Martial math II-2 equals 500

500 humans! This is the number it would take, in order to re-generate the human species… In the many scenarios which are standing in line it would take only one in order to drive us to extinction. I dislike bringing up Murphy’s Law, but the fact remains that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. It is only a question of time and only a question of intelligence to prevent it.
Another example of this, but totally into another direction, goes as follows: All of a sudden we leave our stupidity aside (so to speak) we change direction and finally dedicate ourselves towards space exploration and space colonization.
By the way, please remember for the future the following… I hear all my life the “are we alone in the universe?” question… There will come a day when this question will be, once and for all, out of date. And then we will have to replace it urgently with a remark… It will read with something like this: “we are awful late in our space exploration/colonization”

But once we do, part of the plan would require sending, into a no-return expedition, a number of giant space ships to the thirty two directions of our galaxy. It would take a minimum of 500 people per ship, in order for them to travel and have the generations which will be born while on the way to reach a viable destination…
So, no matter what the scenarios stand, it would take about 500 of us in order to re-start us.
What are you waiting for?! Get your backpack and belt your surviving knife… and I will be back to check on you…

Wolfs don’t mix
Wolfs live in packs, but also lead a solitary life for some periods of their lives. One thing they don’t do is “mix blood”. A wolf will not mix sexually with its close relatives and thus, he keeps a strong bloodline for its offspring. Wolfs live and hunt together into a strict hierarchical pack, but when it’s time for them to find a mate they prefer to look for it outside their own pack…
Let us note that they do so instinctively, they do not hold a degree in science in order to do that or follow any kind of ethical “don’t do that” code.
 
Sadly our species is not doing that well… We can discover areas all around the world, which lack a certain amount of population, ending up mixing blood, with the well known catastrophic results of producing abnormal children…
Also, it is a happy fact to discover that youth, from all around the world, try to go away from anything that is small populated, in order to find a life of their own choice, including a mate… In many ways, fortunately, our instincts are not dead yet!
People are not crazy, after all, for trying to squeeze themselves into what we call a large city. We need a free choice of partners just as we need fresh air…   

No permission for that number
From the scientific point of view, the number of 500 may look sufficient in order to restart the human population... In fact it is said that this number could go down to something between 150 and 180 and we should not forget that we just started to play around with our DNA, meaning that we have increased our chances of survival by far…

The question remains… Is this number sufficient?! Well, If I have something to say about this, the answer is no. No way, to be exact, and I will explain why…

Genetically 500 people may be sufficient, security wise it is not.
Let’s take that into two parts…
Part one is easy to understand. A virus, an accident, a catastrophe of some sort, would immediately decrease the needed number below the one necessary in order for it to stabilize and not go lower than that. A more tricky calculation is the following thought. Usually any kind of disaster comes-in combined with another and not with the luxury of one at the time…

The second part looks easy to reject at first… But if you think again, it looks very realistic…
Man wars against man. Period! So he did, so he does and so he will do. It will be only a question of when, not how or why. New horizons, space explorations and advanced technology will not alter that…

The full equation of Murphy’s Law is: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and when it does, it will be at the worst possible of moments”
Nuclear plants would have been safe. Did they?! Viruses would have stayed in labs. Did they?! Space shuttles would have back up for the astronauts to survive. Did they?! Spies would have training in order to keep their mouth shut for life. Did they?!

If it comes for the human race to come down to five hundred we could theoretically survive, but practically we would not have a chance. So, what would be a sufficient number after all?! Any guesses?! Well, personally I don’t have the knowhow to give it, but I suppose we could do a bit of “teenage thinking” here… So, how about as many as it takes in order to prevent encountering the same person over and over again.  

Numbers by a warrior…
It is often said that “Aikido is for all people” and that is truly nice to hear, because Aikido is an open Art to everyone… But then again, one can find that “not all people are for Aikido” since they are not that open themselves.  Aikido is not an easy study, in many ways. People are used to separate practical activities (like sports, hobbies and athletics) from academic studies (like joining a university, undertaking projects and going into researches). Aikido, when taken seriously, is the worst nightmare of all the above…
Thus, and for many reasons more, in order to produce healthy Aikido “offspring” it would take an opposite direction to follow, for us to find the sufficient number needed which will ensure its surviving…
In simple words, a great number of practitioners can, and will, destroy the quality of study and hence, cause the Art to deteriorate and decline.

For the surviving of our species we need a number that is good when it is 500 and the bigger this number gets the better. On the other hand for the surviving of the Art we need a number that will be… excellent (it escapes me how I can say this differently…)

500 people would mean absolutely nothing for the survival of the Art. In fact it would mean instant oblivion of Aikido…
Confused?! Yep… me too!
Okay let’s try another angle…

The minimum number of people, in order to ensure the surviving of Aikido into the future is… 2! Yes you are reading this correctly, the equivalent number of the 500 needed for the human species to survive, in the case of Aikido, would be 2…
It will take one Aikido Master and one cunning apprentice. Makes two doesn’t it?!
Everything else can be created from there on… Before you protest, please think again, could it be the other way round?! Take one thousand beginners, ten thousand, a million… No matter how high you would go with your number, it would be pointless without this One Master.
Arts fall into decline because they miss an able leading Master who is no more there. They don’t fall into decline because of absence of students (or an audience…)

Naturally, the number 2 (being equivalent to 500) is stripped down to the absolute basic… And just as in the case of the “human race surviving number” it would be better to ensure a little backup for our One Master and his apprentice… But still, even if we would triple that number, all it would take is a handful of people…
If that isn’t magnificent, then what is?!

January 6, 2012