, would become a subject for history books that nobody would ever get to read.
Diplomacy is supposed to help us achieve the goal of bringing a better life, or as Socrates has said “Good life,” to our next generations. However, the way it looks today, there would be left only an echo of the most intelligent species in this solar system, who were not only awful in diplomacy, but also really bad in politics.

Häly Laasme

Modern Day Ramayana

The greatest Indian epic that talks about love, wisdom, and virtue has gradually rooted itself in the every day life of our society. Not that we praise so much the part of the virtue from dawn to dusk, but that we find ourselves pondering over the questions of love and wisdom, and if those two words even fit in the same dimension?
When you are in love, the wisdom is always the last thing that knocks on your door, as you become transparent to the coherent decisions. At least in the Middle Ages the courtly love gave you, besides the slaves of passion, some of the finest of troubadour poets; although, you could have also lost your head for infidelity, since it was a mortal sin. Today, you are insane to expect poetry, it is good if you get any flowers, and the question that generally materializes is - “Are we slaves of passion, or the slaves of hormones?” On the other hand, perhaps we should not complain over the loss of romanticism in our lives, but celebrate the decree of the court of evolution not to cut off our heads when we strain from fidelity.
When you are wise, you avoid falling in love altogether, as it is not very smart to push yourself knowingly off the cliff to the ocean of amoré, especially when you don’t have a life jacket. There should be always enough friends to say something critical over the relationships you develop, so that you would at least have a vague perspective about the direction you are swimming toward. Otherwise, one day you can find yourself thrown out of the honeycomb clueless and without any explanations, inquiring: “How did I get here?” Maybe that is why, through centuries, the right to make the decisions over who you will live with “for better or for worse” was given to the parents, and not to the bride and her groom.
In “Ramayana,” it is not just good enough to be virtuous, but you also have to convince everyone else around about your worthiness, as did beautiful Sita by asking Mother Earth to prove her purity. In our modern day lives you have to persuade yourself to be virtuous, and then you become the outcast, because the rest of the world has lost its belief in it. I guess it is not about what moral codes our society has lost, but which direction we will choose from this point on. Maybe it is too much to ask from the human species to put love, wisdom and virtue all in one sentence, because, after all, we are just one of various mammals and many of them prefer polygamy over monogamy. Or maybe our world has become caught in the gray, ordinary, and far-too-serious rapids of work and schedules that we just can’t say “no” to the feeling of butterflies, even when the lifespan of our emotions is shorter than one stage of their life.
In reality, the love probably does not even exist, since it is our imagination that surrenders us to the world of enigma and gets us demoted from “extraordinary and plenipotentiary” to “chargé d’affaires.” We can be prudent and conservative in our views and manners, but once the sweet kisses are blown to the wind we become hypocritical and untamed. You quickly find out that one has to be a very good gymnast on the balancing beam to be able to reason, while the intoxication of pleasure sucks out the last cells of logic from the pinkish-gray tissue. But, yet, we agree to fall in love again and again, often without any hesitation; we let the world play us as fools over and over, before it rips out our hearts with the razor sharp nails; and we sacrifice our common sense to a moment of ecstasy time after time, even if it will destroy us later.
Maybe that is what makes us human after all, the willingness to submit ourselves freely to the torture of love and the readiness to avoid knowingly the roads of wisdom by choosing the ones that lead to the battlefields instead. We are the authors of the modern-day version of “Ramayana, ” who are trying to find the answers, in the epic of humans, to the same ancient questions about love, wisdom, and virtue in the prevailing world.

Häly Laasme