Episode 18: WHAT COVID TAUGHT US ABOUT THE COLLABORATIVE/COOPERATIVE MODEL versus THE COMPETITIVE MODEL

In this episode we consider what lessons we have gleaned from our experimentation with two distinct models of behavior during the coronavirus pandemic: the Collaborative and Cooperative Model; and  the Competitive Model.

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Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast dedicated to envisioning a better world and to infusing hope that we can make the principled choices to build that world. In this episode, we consider what lessons we have gleaned from our experimentation with two distinct models of behavior during the coronavirus pandemic: the collaborative and cooperative model and the competitive model. Thank you for joining me today and giving up a little bit of your time so that we can reflect together on ways in which we can make our world a better place. I want to begin by introducing you, if you haven't already heard it, to a quote from Albert Einstein. He is famously reputed to have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Now, when we look at the dismal state of our world and the cascading global challenges we face, we have to ask ourselves, what behaviors have we been repeating over and over again that we can consider changing? What changes in our thinking and behavior are necessary to bring about the world we all want and deserve? A world in which we all recognize that we are on a common journey with a common purpose. and a common destination. What will it take to create a world in which the principles of oneness and justice are the operating principles of international life? We don't have to look very far for answers. COVID, while it's been a very hard taskmaster, bringing us tremendous physical, psychological and economic pain and suffering has also afforded us tremendous opportunities to learn some important lessons in terms of what we can do to change our behaviors and to thereby save humanity from itself and the threat of absolute disaster in the long run. When I look at the pandemic, I like to think of it as actually a laboratory in which we've been conducting a broad range of experiments. Truthfully, some of those experiments have been conducted mindfully and wittingly and others have been happening unwittingly, but we can still learn from them. Amongst these experiments is an experiment about the importance of underlying assumptions upon which we behave and build our social institutions, and the radically different effects on social reality, our social reality, that result depending on whether these assumptions are accurate or false. So it's really been an experiment about what happens when we base everything on false assumptions versus accurate assumptions. An analogy that I like to use in this regard is that of building. When you want to build a building, if you assume that you're building on solid rock, then you build with peace of mind. However, woe betide anyone who believes or falsely assumes that they're building on solid rock, but is in fact building on quicksand. We know what the results of that endeavor will be. Back to COVID as a lab. The first set of experiments that we've been doing is based on what I call the collaboration and cooperation based model. We've been checking it out. What does it look like? How does it work? What are the assumptions underlying it? What are the results? Let's start with some of the fundamental assumptions that underlie this particular model. The first is that success comes from collaborating and cooperating with each other, including across national boundaries, relying on the potent tool of consultation. That's the first underlying assumption underlying this particular model of collaboration, cooperation. The second assumption is that by working together, we will inevitably tap into sources of creativity and find solutions to whatever challenge, no matter how big that faces us. Therefore, we can let go of our fear of scarcity, which is often a fear that drives us, and we can trust in the process and trust in our own ingenuity to work together and bring about solutions. The third assumption that underlies this model is that our interconnectedness and the benefits of globalization and interdependence, such as instantaneous communication and trade, make it easier for us to solve problems. Let's look at one example of this model at work. The example that springs to mind that I think is absolutely fascinating is that of the scientists who have come together to develop the COVID vaccines in record time. Now we know that the coronavirus has had the potential to wipe out a significant number of human beings, more so than the 3 million or more that we've already lost and to really decimate our lives far more than it already has. So God blessed these scientists who came together and experimented with this model. They did a bunch of things differently. Let's look at what they actually did. First of all, they transformed the way they communicated with each other, taking advantage of new platforms to share their findings early. As a result, they released torrents of data using pre print servers that didn't even exist a decade ago. Then, they dissected the information that they uploaded on the preprint servers on platforms such as Slack and Twitter, and also in the media. And they did all this before formal peer review process began. This intense communication catalyzed an unusual level of collaboration among scientists that, when combined with scientific advances, has enabled research to move faster than during any previous outbreak. This is one thing they did differently. The second thing they did is that they transitioned to a completely new culture of doing research. They broke past habits, setting aside normal imperatives like academic credit, their egos, and personal ambitions, and started to share information openly using these platforms available to them as soon as any piece of information came to light. Whereas in the past, they would have sat on crucial data, until they could get their papers published by high profile peer reviewed journals and win accolades, recognition, prizes, including the Nobel Prize. Now, as soon as they came across any data, they would put it on one of these platforms to have consultations about what it meant. The third thing that they did differently is they changed their mindsets. While political leaders started to lock down borders and hunker down, scientists were shattering their borders, creating global collaboration unlike any seen in history. I love this quote in an interview with Dr. Francesco Pirone, one of the scientists leading a coronavirus clinical trial in Italy, who said, "I never hear scientists, true scientists, good quality scientists, speak in terms of nationality. My nation, your nation, my language, your language, my geographic location, your geographic location." this is something that is really distant from true top level scientists and that really sums up this whole new culture that the scientists have created just over the past year. What was the result of these different modes of behaving, these changes that they brought about? For the first time in human history, humanity produced a vaccine in 11 months, instead of the usual 10 to 15 years that it takes on average to make a vaccine. Imagine where we would have been if we had to wait 10 whole years before we had a vaccine and the virus continued to rage. Imagine the number of deaths, the number of illnesses, and the number of people who would suffer from long hauler syndrome. Now, the second example of this collaborative, cooperative experiment is the quest to eliminate structural anti Black racism. These same assumptions that we talked about were at play when people of different backgrounds, races, ages, and genders came together in unprecedented numbers to stand in solidarity, demanding the end to police brutality against the Black community. These Black Lives Matter movements were unprecedented in three different ways. The geographic spread in the United States, more than 40 percent of counties in the U. S. had a protest, which is amazing, unprecedented. Nearly 95 percent of those counties were majority white, and three quarters of the counties were 75 percent white. Again, unprecedented. And then we had the protests that spread globally in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The second way in which this movement was unprecedented was the range of backgrounds ethnic and racial, ages, genders that participated in these peaceful protests. In the past, they'd been mostly Black folk who had participated, but not this time. And the third big difference that was unprecedented is that the number of people who arose to protest as of July 2020 alone was 15 to 26 million, making it the largest movement in the U. S. Again, this movement demonstrated the power of unity as evidenced by the fact that people around the world arose to stand in solidarity with their brethren in America, demanding an end to the scourge of racism. Imagine what we can achieve when we decide, arise, and single mindedly commit ourselves to tackling any of our challenges. Now, the second model, by contrast, that we've been experimenting with in this laboratory of COVID is the competitive model In contrast to the first model, the assumptions underlying this one are that human beings are inherently selfish and competitive. We take this fatalistic approach and say, "This is the way we've always been. This is the way we'll always be. And we need to be in serious competition in order to thrive." The other underlying assumption is that, scarcity is something that we all need to be wary of and fear. So it's inevitable that we are going to compete furiously with each other in order to get our hands on whatever the scarce resource is. And in scary times, the answer to the fear is to hunker down in one of a number of ways. It manifests itself in excessive nationalism, isolationism, xenophobia, and a me first or we first as a country attitude. What has been the result of this competition based model? We see it currently on display in what is now termed vaccine nationalism or vaccine apartheid. Countries with the means have been snapping up most doses of the vaccine. In fact, they locked up supplies before they were even produced. They entered into contracts and locked up those supplies. As of the beginning of April of this year, 2021, news outlets report that 86% of the vaccines manufactured have gone into the arms of people in wealthy and middle income countries leaving the rest of the world at the mercy of the virus that is virulent and spreading rapidly. Now, this isn't just a, "Oh dear. Whoops. So the competition based model results in vaccine nationalism." There are dangerous consequences to all of us around the world from such vaccine nationalism. By allowing the virus to spread uncontrolled in other countries, it will give rise to mutations against which the vaccines that we're currently so selfishly hoarding will eventually be ineffective and we're going to need other vaccines in order to deal with the variants. So it's going to undermine the progress that we in the name of self preservation in the wealthy countries have have been making. It will also therefore lead to a prolongation of the pandemic with all the suffering it entails, physical, psychological, emotional, and economic. And will really decimate our way of life and decimate lives. The second tremendous damage that will be done is to our global economy. Experts are already predicting there'll be nine trillion dollars of damage done to the economy, of which half of is going to be sustained by the wealthy countries. So if we've been thinking that we're going to get away scot free, then we've been thinking wrong. We've been misinformed or we're ignorant. It's time to wake up and truly recognize that we are interconnected. We are those cabins on the single ship of humanity, and it's not enough for each cabin to be well run, but the ship itself needs a captain and crew at the helm in order to protect us and save the ship from sinking when we are faced with turbulent storms and these turbulent crises. We have to recognize that we sink or swim together. Now let's take stock in comparing and contrasting these these two models. What do we learn? We learn three different things. Let's first contrast the mindset and the emotions involved. in these two models. Under the competitive model, the driving emotion is fear. Under the collaboration and cooperation based model, the driving emotion and state of mind is that of trust and faith in ourselves, in the universe, and in the processes that we put into place. The question we're left with is which of these states is more appealing and leads to a better quality of life? Later we'll see better outcomes. Is it better to have one in which we're more joyful and stress free when we have trust and faith in ourselves, the universe, and the process? Or do we prefer to constantly be stressed out, on the alert, in fight or flight mode? Just really unrelentingly stressed and in conflict mode. The second thing to compare are the results. Again, what do we prefer? Do we prefer to live in a world in which we come up with effective solutions that benefit all, like coming up with a vaccine that can benefit all of humanity, if we can now just put our minds to getting it equitably distributed? Or do we want to live in a world that burns and crashes because we continue to deny the reality of our interconnectedness and our oneness and the reality that we sink or swim together? Depending on the answers that we give to these two questions, we come to the third question, which is, which of the two underlying sets of assumptions do we want to opt for going forward? Do we want to continue with the old clearly false assumptions that we articulated that underpin the competition based model? Or is it time for us to recognize that they truly are false assumptions? And that we as human beings are not incorrigibly selfish and competitive and conflict prone. That this has been a distortion of our nature, that we're actually naturally more inclined to cooperate and collaborate, and that all we've done so far is a reflection of a cycle of bad habits that we've had in our previous stages of immaturity, as we've been moving towards our maturity as a human race, our collective maturity. The analogy I like to use here is that of eating junk food. Studies show that the more junk food you eat and the more specially processed sugar you eat, you start to crave more of the same foods. That's one of the arguments people make when they are struggling with transitioning to a more healthful style of eating and living. They say, "Oh, I just crave bad stuff and it's just who I am." That's not true. All we need to do is give ourselves a break from eating the junk foods and the processed sugar for two or three weeks, and what we discover, the studies show, is that our palates recover and we regain our original natural palates, attracted to vegetables and fresh fruits and grains and wholesome foods. And we actually are very turned off by the chemical taste of a lot of these processed foods with additives and coloring and processed sugar. So we might go, as we go through a period of transition, shedding the false assumptions and starting new ones. We may go through an uncomfortable period, but it will soon pass and we will reclaim our original natural state. These lessons that this COVID laboratory is teaching us are really critical as we prepare ourselves to address other looming disasters, particularly the looming disaster of climate change. We don't have much time yet. We only have nine years left before we do irreversible damage with the way we're going with respect to global warming and climate change. There's too much at stake for us to get this wrong. We've already tried multiple ways to tackle this problem, short of using the methods that we've been talking about during this series, including replacing these false assumptions with new, constructive, empowering, and more accurate ones. Just recently, a couple of days ago, we had the summit of 40 leaders who got together to start having conversations about what they would do hopefully by the year 2030, which is our really deadline nine years from now. It's time to lick this problem. And it's evident from our discussion today, I believe, that we can lick this problem by engaging in universal participation which is based on the employment of the tool of consultation, which is something that we, I hope to discuss in our next episode together. All right. Those are the thoughts I had to share with you today. I don't see any comments. That may be because of the technical glitches. I apologize for that. In the meantime, I hope that you have a wonderful week. I look forward to seeing you next week. And again, a plea and a reminder that if you like the ideas here, there's a lot more of the same in my book, The Alchemy of Peace, that was released this year. Please tell your friends about it. Please check it out. It's available on Amazon. I'd really appreciate your help. And there are a lot more of these kinds of ideas there. Have a wonderful rest of the day and goodbye for now. That's all for this episode of Reimagining Our World. I'll see you back here next month. If you liked this episode, please help us to get the word out by rating us and subscribing to the program on your favorite podcast platform. This series is also available in video on the YouTube channel of the Center for Peace and Global Governance, CPGG.