The DinoBrand

Want to survive? Don’t be a dinosaur

Some economic Darwinism

In order to confront the future, we need to know the past. So say the great gurus, and they’re totally right. Let us then do a little jump in time – 20 million years before marketing was invented. 

We’re in good old Prehistory, in the hey day of Mesozoicalism, when being large meant having a future. Meet our friend DinoBrand, living completely at ease, calm and confident because he’s huge. In fact, he’s among the biggest in the planet. From his headquarters, up there in the heights of his head, he contemplates his territories with satisfaction – those he already rules, and those he shall. He has conquered almost all of them, but it’s not enough. 

It’s never enough. As big as he is, our friend DinoBrand wants to be still bigger. As all members of his species, he’s a hungry predator, and his appetites are insatiable. Sometimes he associates with others like him and they hunt together in deadly packs, projecting the mighty claws of Mesozoicalism as far as the eye can see. Some contribute with sharp horns, some bring their powerful beaks, others their fearsome teeth. And they carve out their own pieces of the Earth’s coniferous forest pie. Their self-confidence is reaffirming, and they act just like an antediluvian fish biting its own, primitive tail. In growing, they become stronger. And in becoming stronger, they conquer more terrotories – and so it goes, on and on. It’s harsh times for medium-sized animals, and worse still for the little ones. They’d surely like to grow as well, but they have to content themselves with mere survival.

Our friend DinoBrand feels untouchable. His only ambition is to eat and conquest, conquest and eat. His gargantuan body crushes anyone who would try to stop his onslaught. His eyes are already so high above the ground that he can barely see how, down there, the times are a-changin’...  

The small and medium-sized animals, specially the youngsters, have long become used to barely surviving from day to day. They have been the first to realise it’s getting colder and colder. The great trees have started to lose their precious green leaves. Meanwhile, our friend DinoBrand keeps his gaze firmly fixed on the still lush treetops. From his priviledged outlook, DinoBrand perceives a totally different reality – a totally false one. Certainly, he has noticed the weather is a little cooler lately, but then he has his trusty body armour. It has never failed him, and it does nothing but buy him time until he notices the freezing cold. And when he finally does, it’s way too late. Lo and behold, the great Ice Age Crisis is upon him!

Our friend DinoBrand tries to react. But adapting to the times is not that easy when you’re such a mastodon. His colossal body, once invulnerable, is now only a gigantic burden. He’s sluggish, heavy, mortally slow. His skeleton prevents him from stooping to see how the other, smaller species are reacting. And temperatures are in freefall. DinoBrand starts sheding mass, firing tons of flesh, sacking millions of calories – and yes, now he feels a little lighter, but not enough for this merciless cold. His structure is still gigantic. He needs to keep nourishing himself through the struggle, and now those delicious green leaves are thin on the ground. And he’s still feeding a horde of parasites that keep sucking on his blood. He never noticed them during the good times, but now they are further weakening him. 

The Ice Crisis strikes all members of DinoBrand’s species. Paleontologists have always been fascinated with the powerful appearance of their bones, but right now, they are anything but powerful. Their weapons are obsolete. Their structures are outdated. Their view on survival, fatally out of sync with the times. It’s not grow and conquer anymore, but divide and conquer. The time has come for the small and medium creatures – and the younger ones, for they are faster, smarter, more sociable. 

The microorganisms that feed on our friend DinoBrand smell trouble and desert him, leaving for greener pastures. The mammals, warm-blooded and agile, suceed in a quick power grab. Not only do they live through the crisis, they manage to take over each and every continent. By the end of the Cretaceous, they have become the dominant fauna. The younger species, those who have seen the failure of their elders from the front row, decide to change their point of view. Instead of just looking from above, they take flight and become avians.

In the meanwhile, temperatures keep plummeting down. DinoBrand falls into an icy slumber, his limbs numb, less and less responsive by the minute. The world has undeniably entered another era. The descent in oxygen levels is just another effect of the Ice Crisis… and our friend DinoBrand, now utterly defeated, is finally compelled to accept the fact that he’s suffocating to death.