Sustainability, COVID-19, Elon Musk And A Tale Of The Upper And Lower Brain

During COVID-19 isolation, a youtube interview with Elon Musk on the excellent MIT Lex Friedman podcast provided some interesting conversation around AI, Tesla TSLA and many other similar topics.  The snippet of most interest was Elon’s description of the role of the upper and lower brain.  The lower or the lizard brain consists of our core desires and needs (food, sex, boredom, fear, etc). Meanwhile, the upper brain consists of our intellect. Now you might suppose that in highly evolved creatures such as humans,  the upper brain is the “boss.” Not according to Mr. Musk.  Rather, the lower brain is the “boss” and offers directives to the upper brain. An example might be, ”I am hungry, go figure out how to feed me” and the job of the upper brain is to satisfy the need. It would seem, the human brain operates largely like the popular conception of a teenager. 

Is this really true? Is it not possible for the upper brain to do a coup d'état , and isn’t this the definition of gaining adult maturity? The legal system certainly seems to believe in this concept. In order to build a cooperative society, we ask individuals to control their “lower brain” desires sufficiently to allow for a well functioning societal organism. 

However, perhaps Elon is right at the society level. (Note to self: it might make sense to start a series titled “perhaps Elon is right.”)    As a society, the systemic issues are often derived from this collective fight between the upper and lower brains.  In the area of health, the core issues can be reduced to drugs(cigarettes), diet, and exercise. Said another way,  the lower brain driving the upper brain.  Of course, part of the reason is that the massive infrastructure of advertising and marketing recognizes the power of the lizard brain and tries to communicate to it directly — bypassing that pesky intellectual brain.

This brings us to the topic of sustainability.  This is very much an upper brain creation which intellectually recognizes the fundamental issues and tries to resolve them in a manageable manner. Countless meetings, summits, public information campaigns have been held on this topic over decades. However, the results have been limited.  

That is, until COVID-19,  in a few short months, fundamental aspects of the environment have improved in places such as India( “The world's largest coronavirus lockdown is having a dramatic impact on pollution in India”), China ( “Why China's Air Has Been Cleaner During The Coronavirus Outbreak”), and even Los Angeles (“Before and after photos show how stay-at-home orders helped Los Angeles significantly reduce its notorious smog”).  

It is almost as if sustainability was your parents telling you all the things you should be doing. “Clean your room,”  or “put away your clothes”  or the ever popular and COVID-19 appropriate “wash your hands.”  Of course, teenagers tend to rebel against such advice. Whereas COVID-19 is the drill sergeant who scared you straight on the first day of basic training. All of a sudden, all of those good habits became part of the plan.

As discussed in “COVID-19: The Digital Economy Change Agent ?”,  there are a large number of profound changes in-flight today in areas such as education, work lifestyle, shopping, medicine, and entertainment.  The impact is wide ranging, and especially to the biggest driver of carbon, the transportation system. 

The critical question is:  How much will stick after basic (covid-19) is over ?

The stories of teenagers going to basic training and returning as mature adults are not uncommon.