Panics & Swindles
For as long as humanity has existed on this planet, three things have been unavoidably true and will continue to be so until the very last one of us disappears off the face of the earth. 1. If someone is born, at some point, they will die. Life is finite. 2. If a person wants to continue existing, they require resources such as food, water, shelter, perhaps medicine, etc. 3. If there are 3 people in a group, one will inevitably start scheming to hoard a greater share of available resources than the other two, in order to achieve a level of psychological comfort that they feel comfortable at so they can sustain themselves for perceived maximum potential time frame that they can imagine for themselves. This is human nature and an ingrained biological need in all of us, to extend life for as long as possible. This is why we invent things; this is why we scheme, this is why we go to work, this is why we used to do pretty much anything. The idea of comfortable existence is a new concept that only came about perhaps a hundred and fifty or so years ago and only in areas where humanity has succeeded is hoarding excess materials for survival. Areas which are lacking, continue to exist on the brink of death and whether we like it or not, that is basic survival at its core. In areas where there is limited availability for life, people scheme because they want to survive longer. In parts of the world where aplenty is prevalent, people scheme because they want a greater share of what is available. It was always so and it will always be.
​
Panics and schemes always run their courses based on psychological perceptions, which are so numerous that I do not have the education, the space nor the time to describe a quarter of them. However, I personally subscribe to the notion that the coining of the term "Irrational Exuberance" by Robert Shiller, Nobel Prize winning professor at Yale University, is probably the best and most accurate explanation for the concept of panics, bank runs, schemes, etc. To me this is the most comprehensive and apropos descriptive that anyone can logically come up with to explain what causes human beings to act in the manner that is inconsistent with a perceived, logical long-term viability prospect for our species by declaring their most primal, biological needs of survival to be the forefront of their existence.