Too Many People

     We humans are an odd lot, and boy are there a lot of us.  Forget the billions and billions, numbers now so common with money that we just sort of walk away unimpressed.  Rather, just think of yourself at a football game or a concert, a protest or a crowded freeway.  All those people, and each of them thirsty and hungry and having to shower and poop and all the rest.  And that's just a few thousands or tens of thousands.  Now multiply that scene throughout the world.  It's rather boggling when you stop to think about it, the infrastructure that's needed to support it all...the water and the drains and the sewage pipes that need to go to each home or hotel room or whatever, the food deliveries that have to come from farm to processor to grocery shelf or restaurant, the electrical and gas lines that need to remain hidden but yet need to reach inside each home and building.  All of that operating smoothly...unless you're living somewhere on the border of Ukraine.

      Ukraine is a country 1/3 the size of Russia and one now caught in the middle of posturing by larger nations or coalitions of nations.  At issue is Ukraine's population caught in the middle of winter and trying to stay warm but the main source of their fuel for heat comes from Russia which may or may not be trying to take over the country.  Russia is trying to forcibly expand its territory, says NATO, while Putin says that it is NATO that is trying to expand its reach; Ukraine does appear to be hinting that would lean toward joining NATO, perhaps aided by the bitter memory left by Stalin when an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainians died of starvation in the 1930s.  Said History: “The Ukrainian famine was a clear case of a man-made famine,” explains Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University...Ultimately, although Stalin’s policies resulted in the deaths of millions, it failed to crush Ukrainian aspirations for autonomy, and in the long run, they may actually have backfired. “Famine often achieves a socio-economic or military purpose, such as transferring land possession or clearing an area of population, since most flee rather than die,” famine historian de Waal says. “But politically and ideologically it is more often counterproductive for its perpetrators.  As in the case of Ukraine it generated so much hatred and resentment that it solidified Ukrainian nationalism.”  Another reason may be the somewhat recent elections in Belarus wrote James Meek* in the London Review of Books: [said a] political scientist I talked to, Andrei Yeliseyeu...‘Many people in Belarus have pro-Russian sentiments.  Many people were actually hoping Putin would help them.  They hoped Putin would speak out strongly against Lukashenko and help to organise a new election.  A lot of people were disappointed.  Russia’s image started to erode in Belarus.  People hoped Russia was an ally of the Belarusian people, not of the Belarusian regime.’...in the protest movements in both countries, Putin and Lukashenko have now seen something ominous: not simply the threat to an unpopular leader, but an unpopularity that transcends the social boundaries authoritarians rely on to keep power.  

     So then let's jump to Taiwan.  What's really at stake there?  TSMC? (what??)  Said an article in TIME: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of the semiconductor chips --otherwise known as integrated circuits, or just chips-- that power our phones, laptops, cars, watches, refrigerators and more.  Its clients include Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD and Nvidia...Other than TSMC, the only firm capable of commercially producing today’s most advanced 5-nanometer (nm) chips is South Korea’s Samsung Electronics.  However, TSMC is building a new fabrication plant --or “fab”-- across 22 football fields of land in southern Taiwan to produce groundbreaking 3-nm chips, expected to be up to 15% faster and use far less power.  This latest generation of chip manufacture, or “node,” will leave U.S. firms like Intel and Global Foundries at least two generations behind...the transistor in a 3-nm node is just 1/20,000th the width of a human hair.  Were you to enlarge a foot-long wafer of semiconductor to the size of the continental U.S., the required patterning for these chips would still be only the width of a thumbnail.  The key component may only be silicon --or purified sand-- but the magic happens in how it is processed and manipulated.  “It’s like baking bread,” says the TSMC section manager.  “The ingredients are pretty much the same, but how long should you bake it, what temperature should it be, that’s what matters.”...The extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that TSMC uses each cost around $175 million [those machines are made in Amsterdam].  Larger fabs will have 20 of them.  Creating a chip takes around 1,500 steps, each with 100 to 500 variables.  Even if each step’s success rate is 99.9%, that means less than a quarter of the final output is usable...These technologies are so advanced that it’s impossible to catch up without pumping in vast sums of money.  Even then, nothing is guaranteed.  After all, the $100 billion investment that TSMC unveiled does not stand alone.  It is combined with and augmented by the deep R&D pockets of Apple, Nvidia and all TSMC’s other close partners to create a “budget that is 100 times what you will see on their financials,” says Nenni.  “It’s just impossible for any company or country to catch up to this huge ecosystem that’s moving forward like a freight train.”

     So, those are the generalizations, one view of what's happening in Ukraine and another of what's happening in Taiwan; but even those views are likely far from the variety of moods that exists among the peoples of each country.  Imagine such a summary of America as in this one from The Economist: America is a young, diverse country.  The median age is under 40 and just 60% of the country identifies as white.  The electorate is different.  Taking an average of the 2018 and 2014 midterms as a guide, 75% of voters will be white and their median age next year will be 53.  Democrats have a huge lead among the college-educated.  But only 36% of Americans completed four-year degrees.  Is that you, or would you agree with that view?  Okay, imagine such a summary of your state (gun loving, religious, liberal, anti-everything, hates this/loves that, etc.), or of your city (as travel magazines and guides are so apt to do)...or your race or religion..  Or you.  We are all as varied as we are fickle; and try as we might to grasp the "big picture" of a situation (politics or religious beliefs, life after death or past, present, future, or why we drive a beat-up car while others drive brand new ones), we are somewhat locked in our views, right or wrong  Take President Biden and what he's chalked up so far; said Bloomberg: Biden passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which sent child poverty plummeting, and an infrastructure law with $550 billion in new federal funds.  The U.S. job market has recovered more quickly than economists predicted—and far faster than it did from the global recession in 2009, when Biden was vice president.  America’s economy returned to pre-pandemic levels sooner than those of other Group of Seven nations...

(Biden's aides) believe the White House should receive more credit for the bright spots in the economy, especially the robust labor market and the falling unemployment rate. [But] Many Americans don’t care about how much credit the White House thinks it deserves, when people’s lives still feel upended. In politics, says New Jersey Representative Tom Malinowski, a Democrat, “you don’t often get credit for the dog that didn’t bark—the fact that the American economy didn’t collapse, the fact that we didn’t have poverty and destitution.”  Added The Economist: There are few stronger patterns in American politics than the tendency for the ruling party to lose ground in the first mid-term elections after taking the White House.  In 2018 such a pattern produced a “blue wave” of backlash to Donald Trump’s presidency, and Democrats wrestled 40 seats from the Republicans.  In 2022 Joe Biden is likely to oversee a similarly disappointing performance for his party. Such is the mid-term curse.

     Is there a pattern here, these generalizations and summations and polls and categorizing...or do most of them prove true and we discover that we are not as individual as we thought?  Try this recent summary, again from TIME: Some people may have thought that, having been prevented from mingling with other humans for a period, folks would greet the return of social activity with hugs, revelry and fellowship.  But in many ways, say psychologists, the long separation has made social interactions more fraught.  The combination of a contagious, life-threatening disease and a series of unprecedented, life-altering changes in the rules of human engagement have left people anxious, confused and --if they do not believe the restrictions were necessary-- deeply resentful...Lawyers are reporting ruder clients.  Restaurants are reporting ruder clients.  Flight attendants , for whom rude clients are no novelty, are reporting mayhem; passenger fines have exceeded $1 million this year.  Re-entry into society is proving to be a little bumpy.  

     My wife told the story of one of our small local animal shelters, one that was filled with 26 dogs which had been returned as they grew larger or their owners returned to work or otherwise felt that they could no longer keep them; and since the shelter wasn't funded by the county, they were fast running out of food and made an appeal.  The community stepped up, as my wife later discovered when she took down our batch of nearly 150 pounds of dog food.  Other local shelters had come and rescued nearly all of the animals, bringing them to their adoption centers, while people had arrived with loads of food, supplying the shelter for many months to come.  

     We are filled with individuality, each of us as unique as an ant or a bee; and we are as personality-filled as a whale or a sardine, and as social as a cougar or a cat.  And while I believe that rudeness and calamity may and does exist, I also feel that the world is filled more with people who are good rather than being "nutters," as many of the British might call them.  Most people don't want to try and open an exit door in the middle of a flight.  Most people don't feel the urge to begin shooting strangers in a mall or a school.  Most people don't look to try and confront police or to yell in the face at others.  Rather I feel that most people will stop to help someone who has fallen or who needs a bit of a hand.  Heck, I think that most people would probably still stop to pick up and discard that piece of trash on the ground, or try to catch that stray plastic bag flying in the air.   And I also think that most people aren't looking to be acknowledged for what they've done, or for helping a stranger or for writing a check.   As I told my wife, most people do those things not because they want to be featured in a story or be on the news, but rather because it comes from their heart.  It's done from a place of compassion and empathy.   

    "It is good to have an end to journey towards," wrote the late Ursula K, LeGuin, "but it is the journey that matters in the end."   Helen and Scott Nearing wrote Loving and Leaving the Good Life back in 1954 and some of what I took away from their book were these bits of advice: Be at peace with yourself -- live simply -- don't worry and live in the present -- take time to wonder at nature and the world -- life is everywhere -- be kind to others, especially other creatures.  "Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.  Forget yourself."  Those words came from author Henry Miller, a (at the time) controversial writer who is available to all in a library founded by Miller's good friend, Emil White in Big Sur.  If you go to the library's site, you'll discover that it says simply: The Henry Miller Library...Where Nothing Happens.  But dig deeper and you'll find these words about the library: The Henry Miller Library guarantees all guests the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.  It is not the proper role of the Library to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.  There are many books and stories to read, to write, to tell, and to listen to.  We hope to learn from different ideas, why and how they come to be, and what values they’re premised on.  To always critique and argue in good-faith.   Goodness gracious, or perhaps, just goodness...     

*Meek writes a rather extensive view of the situation in Ukraine and a view that despite the rhetoric, Putin may be after a more subtle victory.   Said part of the piece about the Russian build-up: In Kyiv the analyst Viktor Bobyrenko suggests that Putin is simply enlarging the window of acceptability for the West: if Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine, Europe and the US will be so relieved that the loss to Kyiv of Crimea and Donbas will seem unimportant.  Yulia Latynina, an émigrée Russian columnist and critic of Putin from the libertarian right, wrote in Novaya Gazeta that the Kremlin wasn’t used to real wars, only hybrid wars: ‘In a real war, force is directed towards maximising the enemy’s casualties.  In a hybrid war, it’s often aimed at maximising the information about alleged losses to your own side.’  The wars of the Putin era, she argues, have always been based on the possibility of denying that there is a war, making it easy for Europe and America to be neutral.  ‘The main and most fundamental problem of a war like [a new invasion of Ukraine],’ Latynina writes, ‘is that it is real, and therefore, it can be lost.’  Maybe.  But then Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its rescue of the Assad regime in Syria looked both real and risky.  At 69, Putin seems secure in power, but he is trusted by barely half of Russians, his lowest poll rating in nine years.