Why COVID-19 is Not the Problem and the Vaccine is NOT the Solution
By: Sunil Malhotra
Tags: Covid 19, Systems Thinking, Regeneration, Collaboration, Vaccines

Why COVID-19 is Not the Problem and the Vaccine is NOT the Solution

The vaccines might give relief by numbing our fears, but the pandemic is really nature’s long overdue wake-up call to humankind. Sunil Malhotra Jan 15·15 min read

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash

Optimism is good, obstinacy is not. 2020 is done and dusted. People waited the year out for things to go back to normal. Most of us are still waiting for the return of the normal we’ve known, and to get vaccine shots so we can go back to familiar, ‘business as usual’ lives.

These recently approved vaccines — Moderna, Pfizer-BionTech and Oxford-Astrazeneca — will probably protect us humans from the COVID-19 virus. Going by the enthusiastic anticipation of the vaccine, it almost seems like we believe it will also inoculate us against the ills of our species, whereas, at best, it can be expected to numb our fears of social contact. Is it just me or are we experiencing a déjà vu moment here? The vaccine may temporarily suppress the symptom that’s the virus, while the real problem, viz. humanity’s irrational obsession with perpetual exploitative growth, continues to simmer underneath.

The corona virus must be seen as a biological response of Gaia* — our living planet — to the ecological and social emergency that humanity has brought upon itself. ~Fritjof Capra

COVID-19 is a consequence of our all-too-human-centric approach to the planet: a disproportionate quest for profit maximisation has possibly led to the current viral plague which needs to be solved beyond the mere immediate symptom-resolution approach of the vaccine. This pandemic is a wake-up call for humanity to mend our ways. Unless, of course, we want COVID-21 (or some such) to continue on this deadly course.

In effect, we must invert our thinking habits from …

Analytical to Systemic; and Focus on Shareholder Profit maximisation to holistic Value Creation.

… to a planet-first paradigm.

This imperative is neither novel nor new: “Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” ―André Gide.

Who’ll Inoculate Ma Nature?

While the speed and efficacy of the vaccine efforts by scientists are laudable, and the contribution of technological advancements undeniable, the question is, “are we solving the right problem or trying to be right in solving the wrong problem?” Systems thinking guru and Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, the late Russell Ackoff, put it nicely—

the more you keep solving the wrong problem right, the wronger you get.

What if the problem lies elsewhere? Humankind’s ways of politics and business over the last few centuries, specifically since the time we went industrial with life and living — and then consumerised entire societies — have pushed the planet over the edge (sic.). Even if we agree that humans are Ma Nature’s MOST favoured children, does it confer on a single species, the right to plunder the earth’s resources for its own gain or even simply for the fun of it? What if humans ARE the virus?

“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is the God he’s worshipping.” ~Hubert Reeves. (Canadian-French Astrophysicist)

By the end of the last century, humanity may have exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity¹. The problem, it seems, has to do with the uniquely human byproducts of technological advancement, like systematic habitat destruction. We appear to be using technology in a way that defeats its own purpose. Add to this “the massive intrusions into the ecological systems around the world, fuelled by corporate greed [that] have fragmented these systems and fractured the web of life.”

Capra notes that, “one of the many consequences of these harmful activities has been that viruses that used to live in symbiosis with animal species (where they did no harm) jumped from those species to others and to humans, where they are deadly.”

Our human-centricity prevents us from comprehending that our activities don’t damage the planet, but only makes it increasingly hostile for human life: nature will reconfigure to another equilibrium, that is all.

Natural Stupidity Trumps Artificial Intelligence

The world has never been more connected: connectivity that has facilitated real-time collaborations across timezones, and equipped humanity with the unprecedented advantage of fighting the virus as one. And technologies that are accelerating simultaneously as they continue demonstrating an aspect of Moore’s Law (the well-known phenomenon of doubling in performance every 18 to 24 months), that technological growth is exponential. All this is good, except that the same technology that can save humankind also has the potential of fuelling corporate greed and concentrating power like never before.

In some ways the lockdowns of COVID-19 seem to have afforded us the luxury of reflecting and deciding if we want to return to our greedy, unfair, everyone-for-themselves competitive ways. For decades, activists and social scientists have been calling for sustainable practices. And for decades, traffic, air pollution and accidents have congested our streets and skies. Then, thanks to COVID-19, in just a few weeks, the roads go empty, skies clear and the music of nature falls sweetly on our ears.

COVID-19 has also reminded us that ME must not be at the expense of WE, because it has been clear for a while, even to the most ardent capitalists, that single-mindedly following the Western ‘I’-oriented way is unsustainable.

America, a veritable lap of luxury, ought to accept the largest chunk of the responsibility for leading the prevailing culture of self-centred greed, that takes it to the point of making wastefulness a virtue. Cloaked in the garb of capitalism, economic success is touted as an end that can justify any means. American corporations, institutions and politicians think with their wallets, and common sense becomes a victim.

Wall Street practices anywhere else in the world, would be nothing short of criminal. How long can we fuel the ethos of love of money for money’s sake while ignoring the victims of financial corruption? How long will we keep rewarding the criminals with bonuses?

American Entrepreneur Nick Hanauer criticised³ the corporate bailouts in the CARES Act stimulus package in America that was passed into law in April 2020. “People are economically hurting, and they resent the fact that billions upon billions of dollars are being poured into relief for large corporations.”

Hanauer thinks outrage is a logical response. “One of the reasons that we’re having to bail out all of these industries,” he said, “is that the industries themselves have been made fragile by decades of shareholder value maximization” instead of “building resilience.”

In stark contrast we saw that the vaccines were developed with little focus on profitability and in a spirit of global cooperation, proving that there is an alternative to the shareholder value + profit maximisation + each-to-himself model, and it’s a much more happy one at that.

As early as July 2020, Safi Bahcall (on the Elevate Podcast ~53:00 min), showed us that,

“An unbelievable 250 therapies in development within 90 days,” and “Today we have anywhere between 100 to 1000 times the scientific resources directed at this virus than we had at Hepatitis-C, a couple of years back.”

We were optimistic about this ethos gaining traction enough to move humankind’s fiercely competitive culture towards more badly needed global collaboration. However, the neuroelasticity of our greedy brains snapped back.

Eddie Obeng’s caustic comment that these efforts were “all abandoned, ignored or banned in pursuit of a ‘silver bullet’ vaccine, in favour of a

… one size fits all … follow the margins (solution) instead of being individual centric … sadly the connectedness has facilitated a faster, uncreative and spread widely outdated, old-world, corporate top-down, hierarchical, command & control thinking, method & approach.”

A Symptom Called Corona

We need new habits.

In context of the COVID-19 crisis, the question facing us is, “Do these vaccines give us the licence to go back to our irrational obsession with perpetual exploitation of the earth’s resources?”

Sure, we need the shot in the arm (sic.) for protection, but that can’t be taken to mean that the virus will disappear. Will a new mutation jump to humans from a dry market another time around? As humans progressively destroy more and more of the habitats of other organisms, won’t we become the favoured hosts? Look at it from the corona virus’s point of view. All it’s doing is fighting for its own survival.

What if COVID-19 is actually a symptom, as is reflected by the accelerating effects of climate change? Is nature lashing out at humankind for its unheeded attack on the biodiversity balance of our planet? Could humans be their own biggest extinction risk?

‘To better understand systems as the natural order of life on earth, we must look at the nature of the system itself.’

We are finally beginning to see that

>> The world is a system.

>> We as individuals are systems.

>> Our organisations and businesses are systems.

>> Our communities and our nations are systems.

And they are all interconnected**.

Perhaps we should begin to apply the principles of systems thinking to sort out the ways in which we are impacting the world as we know it, while we still have the opportunity to achieve sustainability.

Image Copyright: mackaycartoons.net

According to Leyla Acaroglu,

systems thinking requires a shift in mindset, away from linear to circular. The fundamental principle of this shift is that everything is interconnected. We talk about interconnectedness not in a spiritual way, but in a biological sciences way.

The most serious problems facing us now are not in any particular institution, but rather in the relationship between them.

This internal functioning starts at the individual level. It doesn’t take much to understand that keeping the quest for material well-being down to what we need (agreed that prosperity is subjective), is likely more sustainable than the mindset of mindless greed.

In this hard-hitting (12-minute) video⁵, Fritjof Capra exhorts us to act with extreme urgency.

“With the COVID pandemic, (we have been) presented with valuable, life-saving lessons. The question is: will we have the wisdom and the political will to heed these lessons?

>> Will we shift from undifferentiated extractive growth to regenerative qualitative growth?

>> Will we replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources for all our energy needs?

>> Will we stop excessive mass tourism and instead revitalize local communities?

>> Will we replace our centralized energy-intensive system of industrial agriculture with organic, community-oriented, regenerative farming?”

In his 1996 book, The Web of Life, Fritjof Capra wrote brilliantly about the need for a new paradigm — a deep ecological shift — in our collective thinking as a species.

The Proof in the Pudding

As automobile traffic and industrial activities decreased dramatically during the periodic lockdowns, the pollution of major cities around the world disappeared. After ages we were able to see the blue in our skies, the green in leaves, the clear water of our rivers, hear the song of the birds and could once again partake of the glory of nature. The virus has been much more effective in reducing CO2 emissions and slowing climate breakdown than all the world’s policy initiatives combined. It is the radically reduced human activities that have resulted in this environmental regeneration.

“A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations.” ~Lester Brown

‘There are solutions to the major problems of our time, some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values. And, indeed, we are now at the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview in science and society, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican revolution. But this realization has not dawned on most of our political leaders. Not only do our leaders fail to see how different problems are interrelated; they also refuse to recognize how their so-called solutions affect future generations. From the systemic point of view, the only viable solutions are those that are “sustainable”. The concept of sustainability has become a key concept in the ecology movement and is indeed crucial. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute has given a simple, clear and beautiful definition: “A sustainable society is one that satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations.”

And before we point our accusing fingers at our leaders, we should take a harder look at our own behaviours and habits. Each one of us contributes ‘unmindfully’ to exploitation of Nature simply because we think of everything as ‘resources’ made available for human use.

In another article, Back is NOT the Way Forward, I had offered that Nature puts all species (including humans) in balance with everything else. And this pandemic clearly reminds us to balance our ways before the planet does it for us. Nature is always re-writing its code of life making the COVID-19 crisis a stark reminder of its ways. In addition, our obsession that everything has to be based on profit maximisation and shareholder value has created a nightmare economy for many. The theories guiding our economic decisions are obsolete as they do not account for the negative externalities*** when we take from the natural world.

“The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not for everyone’s greed.” ~M K Gandhi

We must stop seeing all progress—individual and collective—as economic growth. Quantification and statistical measurement cannot be all powerful. We must change our prevailing attitude. The attitude that the power of money bestows.

>> Of possessing before belonging.

>> Of usurping before sharing.

>> Of depleting before replenishing.

Without even an iota of guilt or remorse.

‘Normal’ IS the Problem

There’s no such thing as the new normal or next normal or any ‘normal’. In fact, ‘normal’ is what makes us keep choosing the convenient over the desirable. It also limits our thinking to what exists, and thereby stymies the scope of the opportunities before us.

Our fears, hopes and aspirations are firmly founded in the future. Part of the reason that people accumulate materials is to save for a “rainy day”, and this illusory safety-net ensnares them.

We have to let go of the future.

April Rinne (look out for her book Flux) explains letting go of the future,

“letting go does not mean giving up or somehow failing. It is not surrender. It does mean letting go of our fears about the future, fears that hijack our brains and ability to function as our best selves. Relationships, sleep, mindfulness, and presence seem like great places to start.”

The future IS scary. We are becoming increasingly reliant on technology that automates bias. Modern technologies are amplifying these biases in harmful ways, however. Fake news is surreptitiously invading our brains through the gadgets we have at our disposal. The humungous amount of information that seeks our attention leaves our minds with little choice but to take shortcuts—we let our cognitive biases decide what we should pay attention to.

These systems were crafted by people who made hundreds of the decisions, big and small, that led to the world we live in.

How do we think our way through the messes we’re in when the way we think is part of the mess? —Nora Bateson

“(But) in our silo-ed world the crises that we perceive and address are also silo-ed, as is the habit of finding silo-ed solutions. Much like chopping off the Hydra’s heads, the resulting solutions that do not address the complexity seem only to generate more [negative] consequences⁶.

The most serious problems facing us now are not in any particular institution, but rather in the relationship between them. Like an ecosystem the interdependencies of the institutional systems are interlinked and steeped together in patterns that make it difficult to create whole systems change,” explains Nora Bateson.

My own belief is that individual transformation has exponential effects. Before we know it, it affects whole communities and spreads through society. The trick is the return of our collective consciousness to the natural order. If we collectively create a counter epidemic of sustainable behaviours, we will have learnt and leveraged the now possible.

All Systems Go

Systems thinking pioneer, Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist, social scientist and cyberneticist, whose work intersected that of many other fields wrote, ‘the major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think,’ adding, ‘both society and the environment are profoundly sick, skewed and ravaged by the Western obsession with control and power, a mindset made all the more destructive by advances in technology. However, any attempt to put things right with more intervention and more technology can only be another manifestation of the same wrongheadedness.’

The shift is underway; part of the problem has been that, globally, nationally and personally, we try to solve problems piecemeal or using “afterthought as a tool”. Most of the problems we are facing today span interrelationships between soil, foliage, animals, weather patterns, bacteria and so on.

The natural order includes our species, but the converse is not true.

>> The mechanistic, reductionist, efficiency-driven approach must be replaced by systems thinking,

>> Anthropocentric approaches must be discarded to give way to planet-centric design,

>> New forms of research must deliver information that includes the interdependency within complex systems.

“The Earth does not belong to man; Man belongs to the Earth.

This we know.

All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.

Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it.

Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

— Chief Seattle, 1854 in a letter⁷ to the President of the USA.

Finding harmony with others and harmony with nature are foundational goals of Asian and other indigenous philosophies. While Indian traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism) focus largely on the individual’s path toward harmony with the cosmos, Chinese philosophies (Confucianism and Daoism) depend on ﬁnding the right Way (dao) to live a prosperous life — and on worthy rulers to administer the state in line with the right values.⁸

The shift from zero-sum competition to regenerative collaboration in a single leap is what the world needs. We must embrace the design philosophy of regenerative sustainability⁹: providing a better lifestyle through the making of improvements on as many physical systems around us as humanly possible so that we leave these systems, not just as good as, but better than we found them.

The ideal is that regenerative sustainability, as a lasting solution, requires a massive shift in the ideologies of individuals, corporations and world governments. The ideal is that the system-wide change needed to make regeneration a success can only be achieved with the active and committed participation of governments and corporations.

Our planet is a living entity and everything in it is interconnected. By taking a systems view of the post-pandemic world, we give ourselves a chance to thrive in harmony with nature AND all its children.

Collective Enlightenment

“In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play. The dynamic force of the play is karma, an important concept of Indian thought. Karma means “action”. It is the active principle of the play, the total universe in action, where everything is dynamically connected with everything else. In the words of the [Bhagavad] Gita, karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life.”

“If we can advance the knowledge of the world … if we can do things that expand the scope and scale of consciousness, then we’re better able to ask the right questions and become more enlightened. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.” —Elon Musk¹⁰

Salim Ismail, Chairman of OpenExO, shares a profound insight from his father. “I asked my dad about his views on modern civilisation. His answer, ‘we have not civilised the world, we have materialised it!’ I think it’s time we went back to civilise it. The problems we’re facing are much bigger than the pandemic and we need collective systems transformation to deal with them.”

Pardon the cliche but, for our species, it is now or never.

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*The Oxford English Dictionary defines Gaia as “the global ecosystem, understood to function in the manner of a vast self-regulating organism, in the context of which all living things collectively define and maintain the conditions conducive for life on earth”.

**There has been a surge in the numbers of researchers, theorists, academics, authors and consultants who have worked to unravel the mysteries of this complex body of science. Included in this group of systems thinkers are Buckminster Fuller, Fritjof Capra, Jay Forrester, Gregory Bateson, Peter Drucker, Peter Senge, Russell Ackoff, Margaret Wheatley, Dianne Ackerman, Mitchell Waldrop, Cliff McIntosh and Eric Trist.

***A negative externality is any difference between the private cost of an action or decision to an economic agent and the social cost. In simple terms, a negative externality is anything that causes an indirect cost to individuals. An example is the toxic gases that are released from industries or mines, these gases cause harm to individuals within the surrounding area and have to bear a cost (indirect cost) to get rid of that harm.

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Selected References:

¹ Julia Layton—Has Earth reached its carrying capacity? https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/earth-carrying-capacity.htm

² Yuval Noah Harari — Homo Deus

³ Paul Constant—Coronavirus didn’t bring the economy down — 40 years of greed and corporate malfeasance did. https://www.businessinsider.com/pitchfork-economics-coronavirus-not-hurting-economy-corporate-greed-is-2020-4?IR=T

⁴ James McKinlay, Vicki Williamson—The systems thinking approach: the framework for developing a human resource management system. https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9781843344230/the-art-of-people-management-in-libraries

⁵ Fritjof Capra — Gaia’s Lessons: A Systemic Analysis of Covid-19 — #FOODTALK https://youtu.be/f6ZH5BDY4G4

⁶ Nora Bateson — Warm Data. https://norabateson.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/warm-data/

⁷ Chief Seattle’s Letter—https://www.alexrovira.com/en/sensaciones/articulo/carta-del-jefe-indio-seattle

⁸ James D Sellman—Philosophy, Asian. https://rb.gy/sqtsxx

⁹ Nnaemek Ugochukwu—Sustainability Movement. https://ecowarriorprincess.net/2020/05/regenerative-sustainability-new-frontier-sustainability-movement/

¹⁰ Elon Musk—Most Shocking 2021 Predictions https://youtu.be/hKUOkiKHD8U