What is Biological Economics?

Using a telescope, humans can look backward through the medium of time and (theoretically) witness the beginning of the universe. Using a microscope, humans can similarly look backward in time and witness the beginning of human existence in the single cell.

Biological Economics is an arbitrary human label intended to acknowledge the natural process of unicellular and multicellular economics that underpins all eukaryotic existence. Eukaryotic existence has been built (like everything else) from the bottom up, the inside out, from past through present and on into the future, and it is important to observe it this way, so that the human population might build its economics on the natural—and thus stable—foundation that has been provided.

For this discussion, microeconomics will refer to unicellular economics, macroeconomics will explain the multicellular infrastructure of the human organism, and global economics will refer to how human organisms interact with the external environment (and each other) at the social / relational level.

TIMELINE

4.5 billion BCE: Earth forms

4 billion BCE: Earliest water forms

3.8 Billion BCE: ‘late heavy bombardment’^[26] of comets (and asteroids) strike Earth, bringing the building blocks of life (amino acids), which combine with asymmetric pre-Archean cells already present, to potentially form LUCA^[27] (Last Universal Common Ancestor); the asymmetry—or chirality—of these proteins enables the process of reproduction to develop.^[30][31]

3.7 billion BCE: first evidence of unicellular life. ^[28]

2.1 billion BCE: first evidence of multicellular life.^[29]

4.2 million BCE: first evidence of hominin.^[32]

The Microeconomics of Eukaryotic Cells

Findings

• Economics is the natural biological process of cellular existence.
  • Keywords are balance, connection, disconnection, value, communication, transduction, resource, medium, infrastructure (as the medium of production / connection), labor (as the means of production / connection), language (biochemistry as a universal language), and relationships.
• The purpose of cellular economics is to sustain existence. Existence requires three deliberate actions:
  • To 1) connect to sources of discordant energy, then 2) translate it—through the process of labor—into a form (adenosine triphosphate, for example) that can be used to 3) achieve and maintain a healthy internal balance(homeostasis) under constantly fluctuating (uncertain) environmental conditions.
• Economicbalancecannot be achievedwithout connection. When there is disconnection, a cellular imbalance (or deficit) exists that threatens cell survival.
• Connectionallows values (positive and negative) to be exchanged or communicated; value can only be gained through connection.
  • Communication is the transduction (transformation, translation, production) of a resource (of biochemical energy) through a medium (an economic infrastructure like the cell membrane, for example) into a form capable of being absorbed (understood) by the receiver of this ‘economic exchange’. 
    • Transduction (production) translates (converts) chemical resources into a universal biochemical language (adenosine triphosphate or ATP) that can be understood and therefore useful (valuable) to the cell.
    • Labor—or the application of effort (work) to translate raw materials into economic ‘goods’—makes it the sole means of production (transduction) on the ‘supply’ side of the economic equation (the economic infrastructure that makes up the cell constitutes the medium of production in this scenario).
    • Because cells also release chemical signals to communicate with each other,^[33] biochemistry becomes the universal language of eukaryotes (and prokaryotes) at the microeconomic (or unicellular) level.
    • Time is the medium through which life communicates itself or connects with its future self (making Time the medium of reproduction / connection, and the process of birth [labor] the means of reproduction / connection).
  • Communication is how cells connect, and connection is how cells communicate; once cells connect, they cannot help but communicate, and once cells communicate, they cannot help but connect. This duality demonstrates the interconnectedness involved in all existence, where relationships are formed with each connection.
    • Relationships may be mutually beneficial, commensal, parasitic, or even predatory, thus the values exchanged or communicated may be positive or negative.
  • Similarly, economic exchange is a form of communication, and communication is a form of economic exchange, making all communications a relevant source of positive and negative value.

Discussion

Almost four billion years ago, comets inseminated the womb of the Earth,^[34] bringing what scientists surmise was one asymmetrical side of an Archean cell named LUCA—or Last Universal Common Ancestor. In a match made from heaven, two molecules became one; it was the opposite ‘handedness’ (or chirality) between these two which made reproduction possible and has subsequently allowed life to reinvent itself in many creative ways. This Archean cell later went on to form a successful merger with an aerobic bacterial cell; scientists believe this ‘endosymbiotic event’^[35] produced the first eukaryotic cell; now eukaryotic cells represent the only multicellular organisms on this planet.

Every cell is a self-contained economic system fullyequipped with transportation, communication, self-defense, reproduction, energy production, and waste management infrastructure; to exist, a cell must first connect to potential energy ‘resources’ (chemical, electrical, kinetic, mechanical, gravitational, electromagnetic, thermal, piezoelectric), then harvest, store, and convert (transduce) these resources into a form it can utilize (such as adenosine triphosphate or ATP).

The universe is a giant power grid humming with potential energy. Cells are the ‘universal translators’ of this steady power source; they are born to hack into it and communicate their existence by any means necessary; each of us represents one of their many translations. Through the actions of these cells, some general assumptions can be made:

Cells are engineered to break down resources into usable energy (transduction, digestion, respiration, catabolism), then reassemble it (anabolism) in usable ways (e.g., to sustain production, to reproduce, to respond to the environment, etc.).

Cells either move (through taxis) toward connection to resources of positive value (positive response) or away from sources of perceived uncertainty (negative response). This binary choice to either connect or disconnect is central to this treatise. Amazingly, the concept of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness can all be found within this decision, as well as an understanding of positive and negative value (based on cellular response).

A cell that can make choices is evidence of a cellular will to exist; cells clearly value existence and are quite willing to supply the labor necessary to maintain homeostatic balance, which can only be achieved through connection to potential energy resources. Liberty represents the choice (response) to either connect or disconnect, so therefore becomes the medium or channel through which the cell exercises its will to exist. The pursuit of happiness is simply the sum of these binary choices (responses), which would theoretically represent a cell’s freedom, if the cell was independently operating; it is not clear that the cell wishes to labor or exist independently, however.

Through ‘respiration,’ each cell produces more than it needs and thus invites further connection. Using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, early cyanobacteria labored to produce the ‘free’ oxygen which drove production for our aerobically powered ancestors; through this connection, a cellular ‘chain’ of existence was established; communities of cells began working interconnectedly, which eventually led to multicellular ‘organizations.’ When some organisms began to seek connection in predatory or parasitic ways, it became necessary for cells to engineer increasingly elaborate defense mechanisms; thus, a duality formed in the exercise of each cell’s liberty, around the choice to either seek or repel connection.

Once connected, however, the goal of each cell is always the same: to achieve homeostatic balance; through intercellular and intracellular signaling,^[36] as well as cell irritability,^[37] cells constantly monitor, regulate and communicate any detected imbalance to ensure homeostasis. Cell production and communication both involve transduction of chemical energy; cells are so drawn to energy and fluent in energy conversion processes that it is easy to posit that communication is what the entire process is about; energy seems to be music to every cell’s ears.

The main takeaways are:

Connection is a prerequisite for existence.

• Cells connect to energy resources through their labor. They connect to other cells through the products of their labor. They connect through Time during the reproductive process. Even in parasitism and predation, connection—however unwanted—is the means through which existence is facilitated.

Homeostasis (balance) is mandatory for cellular health.

• Interestingly, once cells connect to a resource, processes like labor, production, and reproduction are virtually guaranteed, to balance input with output and thus achieve stasis (therefore, through their labor,cells take the borrowed energy of the universe, convert it, then pay it forward to other cells, in exchange for existence; this comprises the economic deal that cells make with the universe).

(Positive) Value can only be gained through connection.

Labor is the only means of (positive) value creation.

• Energy resources must be converted (translated) into more accessible products, then offloaded, to maintain homeostasis. Glycolysis, photosynthesis, respiration, fermentation; these metabolic—or energy conversion—processes are all labor intensive.

Connection necessarily creates a Relationship, where something of either positive or negative value is economically communicatedor exchanged.

• Relationships in nature can be mutual, commensal, parasitic, or predatory, and the only way to measure the economic impact of these relationships is to account for all values being exchanged.
• Relationships make all exchanges a form of Communication, which is a fair statement because an energy source is always being converted from one form to another (through transduction), where it resonates in some positive or negative way with the recipient.
  • Whether all energy exchange is a form of communication, or all communication is simply a form of energy exchange, it is important to account for the type of relationship and exactly what is being communicated within each economic exchange; only then can a true reckoning of net value be made.

There is evidence that Uncertainty is the main driver of existence and evolution, even at the microeconomic or unicellular level.

• Uncertainty can be seen in the relentless drive to maintain homeostasis in the face of continuous energy resource depletion (Uncertainty as a perceived deficit).
  • Cells become ‘irritable’ when homeostasis is not maintained, which drives the need for connection and labor, meaning this process is reactive (to respond based on a perceived need).
• Potential for entry by pathogens and parasites is also a source of Uncertainty and clearly drove cellular production of complex self-defense mechanisms. (Uncertainty created by threat of forced connection).
  • This also establishes that cells reactively engineer solutions to perceived Uncertainty, therefore evolution, or adaptation, is a reaction to perceived Uncertainty.

Finally, because cells maintain homeostasis through establishing connection, any imbalance—created by disconnection—would be unhealthy.

• Importantly, where connection exists, balance exists, and vice versa; conversely, where imbalance is present, a disconnection exists (and vice versa); separate cannot be equal.

The Macroeconomics of Eukaryotic Multicellular Organisms

Findings

• The overall ‘microeconomic’ purpose of the single cell—to power itself, protect itself, reproduce itself, and labor beyond its own needs—remains unaltered at the ‘macroeconomic’ multicellular level.
  • New Keywords are negative and positive feedback loops, uncertainty, universal language of emotion (language of connection is belongingness, language of disconnection is violence)
• Single Cell Organisms come fully equipped with catabolic and anabolic assembly lines^[38], communication and reproductive systems, and defense capabilities^[39] that rival any multicellular system, displaying adaptive forms of resistance, antimicrobial protection, surveillance checkpoints and roadblocks, chemical warfare agents, and viral replication inhibitors.
• The Human organism (or organization) employs 37 trillion single cells at any one time; each starts out as a blank slate ‘stem cell’ before being trained and equipped (‘adapted’) to provide one of 200 different functions (as bones, blood, muscle, nerves, fat, sperm, eggs, etc.).^[40]
  • A skeletal ‘infrastructure’ ‘manufactures’ red blood cells capable of converting oxygen (a ‘natural resource’) into the ‘energy’ necessary to power basic ‘production.’^[41] The digestive and respiratory systems take in and process ‘raw materials’ for ‘distribution,’ using a cardiovascular ‘transportation’ system. Waste management and regulatory systems work interdependently to maintain homeostasis within the internal environment, while two communication grids—one electrical (the nervous system) and one chemical—communicate directly (and simultaneously) with every cell in every system of the body.^[42]
    • Communication is optimized because no cell walls exist in multicellular communities (usually a necessity for unicellular organisms); this allows a failsafe connection to maximize communication of biochemical values nutritional and informational.
  • An additional 39 trillion microbes—both permanent and temporary residents—perform crucial functions from construction work to demolition and clean up after the human organism ceases to function.^[43]
  • Importantly, the overall ‘microeconomic’ purpose of the single cell—to power itself, protect itself, reproduce itself, and labor for others—remains unaltered at the ‘macroeconomic’ (multicellular) level.
• Connection allows constant biochemicalcommunication (feedback) that creates negativefeedback loops designed to keep organisms in balance (homeostasis).
  • This constant feedback (communication) is why cells, once they are connected, do not overly produce, reproduce, or consume relative to others.
  • Negative feedback loops are a product of connection, designed to deescalate any internal uncertainty through maintaining the ‘status quo’ of homeostasis (stability).
  • Positive feedback loops are a product of disconnection, designed to deescalate any external uncertainty through ramping up production; they represent exponential growth, evolutionary leaps, or economic boom and bust scenarios.
• Disconnection triggers biochemicalcommunication (feedback) that creates positivefeedback loops designed to protect organisms from uncertainty. The multicellular organism now has two choices:
  • A strategy of disconnection (to fight or flee), that will protect the cell in sudden moments of extreme uncertainty.
  • A strategy of connection, that helps innovate solutions through the evolution of various systems (sensory, communication, executive function, digestion, etc.).
• Evolution is the byproduct of cellular reactions to the stress of perceived uncertainty (such as detected changes to the internal or external environment). Eukaryotes have been in a two-billion-year-long battle against uncertainty, where a positive feedback loop^[44] is generated by the circular pattern of perceived deficit (uncertainty) that drives labor (the process) to achieve stasis (the motivation) which is fleeting.
  • The stress of perceived uncertainty drives cell irritability;^[45] more cells are ‘hired’ to reach out to the source of this disconnection (to get ‘eyes and ears on it’, for example). This process of connection (recruiting more cells) to create more connection (to that which is unknown) has so far proven to be the cell’s best and only survival strategy. Thus, evolution attempts to eliminate uncertainty by employing cellular labor to achieve connection.
  • Further, evidence has shown that even unicellular organisms commit suicide (premature cell death, or PCD), which goes against rational self-interest theories, but does reinforce two other notions:
    • Interdependence (Connection) is more valuable than independence (purely self-interested disconnectedness); lethality, in nearly every form (such as apoptosis, autophagy, necrosis) involves disconnection, thus a cellular will to live may be more correctly understood as a will to connect.
    • Studies suggest that the motive for unicellular apoptosis (suicide) may be to further their progeny’s chances of continued existence, also reinforcing a will to connect through the medium of Time.
      • With Time as a medium of exchange, reproduction becomes the most valuable ‘product’ from the present that we can exchange with the future. Those in the future can enhance or improve upon this product, and re-gift it into their future, and so on; the ultimate end goal is yet to be known, but is the stuff that beliefs are made of.
• Communication is part of the natural economic exchange between cells. All communication—whether nutritional or informational—is biochemical; feedback from cells successfully laboring together pays out in biochemical dividends (hormones / neurotransmitters^[46]) which reinforces connection, as well as unified purpose. The chemical reactions from these communications are felt as positive emotions, which links the universal language of single cells (biochemistry) to the universal language of the human multicellular organism (emotion).
  • For this treatise, the group of positive feelings, all of which come from connection, will be labeled as the multicellular language of belongingness, which reinforces connection as the desired goal of cells in terms of safety / security, acceptance, trust, intimacy, productivity, etc.
• Because connection is a strategy born out of the uncertainty of disconnection, it requires disconnection to have its own biochemical language as well, which is the language of uncertainty.
  • Disconnection comprises fight / flight, death, hunger / starvation, isolation, sensory deprivation, asphyxiation, physical and emotional severance, etc., so for this treatise, we will label disconnection the multicellular language of violence, which reinforces disconnection and communicates only negative values.
    • Evidence has shown that when a cell becomes communicationally disconnected, it can potentially become cancerous and attack surrounding cells; disconnection occurs during cell suicide or apoptosis,^[47] or during kidney failure, when cells are unable to transmit what they have absorbed.
  • Within the multicellular community, disconnection can mean being cut off from resources (and thus homeostasis) or one another (belongingness), but disconnection also represents the relationships cells have to foreign organisms (such as bacteria, fungi, viruses); how they interact—in relationships either mutual, commensal, parasitic, or predatory—depends on how extreme the disconnection is between them.
    • This represents a biological explanation for US (connected) versus THEM (disconnected).
• Evidence now shows that biochemical communication occurs simultaneously throughout the body (brain and nerves, as well as the immune, endocrine and digestive systems^[48]), not necessarily from the ‘top down’; this also confirms that the multicellular organism has two distinct communication networks: one that is chemically-based and built from the bottom up, and one that is electrical, which was also built from the bottom up, but used to relay external ‘intelligence’ messages and coordinate intercellular action.
  • This finding coincides with other scientific observation that question the perception of hierarchal structures in nature, which now appear to be based more on rationalized superficial (sensory) observations made by looking from a singular ‘top down’ perspective.

Discussion

Connection, as a strategy to overcome uncertainty, got us where we are today. Full stop.

Multicellularity has evolved independently many times throughout Earth’s history,^[49] making connection a strategic inevitability, not an accident; even unicellular organisms often prefer to congregate in colonies. Most multicellular organisms begin as a unicellular reproductive cell (gamete), so life still proceeds from micro to macroeconomic arrangements in many instances.

All sources of energy must be converted to be useful to cells; to connect to the energy and know how to translate it into usable purposes necessarily creates a relationship between the source of the energy and the recipient; the two are in communication, and in the economic exchange, the language of energy is being translated into a universal dialect both can understand.

Electromagnetic radiation gets translated into biochemical energy, some of which is converted into communication that is binary: act or do not act; connect or disconnect. The language of connection brings a positive value which rewards belongingness (cellular cooperation); the language of disconnection—uncertainty or deficit—is perceived (at least by the receiver of the message) as some form of violence. Intraspecific violence, where someone is presumably not going to get eaten, still communicates a message meant to inform the recipient that a disconnection exists; those who can translate this message of disconnection make excellent customer service representatives.

Uncertainty appears to be the catalyst in the chemical equation of existence; it facilitates the reaction, but never seems to be consumed in the process; it is forever with us. Connection seems to be the means and the end of the experiment, first to procure the reactant, then to share the product or value derived from the conversion of energy; the exchange of value communicated pays out in the formation of new relationships (multicellular ‘networking’).

Cells must communicate in many languages, such as cellular biochemistry or multicellular sensations and emotions (the binary expression of connection [belongingness] or disconnection [violence]). Food (nutrition), labor, and reproduction are forms of communication; the language of genetics is how cells communicate with the future, through the medium of Time.

Disconnection accelerates uncertainty, and connection slows it back down; the greater the perceived disconnection, however, the stronger the violent response is likely to be. To disconnect from the uncertainty (fight / flight) only ensures the uncertainty will persist, thus within intraspecific relationships, strategies to connect become more adaptable, to close the gap of disconnection as much as possible.

Uncertainty—fueled by isolating disconnection—drove an internal positive feedback loop of early multicellular innovation. Necessity became the mother of invention, as organisms—equipped with a seemingly endless supply of stem cell ‘building blocks’—reactively engineered infrastructure solutions to overcome all manner of perceived environmental uncertainty. Arms, legs, wings, and tails moved organisms toward connection to necessary resources. Lungs, gills, and mouths were perfected to take in this nutrition. Eyes, ears, and other sensory apparatus were designed to connect to the external environment and mitigate uncertainty.

Gathering more ‘intelligence’ on the external surroundings precipitated the need to store and interpret the ensuing flood of sensory information; with more nuanced awareness of the exterior environment, consciousness began to form. With greater awareness came greater fear (uncertainty), which drove a positive feedback loop of hyper-awareness that likely accelerated humans into a state of conscious awareness.

As the brain was asked to process sensory and emotional input, interpret it, communicate internally (muscle control and movement) and externally (emotional expression and vocalization), cells were added to accommodate the extra labor involved. Those new cells needed to be fed—to strengthen the brain muscle—so that it might grow strong enough to carry the weight of this uncertainty. Animal protein packed more energy than plant protein, but the human organism was not made to eat meat; again, our cells had to engineer a stomach that could process it. We still needed to innovatively cook the meat, to avoid ingesting unfamiliar foreign organisms that would feed on us before our cells could devise an adequate self-defense against them. For humans, whose uncertainty was exceedingly great, evolution was simply not fast enough; instead of waiting around for the genetic lotto to favor us with a chance mutation, we decided to innovate in real time and live long enough to genetically pass these innovations onto the next generation.

Perhaps our diminutive size forced the adaption of a ‘cerebral’ survival strategy. Perhaps our emerging emotions overloaded basic sensory input with an exaggerated perception of the uncertainty (we do seem to like drama). The important takeaway is that the brain is not some hierarchal seat of executive control; the brain developed to service the cellular community, not the other way around, and because it clearly developed from the stem outward, the eventual frontal lobe could not have been in command of operations during any of its development. Given our addiction to consumerism (to feed), war (to fight), sex (to reproduce), and addiction itself (to flee), it appears that any higher function we may claim to possess is not very often calling the shots.

Time and again, myths about hierarchy are being debunked:

• Evidence now shows that biochemical communication is received simultaneously throughout the body—not solely in the brain and nerves, but also in the immune, endocrine and digestive systems.^[50]
• Mounting evidence suggests that human cognition is not solely embodied in the brain, either, but may rely on multiple sources^[51] (meaning that even human cognition appears to be a ‘concerted’ effort).
• When the unicellular parasitic fungi Ophiocordyceps enters a carpenter ant host, it proceeds to replicate itself into an insurgent army that hijacks the vehicle of the ant (its body and muscles), drives it straight up a plant leaf (exactly 25 centimeters above the jungle floor), where the ant is forced to bite down and essentially become a fungi condominium;^[52] the fungi never enters the ant’s brain in order to perform this feat. The wherewithal to pull off this operation was contained within a single cell, that somehow knew that controlling the host’s brain was not a necessary part of the operation. Fungi are normally quite accommodating and wait until organisms are dead to begin feeding on (composting) them, but these parasitic fungi live above ground, disconnected from their underground collective, and presumably were forced to innovate their own clever—but decidedly oppressive—survival strategy.
• Recent studies have disproved the long-held belief that alpha males exist within some competition-based wolf pack hierarchy.^[53] Cooperative hunting is now the observed phenomenon in every animal species; even two species as diverse as coyotes and badgers will work together toward hunting a common prey.^[54]

Just as religious stories evolved from cooperative to hierarchal arrangements between the gods to legitimize the parasitic relationships formed between autocrats and their host population (as will soon be discussed), these myths of hierarchal competition among pack mammals or even cold-blooded pack hunters are meant to rationalize human behavior that has no clear scientific precedent.

The idea that autocratic control is seated in one brain, one God, or one King conveniently jibes with the point of view by which disconnected humans of emerging consciousness might perceive the world, but no evidence suggests that the human multicellular system is ruled by any particular organ; instead, it relies on each to perform its specific function (thinking about one’s heart or stomach does not make it function any better, though it might make it function worse^[55]). Additionally, the demise of any organ within the human macroeconomy would invariably lead to the death of the entire organism, while the demise of predators and parasites past and present has never caused the collapse of any ecosystem on record.

The Social / Relational (Global) Economics of the Human Organism

Findings

• At any one moment, three levels of eukaryotic economics are simultaneously and interdependently taking place: what biologically drives the economics at the unicellular (microeconomic) level—to maintain homeostasis by seeking a connection—is translated at the macroeconomic level of multicellular organisms—to maintain a feeling of more certainty(homeostasis) by seeking belongingness (connection). At the third level of biological economics, which is social /relational (and can be thought of as ‘global’ economics), the space between organisms has widened considerably; this has forced economic communication to utilize a ‘wireless’ meansof connection—namely beliefs or belief systems (shared beliefs).
  • Beliefs are central to this treatise, and how they evolved into shared beliefs. Labeling shared beliefs a ‘belief system’ indicates a top-down observation has been made about a process that was created from the bottom up; looking at things from the ‘bottom up’ is how we gain understanding, looking at things from the ‘top down’ is how we gain control.
• This distance between organisms has also precipitated ancillary methods of communication; the biochemical language of cells, first translated into emotion at the multicellular level, is then further translated into emotional expression and vocalization. Emotional vocalization eventually evolved into the formation of verbal language, to provide more and more informational detail, although it is evident, even today, that emotions resonate more clearly and are generally better understood than the information that is attached to it.
• As many new social / relational languages have been implemented (money, math, art, music, written language, etc.), even more mechanisms (mediums) have been produced to facilitate connection (paint canvas, musical instruments, books, phones, computer laptops, banks, governments, etc.).
• Although efforts have been made to close the gap of disconnection between multicellular organisms, this gap remains the source of enormous intraspecific and interspecific imbalance, all centered around issues of connectivity (reception, translation, interpretation, etc.) 

To navigate the complex environment created by intraspecific hierarchal kleptoparasitic economics at the social / relational level requires the use of biological economic tools. These tools will help identify (and quantify) the negative externalities of economic disconnection—the language of economics we are currently forced to speak—by looking at it from the point of view of connection, which represents the economic language of multicellular organisms.

1. Emotional Language Theory

• Emotion is the universal biochemical language of multicellular organisms, utilized by every cell in every system of the human body, and every person in every country on the planet.
  • From biochemical messaging to electrically-charged ions, nerve cells, neurons, and a neural net, the human peripheral and central nervous system evolved as a complex communication grid, with various connection points located close to where sensory information was being received.^[56]
    • Visual information is processed in the occipital lobe, touch—as well as taste—is processed in the parietal lobe, smell and sound run through the temporal lobe, and the stronger emotions of self-defense and pleasure are processed through the amygdala.^[57]
    • One of the earliest information highways was the vagus nerve, that still delivers internal information directly to the brain stem.^[58]
  • This process started nearly two billion years ago, was solidified 850 million years ago, and was operational by 360 million years ago.^[59] By 30,000 years ago, evidence confirms full development of the human brain; by this point the thalamus served as the connection hub where emotional information was sent—then passed on—to the appropriate area of the brain. The limbic system translated this emotional language, whereupon the cerebral cortex (the final stage of the brain to develop) got to ‘weigh in,’ often after a reactive (‘emotional’) decision was already made.
• To communicate connection or disconnection at the unicellular, multicellular, or social / relational levels,two distinct emotional languages are needed: one that communicatesconnection is translated as various forms of belongingness, and one that communicatesdisconnection is translated as various forms of violence.
  • Because two emotional languages exist and only one verbal language to express them, many intangible human concepts (such as justice, liberty, value, et al.) often appear to have two different interpretations, connotations, or even denotations, depending on whether they are spoken from the point of view of connection or disconnection; Emotional Language Theory is meant to eliminate ambiguity by clarifying which emotional language is being spoken during social / relational communications.
    • For example, when two people are connected, homeostatic balance becomes a natural phenomenon such that liberty or justice is designed to seek and maintain relative balance, whereas when two people are disconnected, inequality (or imbalance) will always exist such that one will seek their liberty or justice at the expense of the other.
    • Disconnection creates positive feedback loops that escalate emotion through actions designed to extract perceived ‘fairness’. Connection creates negative feedback loops that deescalate emotion through actions designed to maintain perceived ‘fairness’.
  • Because all three levels of biological economics are communicationally interconnected (cell to body to external environment and back again), positive and negative feedback loops are created as sensory information informs the multicellular organism, which prompts action from the cellular level, which communicates—through emotional language—back to the conscious level, coordinating further action.
    • Communication originating at the cellular level trigger sensations; communication originating at the sensory level trigger emotions. Once emotions and sensations bounce back to our conscious mind, they are converted into (interpreted as) feelings.
• Human conscious awareness is in the early stages of development.
  • Humans still communicate using hard-wired emotional language; the resulting reactive decision-making,generated internally, is often mistaken for proactive reasoning, which at this stage of conscious awareness, is only accessible to those willing to engage in arduous time-consuming reflection.
    • No matter how well-reasoned an argument may be, it will always be colored with emotional interpretation, either in its premise, in its perceived observations, its conclusions, or even when absorbed by others. For this reason, emotion should simply be embraced, so that we might listen (in a holistic fashion) to every message it is trying to communicate to us.
  • Humans still have a short attention span (which apparently is not improving); this hurts our ability to concentrate long enough to process complex information. Because it is much easier for us to retain the emotional content being communicated than the informational content attached to it (the first resonates from within, the second requires labor intensive processing power), we remain susceptible to emotional manipulation.
  • At the inception of conscious awareness, the view—which focused outward—logically perceived only disconnection, and therefore only rationalized theories of disconnection, involving hierarchal belief systems, which further rationalized the paradigm of top-down autocratic control, property rights, manifest destiny, consumerism, or the idea that self-interest was ‘rational’.
  • Conversely, our biological foundation is built on connection, and emotionally still seeks this paradigm at the social / relational level. Evidence suggests that human sensory apparatus—designed to connect with the external environment—kickstarted conscious awareness, the largest leap coming from socialization, where verbal communication, culture, creativity, and collaborations (involving critical thinking skills applied toward innovative problem-solving) drove the positive feedback loop which expanded cognitive function. Evidence suggests that our brain is now devolving (shrinking in intellectual capacity).^[60]
    • Brains take 20% of the human body’s energy intake to maintain; organisms have been known to downsize brain capacity once it is no longer required, likely to conserve valuable energy.^[61] Therefore, besides the negative externalities caused by rationalized use of violence (disconnection), there is also a cognitive degeneration piece involved, as no social / relational interaction (socialization) occurs in the language of disconnection.
    • To clarify, evolution occurs when organisms change themselves (adapt) to manage the uncertainty of the environment; when organisms parasitically ride the coattails of other organisms, they only succeed in triggering the further evolution of those from whom they ‘leech,’ without adapting their own ‘survival equipment’. Therefore, seeking internal sources of power is evolutionarily superior to seeking external sources of control (parasitism, predation).
  • The Scientific Method is a tool designed to focus arduous reflection on the various disconnections we still have between us and nearly all areas of understanding. Scientists are making connections all the time, but mostly these important revelations remain disconnected from realizing any social / relational value. This is just one more negative externality caused by the practice of an economics based on disconnection.

2. The Theory of Connectivity:

• The Theory of Connectivity posits, quite simply, that all three levels of biological economics (the single cell, the multicellular organism, and how the multicellular organism interacts at the global or social / relational level) are not only connected through the medium of Space, but also through the medium of Time. Therefore:
  • Any violence (disconnection) initiated at one level of economics will be felt (communicated) throughout all levels (violent disconnection communicated through Time has served as a foundation for continued violence, as evidenced by the ongoing traditions of hierarchal oppression).
    • This violence will manifest itself in tangible negative externalities that resonate down to the cellular level (where it would show up in accumulated national health statistics) or vice versa, as when a single cancerous cell brings down an entire organism.
  • Per The Law of Conservation of Matter, and in conjunction with the natural law of healthy functioning cells to seek homeostasis, whatever communication cells receive, they must disperse (retransmit)—whether it be healthy or unhealthy—to those in relative proximity; maintaining homeostasis (‘sharing the load’) is tantamount to cellular, multicellular, and social / relational survival.
    • Dispersion operates no differently through the medium of people than through the medium of water, as ‘disturbances’ ripple or resonate outward to smooth out and regain equilibrium or homeostatic balance.
    • When Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) [socially disconnecting economic exchanges] are communicated from caregiver to child, for example, it will be recommunicated (dispersed) in some form, per the eukaryotic Law of Connectivity (to transmit whatever is received—beneficial or toxic—and thus ‘square’ all perceived deficits toward maintaining homeostasis). If not communicated outward, it will be communicated inward, and show up in the child’s negative health outcomes. If the child goes to school and bullies his classmates, the trauma will be passed onto them. If the child grows up and passes it onto his children, the violence will get recommunicated through the medium of Time, but either way, violence begets more violence, to disperse it among the interconnected population, to achieve social / relational homeostasis.
      • Violence (disconnection) is the language through which intraspecific hierarchal economics is communicated; until an environment of uninterrupted connection allows past violence more ‘surface area’ in which to dissipate, new violence will continue to resound, be amplified, and feedback on itself.
  • Connectivity (interconnectedness) between levels (through the medium of Time) further substantiates the practice of drawing interpretive conclusions from objective evidence, so that we do not need to be in the ‘room where it happened’ to understand how the human multicellular organism might think, feel, behave, or react within specific environmental situations.

3. Bio-Social Model of Economics

The Bio-Social Model is a social / relational accounting tool meant to locate and properly identify all the economic values being exchanged (communicated), positive and negative, prior to any monetary measure being place upon it. It is through this tool that the negative values communicated through the language of disconnection (violence) can be properly accounted for, to assess true overall net value.

Bio-Social Economic Model Part I: Positive Value

1. No economic exchange (communication) can occur without connection, where a relationship is formed (mutual, commensal, parasitic, or predatory); therefore, the economics of multicellular existence has a social (not a competitive) foundation.
2. Because all communications represent some economic value that can only occur through connection, all economically exchanged values are social / relation values.
3. The space between multicellular organisms has widened considerably at the social / relational level; the added distance has also added the semblance that a choice exists between connection and disconnection, which has forced both the medium and the means of connection to take on more prominent roles.
   1. Prehistoric peoples found a means of connection to each other through their shared beliefs; the value of these beliefs increased arithmetically based on the number of people who connected to them and served as a powerful tool to stave off uncertainty.
   1. Parasitic and predatorial types—who saw the potential energy (resource value) in shared beliefs—moved to institutionalize them; the first institution was religion, then government, and finally banks, where the institutionally imposed shared belief that money is a store of value currently drives the paradigm of hierarchal inequality. Each institution represents a medium of connection to specific institutionally imposed shared beliefs, which have been enforced since the advent of hierarchal economics.
   1. In democratic societies, governments serve as the medium of connection to our institutionally imposedshared belief in Liberty. In this arrangement, government represents the medium or channel through which each person can exercise their Liberty; therefore, Liberty is the means of connection to our freedom of choice.
      1. When hierarchal institutions are not in place, Liberty represents our cellular will to exist; it is the medium or channel through which our beliefs are translated into binary choices to either connect or disconnect.
4. Therefore, the Bio-Social Economic Model asserts that each person, through their Liberty, owns the property rights to both their choices and their beliefs, which serve as a store of immense value (investment property) within both biological and intraspecific hierarchal economics.Therefore, every citizen residing in a democratic society becomes an equity shareholder in every means and medium of connection to which they invest themselves. A working list of these would include:
   1. Infrastructural mediums of connection, that help bridge the gap between people at the social / relational level and thus facilitate the means of economic exchange: transportation, education (connection to knowledge), health care (connection to cellular wellbeing), agriculture (connection to land), energy and communication grids, water / sewer lines, housing (connection to shelter), retail buildings such as malls, convenience stores, restaurants, community centers, mixed use, etc. (connection to goods and services, aka ‘marketplaces’).
      1. Through taxation, citizens are traditionally forced to pay for the infrastructure, but are not allowed to own it, and therefore receive no potential return on investment (ROI) like ‘private investors’ enjoy; instead, the ‘customers’ essentially cover the sunk costs for private business to have a means of connection to them.
   1. Institutional mediums of connection (which house our belief systems): governments (shared beliefin liberty, justice, happiness, equal protection, etc.), banks (shared beliefin money), churches (shared belief in a higher power), et al.
   1. Labor represents our means of connection to the Earth. As labor converts potential energy resources into usable (and sharable) products, labor also serves as the medium (channel) through which economic relationships (connections) are formed. The products of labor are the means of economic connection to others and represent the conversion of material resources into some general use value. The ’profit’ within biological economics is the added value gained through this economic relationship, which is mutually beneficial (profitable) to both sides of the economic exchange (mutualism contains the highest net value of any economic relationship within biological economics, because no negative (extractive) values exist.
      1. Therefore, withinbiological economics, use value is equal to resources plus the skill of the laborer (materials + labor), while profit is the shared value of connection formed through the economic relationship, and would be counted within the overall exchange value. Importantly, profit is a social / relational value ascribed to connection; it is the byproduct of the mutualism (or mutual connection).
      1. Within biological mutualism, the laborer profits through the expression of their unique skills to an appreciative patron (which brings the laborer social / relational values like esteem, belongingness, self-actualization, etc.) Meanwhile, the patron profits from the laborer’s unique skills, as well as the gratitude of the laborer for recognition of his skills.
      1. Within intraspecific hierarchal economics, added ‘connection’ costs and expenses drive up the monetary price of each product’s hierarchal use value; for business ‘owners’, the reward for taking on this added financial risk is intraspecific hierarchal profit, which represents the hierarchal value(now monetarily measured) of the laborer which has been severed from his labor (the mechanical conversion process of material resources into use value). The biological value of connection—the relationship, along with the esteem, gratitude, communication of artistic skills and subsequent appreciation—has been assigned a hierarchal monetary value and becomes the property of the ‘owner’ for incurring the ‘financial risk’ for the laborer, who has been disconnected from all material resources by imposition of hierarchal property rights. Intraspecific hierarchal use value is equal to [materials + labor + costs (economic rents) + hierarchal profit].
         1. Within biological economics, economic rent could be seen to comprise all the added values of connection at the social / relational level beyond the simple two-part economic exchange of 1) converting materials (through labor) into a product then 2) exchanging the laborer’s product, thus converting it into a ‘good’ for some patron. Biological economic rents would include profit, bank loans (rents of money), infrastructure (rents of property and all other means and mediums of connection), and taxation (to sustain continued connection to each other through our institutionally imposed shared belief in government). Importantly, within hierarchal economics—which comes with the complication of individually owned property rights—all these biological economic rents are simply ‘the cost of doing business’ and fall within a monetarily elevated hierarchal use value (to understand hierarchal economic rent, see ‘d. Shared beliefs’).
         1. intraspecific hierarchal profit derives from early oppression, where rulers first assumed control of the mediums of connection (land and markets held by religious temples), and thus assumed control of A) the laborer’s means of connection to the Earth, B) the fruits of his labor, C) the patrons through which valuable economic relationships were formed, and D) each person’s liberty to choose how they wished to communicate value to others through their labor. Once each person’s economic liberty was severed from their labor, only the oppressor’s ‘vision’ or beliefs held any economic significance, thus all the profits from labor went to them.
   1. Shared Beliefs represent our means of connection to each other at the social / relational level of economics. (Liberty is the medium through which we choose to either connect or disconnect, based on a belief in something’s intrinsic value; when people sharethe same valuebeliefs, these shared beliefs serve as a hub through which they can connect to each other at the social / relational level).
      1. When early oppressors took control of religious temples—which housed the people’s shared belief in their gods—oppressors became A) the medium of connection to the resources, B) the medium of economic exchange and economic production (labor), and C) the medium of connection to shared beliefs. These hierarchal disconnections split the process of biological economics in two, such that now a supply side and a demand side exist; consequently, supply-side laborers are severed from the fruits of their labor on the demand side of the hierarchal economic equation. Separate cannot be equal; with this disconnection, an imbalance between supply and demand was necessarily generated that is the source of much disparity and despair.
      1. Through hierarchal disconnection, people were converted into the means of production, where they served as slaves to hierarchal production quotas; the means and mediums of connection were no longer the property of the people, and since they were taken, they (so far) have not been returned. For this reason, ‘owners’ are still allowed to reap all the value of our shared beliefs on both the supply side and the demand side of every economic exchange.
5. Intraspecific hierarchal economic structureshave broken up the holistic biological process of economics in order to insert disconnections in several places: 1) between labor and the Earth (labor as means of connection)so that thosewith property ownership rights can extract hierarchal economic rent (which is also the driver of hierarchal inflation),2)between labor and the products of labor (labor as means of production) so that those with business ownership rights can extract hierarchal profit, and 3)betweenthe product and the consumer of the product(to create a bidding war to drive up prices based on shared beliefs in its value) so that those with ownership rights can extract excessive sustained price gains through hierarchal price gouging [no term has yet been placed on this market phenomenon, so this treatise will tentatively label it an essential markets monopsony]
   1. An essential markets monopsonyoccurs on basic necessitieslike housing or healthcare, for example; hierarchal economists would say prices on basic necessities are inelastic (because people must purchase them regardless of their price) and thus prices on these basic necessities can be driven far above any reasonable equilibrium price (until these bubbles burst) because demand of basic necessities will not decrease and supply will not increase, so price appears to become disconnected from the hierarchal ‘law’ of supply and demand (when in reality price is a product of each person’s shared belief in its value and people have a correctly reasoned beliefthat items like food, air, water, and shelter are indeed quite valuable; because hierarchal economics is not based on math or science, it tends to ignore or cover up—with nonsensical rhetoric—whatever it cannot explain).
   1. When the panic of uncertainty is added, because of perceived economic scarcity (insufficient supply), it can trigger a positive feedback ‘price’ loop where those with enough capital attempt to outbid each other; the hierarchal negative externality of this is that it allows entire markets (from housing to toilet paper) to jump on and ride this wave that ultimately measures the amount of uncertainty hierarchal economics places on the people forced to engage in it.
6. Hierarchal Disconnectionoccurs in at least three places within the natural process of biological economics (more disconnections were added with the invention of governments and money) which allows owners of property and business a space to insert themselves as hierarchal ‘middleman’ and become hierarchal ‘mediums of exchange.’ An imaginary ‘paywall’ is placed between supply (production and distribution) and demand (consumption) to parasitically extract from the process of positive value creation.
   1. Hierarchal Economic rent requires the forcible separation of planetary resources from the people living on or beside them, and represents the first stage of hierarchal disconnection), where an imaginary ‘paywall’ (hierarchal medium of exchange) is placed between the Earth and the means of production (labor). This has also allowed the establishment of a separate supply side (within biological economics, once connection is made, supply is equal to demand to achieve homeostasis).
      1. Basic housing rent drives 30% of hierarchal economic inflation; when economic rent pushes up the cost of production, it is simply passed onto the consumer, inflating the price of many essential needs (energy, health care, food, transportation, education, communication, etc.) Providers of similar products and services either lower their supply costs to ‘compete’ for a larger share of the ‘consumer base’ or join with each other (like current U.S. health care providers) to form an essential markets monopsony.
   1. Hierarchal profit represents the second stage of hierarchal disconnection, where an imaginary ‘paywall’ (hierarchal medium of exchange) is placed between the means of production (labor) and the medium of distribution (the market). Hierarchal profit is the monetary measure of the laborer’s will to exist (liberty to choose based on beliefs) that has been severed from the mechanism of labor (the body) and redistributed as a nonreciprocal obligation to the apex agent (owner) within hierarchal economic arrangements (business owners, by assuming the role of medium of production, release the laborer from this obligation and thus collect any extra value received by assuming this risk).
   1. Hierarchal price increases beyond production costs + acceptable profit margin represent the third stage of hierarchal disconnection, where an imaginary ‘paywall’ (hierarchal medium of exchange) is placed between the product and the consumer; this involves monetary price increases based on a consumer’s belief in the value of a product, which arithmetically rises based on the number (agglomeration) of consumers who share this belief. This represents hierarchal economic liberty, a false version of liberty where people are afforded the binary choice to either connect to—or disconnect from—a myriad of ‘consumer choices,’ which are subsequently used against them to drive price increases from these various forms of agglomeration. Although Hierarchal economic liberty distracts consumers by offering many product choices (meant to infer a ‘high degree’ of liberty), A) each choice is still binary, B) we do not own this version of liberty, it is used to own us, and C) we never lose our biological liberty at any time, because the medium of liberty is within each person and thus cannot be severed from them.
      1. As ‘consumers’ assemble around a shared belief in a product’s value, a business ‘owner’ may exercise his hierarchal liberty to raise the purchase price above use value; the new price would represent hierarchal exchange value.
      1. Shared beliefs fall under each person’s liberty to choose the things to which they connect or disconnect, which would make ‘Shared Belief Values’ the property of the people, and not the property of any owner, investor, shareholder, corporation, etc.
      1. ‘Shared Belief Value’ would represent the price difference between a product’s hierarchal exchange value and its hierarchal use value.

Bio-Social Economic Model Part II: Understanding Negative Value

Within intraspecific hierarchal economics, people have been trained (for over 5,000 years) to believe that costs exist in economic exchanges, but within biological economics, there are no costs, there are only values, either positive or negative. Whatever products or services are needed, they can only be achieved through labor—to convert materials into economic ‘goods.’ Interestingly, if cells or cellular beings do not labor, they essentially do not exist, thus labor is never a cost, debt, or deficit, it is always a credit, which is—in every way—the means of existence. Therefore:

1. Costs do not need to exist, and B) Labor always needs to exist. The difference between costs and negative values are that costs connote some inevitable debt, deficit, burden, or other form of violence that can never be fully eliminated, whereas negative value indicates an extraction from some positive (or potential) value that already exists. Negative value cuts into positive value the same as costs do, but with biological economics, there is only one side to the ‘balance sheet,’ such that all values need to be considered before moving forward with any choice, to maximize value for everyone involved in economic exchanges (to maximize biological net value).
   1. In the case of hierarchal economics, costs exist from economic rent due to arbitrary claims of property ownership, created as a means for ‘the few’ to foist their labor responsibilities onto ‘the many.’
   1. In the current hierarchal economics, for example, those who control essential resources (energy, money, real estate, etc.) pass economic rents (fixed costs) onto business owners, who pass these fixed costs onto their customers. Profit is the reward for risk incurred by business owners, who necessarily (due to fixed costs) are forced to minimize variable costs; between raw material costs and labor costs (wages), it is easier to lower employee wages.
      1. Therefore, the laborer is penalized twice within hierarchal economics: first, to take a ‘pay cut’ so that the hierarchal owner may profit; second, to pay the cost of the economic rent charged by the landlord, that the owner has passed onto the laborer-as-consumer.
2. Economic exchange requires a connection, which necessarily creates various forms of social relationships, some of which (like hierarchal relationships) turn adversarial (predatory or parasitic).
   1. Competition is not a form of economic exchange; it is at best loosely derived through the desire to ‘connect’ to the same source of perceived value, but with no direct connection, no relationship is formed. Rape is not a form of competition; neither is murder, extortion, theft, bullying, or any of the other relationships created by intraspecific hierarchal ‘competition.’ Competition is firstly about choice (whether to compete or not), which means it is about liberty; as previously stated, intraspecific hierarchal economics has long ago disconnected people from their liberty and instead sold them a hierarchal version of liberty that includes a choice between products, like Coke or Pepsi, for example.
   1. Intraspecific hierarchal competition is merely a relational form of parasitism / predation; people are inextricably connected to the planet and to each other such that economic relationships cannot be avoided. Claims of direct biological competition are questionable and are (at best) anthropomorphic interpretations of various unavoidable Conflict (where eukaryotes are cornered such that their liberty to choose is negated, initiating self-defense [‘fight / flight’] protocols, which is an emotional reaction, not a choice). Indirect competition—such as when two species vie for the same scarce resource—also describes a conflict, not any form of chosen competition; calling this a competition only helps rationalize the continued oppression of 47% of the world’s human population.^[62]
      1. Conflict—as understood in literary jargon—is derived from human feelings about internally-generated emotions experienced—and then interpreted (‘personalized’)—at the social / relational level. Conflicts include Man versus Himself, or Nature, or Society, for example. Competition apparently is meant to illustrate Man versus Man confrontations, but since the onset of sports and other forms of controlled competition have evolved, the best ‘competitors’ come to discover that competition, as a form of conflict, is always about Man battling with Himself, or more specifically, Man versus his Ignorance. Even close competition between two individuals merely pits one person’s skills against the other; to interject feelings of some ‘personal competition’ into this test of skills would misplace focus and lower performance level, thus serving as a strategic weakness. Understandably, sports ‘fans’ might take things personally while they root for their favorite ‘team,’ but this personalization is outside the actual conflict and does not accurately describe it, only how it ‘feels’ from the observer’s perspective (again, a ‘top-down’ perspective).
      1. Incidentally, the incorrect assumption that hierarchal economics is some form of competition has naturally led those with excess wealth to purchase sports ‘dream’ teams, pay off referees, pay off coaches to procure college scholarships for their children, and intrude into their child’s various athletic endeavors all because they confuse wealth with athletic potential or competitive prowess; thus, hierarchal economics creates an increasing positive feedback loop of dysfunctional externalities based on the delusion that wealth extraction is competitive, when it is in fact an intraspecific form of parasitism.
   1. Importantly, all intraspecific economic exchange is a communication, where connection is established, and a social relationship forms; relationships can be either mutualistic, commensal, parasitic, or predatory. Therefore, violence is a social relationship, where something (however toxic) is being communicated, and it is essential that we understand this message, because within the proposed Bio-Social Economic Model, this is how Hierarchal Relationships can be better understood.
3. Within biological economics, use value is equal to materials plus labor. Exchange value is used to account for the value of human connection, through the relationships formed during each economic exchange.     
   1. Biological exchange value raises quality but does not raise price. It can occur on both the supply and demand side of the economic exchange; the added value is shared.
   1. Hierarchal exchange value raises price but does not raise quality. It can only occur on the demand side of the economic exchange; the added price (hierarchal value) is not shared.
4. Seen through a Bio-Social lens, hierarchal economic relationships seek prolonged imbalance (or inequality) through the forcible disconnection of people from all resources. Hierarchal apex agents seek monetary benefit from the ensuing hyper-driven uncertainty, that pushes people into a positive feedback loop of so-called ‘consumerism’, through a belief that belongingness (feeling of social connection) is somehow tied to it. Disconnected from resources, labor, the fruits of their labor, and each other, people have no sense of balance relative to one another (homeostasis cannot be achieved without connection), and thus have pushed themselves and the planet dangerously past it.
   1. Hierarchal (‘Financial’) Economic Growth—rather than measuring human evolution—is the financial measure of hyper-driven human uncertainty; as all true (biological) economics balances out, financial growth is ultimately cancelled out by financial debt; this can be proven by adding together all forms of monetary debt (national and personal), as well as properly accounting for all negative values that are currently measured as hierarchal economic gains (from violence both outwardly and inwardly inflicted, which includes ecological destruction, incarceration, taxation that is not recouped, etc.).
   1. Within democratic societies, only mutualism approximates relational equality, where added value (biological exchange value) is maximized, and monetary prices are minimized.

Discussion

Emotional Language Theory posits that humans speak two distinct internal (emotional) languages—belongingness (connection) and violence (disconnection)—which drives two distinct emotional belief systems at the social / relational economic level; each serves as a means of connecting similarly bent (adapted) individuals to each other. Consequently, each emotional language has generated its own economic, political,^[63] legal,^[64] even scientific^[65] belief system. Because both emotional languages necessarily share a common verbal delivery system, when discussing key terms, a label has been attached to clarify which emotional language is being addressed, so no confusion arises. ‘Biological’ will be the label used to describe the multicellular economics of connection, while ‘Hierarchal’ will be the label applied to the economic paradigm of emotional disconnection (or violence).

Although intraspecific hierarchal relationships have predatory elements (use of force to dominate prey), the structure of the relationship is parasitic (to attach and feed off the labor of others, to their physical, mental, and emotional detriment), therefore this treatise may at times refer to hierarchal relationships as kleptoparasitic.

The Tools That Made Us Masters

1. The Biology of Violence

Findings: Cellular Levels

• Violence is the emotional language of disconnection, or how multicellular organisms communicate their feeling of disconnection to (or from) others in various ways (general to specific) and means (mild to severe).
• At the unicellular level, A) cells disconnect by committing suicide (apoptosis^[66]) when they sense they are damaged, of no further use, or potentially harmful to the multicellular organization (it is likely they sense a loss of connection first, triggering the suicidal behavior), B) cells choose to disconnect themselves (cancer) as an individual survival strategy (again, it is likely they sense a loss of healthy connection before preemptively choosing to ‘save themselves’), or C) cells are foreign (separate or naturally disconnected) organisms (like a virus or bacteria) that cannot survive without connection, and therefore do so in parasitic or predatory ways.
  • The intraspecific (domestic) terrorism of cancer begins with the disconnection of a single cell that goes ‘offline,’ (ignores instructions to shut down), begins to wildly replicate itself, leaves its assigned post, hides from the (immune system) police, and disrupts the connection of other healthy cells, preventing them from performing their functions.^[67]
    • Because cells can replicate, they can survive through connection to each other, in essence becoming a new and separate organism (a ‘growth’) that interrupts the normal functioning around it in parasitic ways.
  • The interspecific (global) terrorism of viral infection involves ‘breaking and entering,’ cybercrime, kidnapping, forced labor, murder, ‘police’ evasion, coercion, duress, etc.
    • Suspiciously, the virus has a key to the cell’s front door, and possession of compatible DNA codes, which implies virality is an ‘inside job’—one study concludes that early viruses might even have formed a merger with our ancestors.^[68] The eventual truth about viruses will likely follow the general story of all terrorist ‘cells,’ which form because of disconnection from the larger community.
    • Because viruses cannot replicate, they can only live through connection to the replicating mechanism within other cells, becoming a new and separate organism that interrupts the normal functioning around it in parasitic ways.
  • Some violence can be ruled accidental (involuntary manslaughter); kidney failure results when a malfunction in cell connection blocks either the absorption or recommunication needed to maintain overall homeostasis.
  • The preceding examples show that violence at the unicellular level is also experienced at the global level; this is because all three levels of eukaryotic economics are interconnected. Therefore, violence communicated at any biological economic level will be measurably felt at all levels.
• Disconnection is a prerequisite for violence at the social / relational level as well; people must feel disconnected (suicide), disconnect themselves (through adopting a hierarchal belief), or feel no connection at all (intraspecific parasitism or predation).
  • Social / relational self-inflicted violence communicates that someone once-connected now feels hopelessly disconnected; behavior may include suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity, non-suicidal self-injury, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, et al.
    • Overeating and addiction (caused by the stress of uncertainty or imbalance) present as forms of slow self-assisted suicide (apoptosis).
    • The negative health values, translated down to the cellular level as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc., show how the violence of disconnection at the global level reaches down to the microeconomic level—as it cannot help but do—because violence perpetrated at any level will be measurably felt at all levels.
    • Importantly, in these cases, the victims have chosen to blame—and thus do violence to—themselves.
  • Societal violence (to do violence to others) results when those disconnected in early childhood—through Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs)—recommunicate this disconnection through various forms of outwardly directed violence ranging from mild to severe.
    • To the recipient (‘victim’) of violent recommunication, it will feel like something has been taken, but communication is always something given; this negative value (deficit) is meant to achieve overall social / relational homeostasis, therefore any violence communicated must be recommunicated (dispersion) to share the load and achieve overall homeostasis.
    • In an environment of disconnection, violence—instead of dissipating—is likely to form a positive feedback loop and become self-perpetuating.
      • Example: further disconnecting the disconnected behind prison walls (incarceration) does not ‘rehabilitate’ but further exacerbates feelings of disconnection; recidivism rates^[69] support this observation. Those who are ‘rehabilitated’ likely have found a less violent belief system in which to navigate their environment.
    • Evidence now shows that through epigenetics, the negative social / relational value of violence is also communicated through the medium ofTime.^[70]
      • There is a biological reason for this: epigenetics begins the process of evolution for the multicellular organism, to adapt to an environment which is changing (and thus maintain homeostatic balance within it). Because intraspecific hierarchal violence (oppression) is not induced by the natural environment, the epigenetic transmission would likely dissipate (return to relative equilibrium) after an equivalent number of generations, but only once the environment of oppression was eliminated.

Findings: Social / Relational Level

• Violence is an emotional (multicellular) communication of disconnection during economic exchanges that manifests as a feeling at the social / relational level (an interpretation of the emotional disconnection).
• Violence is a hierarchaleconomic arrangement, where the sender of the communication psychologically nullifies the receiver’s biological liberty and biological social value, effectively ‘dehumanizing’ them such that their choiceto mutually connect no longer exists; this legitimizes the extraction of whatever use value remains. The severance between social value and use value is possible because the violent have had their liberty and social value similarly nullified, infringed upon, or violated.
  • This correlates with the proposed Theory of Connectivity, which obligates senders to communicate (transmit) what they receive, to disperse it and thus achieve relative homeostasis; intraspecific violent disturbance, once initiated, can only effectively be dispersed through that (intraspecific) medium. 
  • Intraspecific Hierarchal Economics also divides human participants into two parts: their biological use value (their labor), and their biological exchange value, which includes their liberty to choose and their social / emotional (belongingness) values or ‘social worth.’
• To induce violent exchange, a value must exist (to attract connection).
  • Value can only be achieved through connection, which necessarily involves two (or more) participants.
    • When both participants are emotionally connected, they become whole entities. Exchanges become holistic (everything becomes an exchange value) and mutual (homeostatic); gross value equals net value and use values are not only freely given, but are usually enhanced, as each participant has an emotional stake that does not technically exist within hierarchal economic arrangements (no doubt laborers are more ‘employable’ when they bring this emotional passion to overachieve, which employers clearly value but—conveniently—are under no obligation to compensate).
      • Boredom, frustration, or anger share a ‘connection’ with violence because they represent unsuccessful attempts to achieve connection; to escalate into violence, however, the sender must first have personally experienced (been trained for) violent communication.
      • Biological violence is part of our last-ditch survival (fight / flight) protocol; to be triggered, the sender must feel threatened. During early childhood ‘training,’ that trigger is set.
    • When both participants are disconnected, because neither one seeks value from the other, no economic relationship is established.
    • Violence resides in those economic exchanges where a duality exists: one side seeks connection to value the other side possesses; the violence in the exchange is due to the disregard for the other’s liberty or choice, such that the violent nowcontrols choice. This control of choice is what the violent most value, to recommunicate (disperse) the traumatic violation of their biological liberty, when control of choice was taken from them.
      • Attempts to control violence from the top down only perpetuate it. The root of violence is emotional disconnection.
      • Biologically, when emotional communication is overloaded by repeatedly triggering fight / flight protocol (through physical abuse, for example), the resulting numbness presents as a higher fear ‘tolerance,’ but in reality, the violated have become a store of negative value; they must disconnect themselves from their emotions to survive, but if the negative value is not dissipated (recommunicated), it will physically destroy the violated from the inside, as health records confirm.
      • Emotional disconnection in intraspecific economic exchange can only be found in predation, parasitism or in conflicts such as war, where men must ‘disconnect’ to do the apex predator’s ‘business.’
      • Interspecific emotional disconnection has been socially conditioned such that the slaughter of animals, if done out of sight, is rarely equated with violence, although the mechanism is the same: the nullification of biological social value along with control of choice (liberty).
• Intraspecific Hierarchal Economics is based on the language of emotional disconnection, and therefore condones or legitimizes violence in economic exchanges such that biologicaluse value can be disconnected from biologicalexchange value, to maximize profit on the supply side, then used to maximize economic rents on the demand side.
  • The concept behind hierarchal economic exchange—“it’s just business”—is to eliminate emotional value from economic exchanges altogether, so use values can be procured without notions of ethics or other socially-imposed values.
• For accounting purposes, intraspecific hierarchal violence is the negative value exchanged for the appropriation of each person’s use value; it cannot be a cost, because A) it was freely given in exchange for the perceived value of another, and B) the receiver did not choose (through their liberty) to bear any incidental cost. Within hierarchal economics, when someone chooses to take on negative value, it is called debt, which is the milder form of violence spread within hierarchal arrangements, to replace the outright property ownership of the laborer (through slavery or other forms of taxation).
  • Money, as will soon be discussed, is the manifestation of ‘negative value’ created by debt. The money given as wages is simply a small part of someone else’s larger debt; the reservoir from which all ‘negative value’ flows out then back again is currently known as the privately-owned bank.
  • Curiously, in exchange for our labor, each of us is handed a shared belief in the value of this debt—backed by a self-proclaimed ‘sovereign entity’—that allows us to buy back a portion of the ‘goods’ that our labor produced; if any laborer wishes to ‘live like a king’ he must go to a bank and take on more debt, which is simply a larger share of this ‘negative value’ that as a laborer, represents thirty more years of voluntary indentured servitude.^[71] If the laborer wishes to labor for himself, as a business owner, he again must walk into his local debtor’s prison and negotiate the terms of his surrender. Finally, taxation represents the percentage amount of slave labor each person still relinquishes to the sovereign entity; an effective tax rate of 10%, for example, now makes a laborer 10% slave, 90% voluntary indentured servant.

Discussion

Our multicellular language of violence is trying to communicate with us that there is emotional disconnection going on, NOT to perpetuate it, but to do something to assuage it. The communication of violence has even conveniently pointed out exactly where the disconnection exists, but while every human speaks the language of violence quite fluently, no one appears to be particularly adept at interpreting it.

If cells yell “fire” in a multicellular organism, a sprinkler system comes on to cool them off. If people yell “fire” in a crowded theatre, everyone panics and tramples each other trying to get to the exit. Our cells communicate disconnection to trigger a negative feedback loop, but at the social / relational level, we are no longer interconnected, thus the opposite reaction occurs. Because we are connected multicellular organisms that now exist—through conscious awareness—at the social / relational level of disconnected human beings, the list of possible strategies to achieve connection no longer include screaming “I am disconnected!”

Ironically, the perpetuation of our disconnectedness throughout history, since the inception of hierarchal economics, has perverted liberty to include privacy rights, that only serve the perpetuation of violence. Through attempting to shield intolerance, there is no avenue created to foster acceptance; meanwhile, the right to ‘privately’ communicate violence allows it to fester, until it publicly gets recommunicated by the victim, who is now, in the mirror-image world created by social / relational disconnection, the assailant. Connection creates something disconnected, that must labor to reestablish connection. This appears to be the bigger evolutionary game being played.

Intraspecific violence of any magnitude—for a species claiming to be advanced or hoping to evolve further—is unacceptable; this treatise is meant to focus the human species on pragmatic solutions to the negative externalities caused by intraspecific hierarchal violence.

The solution to disconnection is connection; violence will beget violence—just as belongingness will beget belongingness—when a positive feedback loop is established that allows disconnection (or connection) to continue feeding back on itself.

The first goal must be to stop feeding the disconnection / violence, and let the violence dissipate, which it cannot help but do, because cellular existence is predicated on achieving and maintaining homeostasis. By fashioning an environment (like multicellular organisms have done) where interconnectedness amplifiespositive values (through generation of positive feedback loops), while dispersing and dissipating negative values (through generation of negative feedback loops), many of the negative externalities of violence can be eliminated.

Intraspecific hierarchal economics is not an environment where violence is allowed to dissipate, because it has been built upon a foundation of disconnection, that artificially perpetuates uncertainty, which drives an intraspecific hierarchal version of ‘economic growth’ that has propelled humans into the category of super predator^[72] (a category which had to be created especially for humans, because it is A) unprecedented, and B) “unique and unsustainable.”)^[73]

2. Mimicry as Innovation

Mimicry has recently been repackaged by hierarchal economics and branded as “biomimicry,” where it is touted as some revolution in how humans study nature to solve “complex human problems;”^[74] this apparently legitimizes the extraction of ‘economic rent’ by claiming ‘intellectual’ property rights over the discovery of otherwise naturally-occurring phenomenon, once again involving the unpaid labor of others. In reality, biological mimicry has existed a couple billion years, and humans have freely applied it throughout their history.

Once hyper-conscious awareness of our perceived ‘aloneness’ (disconnection) kicked in and triggered a positive feedback loop of constant uncertainty, humans were not about to wait for evolution to balance it all out. Our internal language of disconnection jammed the fight / flight accelerator pedal to the floor; ‘desperate times’ called for hasty innovation.

Early humans could not wait to grow fangs, claws, tusks, or any other defensive weapons, so were forced to mimicwhat they observed. When the weather turned cold and the rivers dried up, humans did not have coats of heavy fur, so were forced to appropriate them. When the vegetation died out (because the water got turned off), humans were forced to mimic the apex predators and hunt their food down.

All eukaryotes (bacteria, fungi^[74] and viruses) utilize mimicry; evolutionarily speaking, mimicry is the survival strategy of the ‘underdog;’ lions and tigers and bears do not need camouflage gear. Some within science will undoubtedly wish to narrow the range of what mimicry entails, but mimicry has had a hand in early forms of communication, connection, learning, and most importantly, it represents some of our earliest attempts at innovation. It makes sense that the human desire to conquer uncertainty would lead to conquering any perceived physical manifestations of it. It also makes sense that early humans would begin to place a high value on innovation as a successful weapon against uncertainty, such that it came to overshadow the value of human connectivity, through which all value exists, and no value exists without.

Evolutionarily, mimicry exists because those who do not ‘fit in’ do not survive. Darwin would likely conjecture that once humans began to mimic the apex predators around them, they became more successful, and thus predatory behavior was ‘naturally selected for’; Paolo Freiré similarly (and interpretively) observed that “The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.”^[75] In both cases, mimicry served as a reactive solution to overcome real-time uncertainty that through further mimicry became solidified into habits, comforting rituals, or reactionary ‘traditions’ (where they generally outlive their usefulness). Among these, traditions of violence are the most desperate; ultimately, the violent only seek to save themselves from uncertainty, and will parasitically extract from their own species to do so.

To defeat the violent, we ultimately mimic their strategies; now we live in an environment secured through appropriation, assimilation, imperialism, colonialism, where even the tools of our own connection (government, money, communication, etc.) are used as weapons to disconnect us. The oppressor invariably appropriates the tools of human connection and utilizes them toward maximizing their own ‘rational self-interest’. When one is armed with violence, uncertainty is offloaded onto everyone else; this has likely led to reduced higher brain functioning in these more brutish types. Evidence has shown that our brains are shrinking, because (as this treatise suggests) managing uncertainty—as well as connectivity (through socialization)—is what created the positive feedback loop that led to brain growth. Allowing the apex agents within intraspecific hierarchal economics to continue perpetuating brutish behavior will never allow them (and consequently us) to achieve the emotional intelligence necessary to evolve away from the rituals and traditions of intraspecific violence.

Mimicry is based on observations taken from a second person point of view (looking at something from the outside); likeness can be captured, but rarely the essence; therefore, innovation often gets disconnected from its original evolutionary purpose. In a random compilation of reactive short-term strategies to alleviate uncertainty, humans have superficially recreated an environment—intraspecific hierarchal economics—which appears to capture the likeness of how the natural environment developed, but the essence is incorrect. Because this superficially mimicked environment has been placed on top of the natural environment, humans live their lives disconnected from their ‘roots,’ and have themselves been disconnected from their original evolutionary purpose.

To think that life can be controlled from the top down, in some hierarchal fashion—instead of powered from the bottom up, the inside out, or from birth until death—should immediately raise a red flag for anyone who ‘believes’ in science, but intraspecific hierarchal economics is not based on science—it is based on religion—so does not have to make sense in any scientific way.

3. Beliefs (as a Means of Connection and Disconnection)

Prior to the invention of wireless connection, early humans had to create their own connection from scratch at the social / relational level, to bridge the impossibly wide gaps they experienced upon reaching conscious awareness. The creation of beliefs—as a defense mechanism to alleviate uncertainty—proved so valuable, they became the target for intraspecific appropriation, making it the crime of the century in every century since the beginning of recorded human history. Therefore, understanding beliefs is crucial to building a case against hierarchal economic practices.

A permeable plasma membrane is the means of connection through which value is communicated at the multicellular level; at the social / relational level, the gap between us is exceedingly wider. Uncertainty disconnects us well before belongingness can pull us together. With such a high degree of inherent disconnection, trust (as a social / relational means of connection) must be learned, earned, and constantly reinforced. The biological precedent for distrust has been documented at both the unicellular and multicellular level, where cells physically disconnected from the general population are either perceived as foreign agents^[76] or domestic terrorists (cancers). Therefore, distrust will necessarily exist wherever disconnection exists, and trust divides quite naturally along lines of connection (us) and disconnection (them).

At the inception of human conscious awareness, there was (understandably) overwhelming uncertainty. Beliefs served—and still do serve—as an emotional self-defense mechanism, to form a shield of emotional certainty around ourselves, analogous to how unicellular organisms surround themselves with a (physical) protective cell wall. The more belief (or trust) we have in something, the sturdier our shield of emotional certainty becomes, and the safer we feel to navigate the uncertainty of our environment.

Interestingly, when we share these ‘personal’ beliefs, they essentially serve as our ‘spiritual avatars,’ sent out to communicate long-distance with anyone who is listening; when a ‘connection’ is made, trust can begin to form. This shared belief—as a means of connection—becomes a positive source of shared value between those who—through their liberty—choose to connect; thus, whatever positive value is created through connection is the property of those who make the choice to connect, per their liberty. Shared beliefshave continued to serve as a hub through which people connect, exchange values, and together alleviate perceived uncertainty through maintaining relative homeostasis.

Importantly, the certainty of our beliefs increases arithmetically based on the number of people who attach to them, such that beliefs—both in biological and hierarchal terms—are only as valuable as the social / relational connections they accrue. [In today’s social media platforms, value is measured in ‘followers,’ because even our beliefs have been commodified; social media is but one example of the most financially successful strategy used within intraspecific hierarchal economics:to let the ‘followers’ congregate (connect) prior to parasitically extracting value from them; ‘turnkey operations’ such as these were what originally attracted the earliest oppressors.]

Beliefs tend to come and go because there is no actual certainty; thus, the longest-held beliefs tend to be those which A) still cannot be disproved, or B) are stubbornly backed by coercive force, until the ‘force’ of some other more certain belief comes to unseat it. Ironically (and there is nothing but irony in intraspecific hierarchal economics), a single person who exudes certainty can become a source of belief for the most uncertain among us; because there is no actual certainty, demagogues usually proved to be either charlatans or in some cases, delusional.^[77]

Biologically, evolution has been a process of connection: our “irritation” with uncertainty has always led us to the source of our disconnection, where it has consistently applied a strategy of connection to erase this uncertainty. The source of disconnection—uncertainty—is always ‘that which is unknown’. The sum of ‘what we do not know’ represents our ignorance, therefore evolution is the eukaryotic drive to eliminate one’s own ignorance.

In their quiet desperation, the mass of people fashion rickety emotional platforms to prop themselves up, however precariously, over the giant pit of uncertainty below. Gratefully, our beliefs make us feel better when others share them with us; by joining together, through various ‘shared’ beliefs, the rickety platform becomes a more stable bridge—or means of connection—to each other. Thus, shared beliefs are the property of the people and will be added to the financial damages (reparations) the People will seek.