Columbus Took the Moon Out of the Sky

In January 1503, Columbus established a garrison at Rio Belen, Panama. The garrison was attacked by the indigenous natives so in March he again had to flee. Columbus now had to cope with unfriendly waters. The ship limped as far as Jamaica with Columbus and his crew stranded hundreds of miles from the nearest Spanish settlement. In desperation, a few individuals were sent out in canoes to cover more than one hundred miles of open sea to seek aid. They made it to Hispaniola in August, but the Governor there despised Columbus so much it was almost a year before a vessel was dispatched to rescue them.

Columbus had devised an ingenious plan to ensure his survival in Jamaica. He threatened the natives he’d make the moon bloody and damaged if they did not submit to his authority. The natives laughed. The following day the moon appeared just as he predicted and the natives submitted to the all powerful Columbus. He so frightened natives they brought food and supplies for Columbus and his crew. Of course it was simply an eclipse of the moon on February 29th 1504. Columbus had a copy of Regionmontanus’ Ephemerides astronomicae, which predicted the event.

Columbus’s methods were often unproductive. His entrepreneurial ambitions blinded him to the plight of others and he often caused chaos, creating many enemies. But he died a rich man on May 2nd 1506 in Valladolid, Spain.

John D. Gartner, a psychologist and author of “The Hypomanic Edge” states “If you’re manic, you think you’re Jesus. If you’re hypomanic, you think you are God’s gift to technology investing.”

Davis Segal, writing for the New York Times, wrote “the attributes that make great entrepreneurs, the experts say, are common in certain manias, though in milder forms and harnessed in ways that are hugely productive. Instead of recklessness, the entrepreneur loves risk. Instead of delusions, the entrepreneur imagines a product that sounds so compelling that it inspires people to bet their careers, or a lot of money, on something that doesn’t exist and may never sell.”

At the time when the great Christian medieval city of Constantinople (in modern day Turkey) was falling to insurgent Muslims (the Saracens) invading from the east, Muslims (the Moors) were being pushed out of (Al Andalus or modern day Spain) Europe and into the sea by the Christians in the west. The shift in the global balance of power, at first, appeared to disadvantage the Europeans. The sacking of Constantinople blocked their easterly trade route to lucrative Asian markets. The Christians are forced to look for an alternative route. Columbus emerges as the ‘manic hero’ who rescues Europe by travelling west into the unknown reaches of the Atlantic Ocean in search of India. But he was driven by a lot more than adventure and gold. Columbus believed the Saracens stole his noble legacy.

Columbus was a cavalier entrepreneur driven by manic ambition and emotional needs. As a child he listens to his father Domenico, a humble cheese and wine trader, telling him stories of great adventure of times gone by. Toddler Christopher hears how, against all advice and all odds, fellow Italian, Marco Polo found a trade route to China and began trading with the east. He is also told of the legend of Colombo, a Christian noble descendent of an emperor of the now Muslim city of Constantinople. Christopher believing he is a direct descendent of these nobles, becomes hell-bent on re-establishing his family’s lost status.

What made Columbus a successful entrepreneur was his mania.

Information Cascade

When ‘information cascade’ occurs it can lead to disaster. This is where individual herd members follow the actions of others. They make the same choices that others appear to be making, despite their own private reservations, and signals maybe receiving quite reliably. It’s a reliable process when the individual being imitated made a choice based on some information received and rationally deliberated upon. But it can go awry when everyone thinks that the herd members are making decisions this way but they are in fact making decisions based simply on imitating the actions of another. The whole thing comes around full circle ending up with decisions being made not because there is some useful knowledge circulating and directing the herd but by incestuous decision making based on nothing other than imitation unbeknown to the herd.

Surowiecki cites the example of from American naturalist William Beebe who came across a huge circle of ants in the Guyana jungle. They were just travelling in huge a circle about 350 metres in circumference. Biologist call this a “circular loop” Surowiecki explains, and it occurs when the ants get separated from their colony. They kept going around and around until they just drop dead, Beebe explained the ants have narrow job descriptions with narrow channel of information. The colony works because the ants are programmed to react and follow each other. However, when one breaks off in the wrong direction, and is not pulled back by another with better information and better direction, the whole colony maybe plunged in a circle of hell relying upon luck to avoid disaster.

Surowiecki points out that American economist and psychologist Herbert Simon, who is widely viewed as one of the most influential social scientists of the 20th Century, speculated that mimicry was so central to the way we lived that we must be genetically predisposed to be imitation machines.

The Herd Instinct, chased with euphoric hormones, is a cocktail that helped drive investment banks into a cavalier mentality in their mortgage based investments. Cash became increasingly available as result of selling these mortgage contracts, bringing forward their returns on mortgage deal from say twenty-five years to one year. This meant there was an abundance of money available for new, easy-in mortgage offers offered to all and sundry (including the notorious a subprime market) which fuelled property prices. This in turn led to hoards of ‘sheeple’ getting into getting involved in buying property using cheap mortgages, imitating adventurous speculators on programmes such as Property Ladder hosted by channel 4’s busty gravel voiced presenter Sarah Beeny. The result was a property bubble that had fed on itself and eventually had to burst. Lehman Brothers was the first to go and when it did it caused wide spread global banking contagion.