Complex government spurred growth of ancient nations

Red tape, bureaucracy, and the nanny state have all been blamed for stifling progress and holding us back, yet it turns out a bureaucratic administration is just the thing if a nation is looking to expand.

The heart of a modern bureaucracy - inside, it's piled high with red tape. Image: Jedyooo/Wikimedia

The research, carried out by an American researcher, compared the archaeological remains in the Oaxaca Valley of Mesoamerica with the remains of five other ancient nations in Peru, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China.

These are known as primary states – ones that formed without encountering other nations – and they are ideal places to study the original creation of nation states without worrying about outside influences.

The six primary states all show a distinctive pattern of growth, where expansion of each nation’s territory happened at the same time as the development of the bureaucratic government offices required to govern the growing nation. The researcher thinks this is no coincidence: only a bureaucratic administration and could support expansion, and only expansion could provide the resources needed for a fledgling state to support a bureaucracy.

Taking this one step further, the research suggests that even modern bureaucratic governments may be based on this need to expand, and we need to watch international politics very carefully if we are too keep this ‘predatory’ urge in check.

Bureaucracy is rarely seen as a good thing, adding layers of complexity and time to even the simplest of tasks, yet it seems to be an essential part of the growth of any nation. Academics have always recognised the necessity of bureaucracy in forming nations, but previous work suggested the bureaucratic processes were created before nations expanded. The new study seems to contradict that idea.

Of course, this raises a question for this blogger of whether the creation and growth of bureaucratic government can go too far, and what happens when it does? Answers to be submitted in triplicate on form XS42b by the third Tuesday of next month!

Paper Reference: Spencer, C (2010). Inaugural Article: Territorial expansion and primary state formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107(16), pages 7119-7126. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1002470107

Economy shrinking? Restoring the environment might help

Pristine tropical forest - for now...

As the world starts to emerge from the grip of recession, governments are looking for ways to grow their shattered economies. New research suggests that investing in the environment can provide both an economic and ecological boost.

The research, published in the journal Science, has shown that by fixing ecosystems damaged by human activity we restore vital “ecosystem services”.

Ecosystem services are those things that we depend on the natural world to supply, such as the air we breathe, clean drinking water and even somewhere green and pleasant to visit on holiday. Improved ecosystem services can boost the economy of an area as it becomes a more attractive place to live. A clean, healthy environment also supports businesses founded on tourism and recreation as more people will visit and spend money locally.

The team of Spanish and British researchers analysed 89 studies of ecosystems that had been restored. They found that restoration boosted biodiversity – the number of different plant and animal species – by around 44%, and this correlated with a 25% improvement in ecosystem services. It seems as though restoring the environment, despite being costly in the short-term, can provide a long-term benefit to the economy.

But a word of caution: the researchers also found that restored ecosystems were less beneficial than pristine ones, which had never been damaged in the first place. By protecting the remaining pristine environments around the world we can ensure a steady supply of ecosystem services such as new pharmaceuticals from natural sources, food and clothing, and even carbon capture and storage, that can support high-tech, high-value industries. These are just what we need, in fact, to support the economy in future.

For once, the goals of government, industry, and the environmental lobbyists might all point in the same direction!

Swine flu in the UK – whatever happened to containment?

One of the most interesting things to arise from my recent interview with Bekey was the inside view of the National Health Service (NHS) response to suspected swine flu cases.

Bekey spends her days travelling between local schools as a music teacher, and we’ve all seen reports of schools closing after cases of swine flu were confirmed in pupils. So did Bekey’s infection result in the closure of several schools? As Bekey told HN:

Bekey: No. None of my schools have closed at all [...]One of my schools this week had thirty or forty of the kids off, but they stayed open, because if you’ve got it it’s a bit late to close.

Remember, this happened two weeks ago, whilst the government said they were trying to contain the virus. But this doesn’t seem like containment to me. The only people who became seriously concerned with Bekey’s infection were the hospital where Bekey’s sister and house-mate, Amy, works. Once Amy herself started to show symptoms:

Bekey: They immediately put all her close colleagues on Tamiflu and sent somebody home as they’d come in with a bit of a sniffle.

Understandable, really, as they need to protect seriously ill patients from any sort of infection.

The mention of Tamiflu also raises a couple of questions. Was Bekey offered the anti-viral drugs? Were her close contacts?

Bekey: When the doctor came round [to do the initial swab] he said they were only giving anti-virals to people at risk: those with diabetes, heart condition or weak kidneys or lungs. Anything that might be aggravated by having flu.

However, when a different doctor came round a week later to test Amy for swine flu:

Bekey: The doctor brought a prescription round for Amy as they were now being advised to give out anti-virals to anyone who has been in contact with the swine flu.

But they were doing this at the start of the outbreak earlier this year. So what was going on?

I don’t know, and it seems not to matter now as the UK government has changed its policy to one of treatment, not containment. In my view, a containment strategy was never going to work for long, as the flu spreads very easily. The other problem with the containment strategy is that giving low doses of Tamiflu to huge numbers of people will only encourage the swine flu virus to develop resistance (as has been seen elsewhere). Using large quantities of Tamiflu could also have a detrimental impact on the environment.

My final thought on swine flu in the UK is this: news coverage of the NHS is often fairly negative. In this case, by acting sensibly and ignoring government containment advice, health workers have probably saved the cash-strapped NHS many thousands of pounds that can now be used to treat life-threatening illnesses.

Swine flu in the UK – a patient’s tale

The UK government are now focussed on treating people with swine flu. This means they can no longer contain the virus, and have accepted it will reach most of us. They also tell us it is a “mild” illness, but is this true?

Hypothesis Now (HN) is in the position to shed some light on the effects of swine flu. Recently, I talked to Bekey, a recovered swine flu patient, music teacher for several local schools and regular HN reader, about her experience of swine flu.

We began with how Bekey found out she had swine flu.

HN: So what happened?

Bekey: A few weeks ago, on the Sunday, I was sneezing. But given I have hay fever and at the time was mowing the lawn this did not strike me as being unusual. So I went to work on Monday.

Over the next few days Bekey started feeling worse, and on the Wednesday she contacted her doctor:

Bekey: He became convinced there was a chance it was swine flu, and asked if I wanted to be swabbed. [...] I said I wasn’t bothered either way. I asked if it would it make a difference to how I would be treated or how I should act? The doctor said no, whatever kind of flu it is, you stay at home; you take it easy; you drink plenty of fluids.

HN: The swabbing isn’t standard procedure if you have the flu at the moment?

Bekey: No. I’ve actually gathered from one of my schools since that they’ve had a lot of kids off sick with flu-like symptoms but the local doctor was refusing to swab them. There’s no point. They probably have [swine flu] but they just have the week off and stay in bed to get over it.

This means the swine flu virus is probably much more widespread than government statistics suggest. It also means the death rate (e.g. number of deaths per 1000 patients) is almost certainly much lower than suggested by news reports. As I chatted to Bekey, the reason for this seeming lack of concern amongst health officials soon became obvious:

Bekey: I’ve had normal flu and felt far worse. [Swine flu] really is very mild. I had aches and pains in my knees and hips and I had a temperature on Wednesday morning. By Friday evening I didn’t have a temperature.

At the end of the interview I asked if Bekey had anything else to add; any final swine flu advice for Hypothesis Now readers?

Bekey: People do not need to panic! It is quite a mild form of flu.

So there you have it, a patient’s perspective on swine flu, and as illnesses go it isn’t that bad! Like any other case of flu, it takes about a week to run its course. Doctors are happy for schools to remain open, obviously not judging it to be a major public health threat at the moment.

I therefore have one question: why is it still headline news?

Be a better person – play computer games

Behavioural adjustment free with every console?

Do violent computer games turn players into violent people? Perhaps. On the other hand, do games which encourage players to think about the needs of others make us better people? Recent studies suggest they do.

Researchers from the USA, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia combined the results of three very different studies to suggest people who play positive, or “prosocial”, games are more helpful to others afterwards. The three studies each investigated the effects of games on the behaviour of children or students in different contexts and over different timescales.

The researchers’ conclusion is that playing computer games does not, in itself, lead to anti-social behaviour, but that specific game content can encourage those who play to adopt similar behaviour themselves.

Using what they call the “General Learning Model” the researchers suggest that any stimulus can lead to behavioural changes. Computer games prime players to behave in certain ways – whether positive or negative – and, importantly, reward or punish players according to how well they perform these behaviours. The reward or punishment reinforces the chosen behaviour, encouraging players to carry it over into real life.

So if playing violent kill-fests such as PS3 shooter Killzone 2 makes us less pleasant individuals, imagine the good that comes from playing positive games such as popular on-line strategy game Food Force, or even the beautiful Ico – arguably one of the most prosocial games ever created!

Ultimately, understanding the effects computer games have on ourselves will allow us to make better-informed decisions about the games we play, and those we buy for our children. With the UK’s adoption of the PEGI content classification system, as announced in this week’s Digital Britain report, this has become even easier.

The long-term effects of computer gaming will, however, undoubtedly continue to be the subject of much debate.