What's the similarity between a snake and a credit card ? Sounds strange, isn't it ? A few days ago on the Smithsonian Channel I was watching a 15 feet long female King Cobra (Queen Cobra) somewhere in the Nilgiri Hills in South India hunting. King Cobra is one of those rare snake species which eats smaller ones of its own species. The gargantuan Cobra suddenly sprang upon her pray and bit it. Then she withdrew back to watch her pray, the 6 feet long Indian rat snake die an agonizing death in few minutes. The victim didn't have a chance when the bite of King Cobra is capable of injecting venom enough to kill 20 adult human or a full grown elephant.
In another episode somewhere in state of Maharashtra a brown Russell Viper fully camouflaged in dust was silently waiting for its pray - a big size rat. This snake is slothful and has poor eye sight but tremendous sense of movement. As the unsuspecting rat jumps close by the viper slowly crouches back and strikes at an estimated speed of 20 feet per second. Stunned by the strike and the lethal venom taking its effect the rat convulsed for a moment before being still as the Russell Viper non chalantly waits for its meal.
The other day after swiping my card at a local grocery shop, I waited for the transaction to go through - same as the King Cobra and Russell Viper waited injecting venom to in their victim's body. I was pretty sure that the authorization will go through in seconds, same as the serpents waited in confidence for their authorization of venom to go through their victim's bodies. My transaction went through in few seconds, the Cobra and Viper's transactions a few minutes.
Well, the analogy could sound far fetched but working in the credit card industry for a while I could see through it. Again the authorization depends on the balance on my credit card account. If there is no balance theauthorization will not go through. Same with these snakes. If they don't have any venom left their bites would end up as dry bites. As I would watch appalled, my confidence belied in case the transaction failed, the pray could escape the perplexed snake.
A credit card is useless unless I put it inside a chip reader or swipe it. The deadly snake venoms Neurotoxin in King Cobra and Hemotoxin in Russell Viper (it's like choosing between hanging or electric chair as death penalty) are useless unless the serpents insert their fangs, the same way my card is worthless as long as I don't swipe it at the point of sale at the Merchant's. Neurotoxin vs Hemotoxin is same as inserting a Chip card vs card swipe. End results for both are the same.
Post card swipe I get rewards for the purchases I make and snakes get rewarded with a hearty meal after the swipe their fangs into their victim's body. Snakes are needed to keep the balance of nature as credit cards are needed to balance the payments industry. Yet the similarities may not end there. Nature reminds us that we inadvertently replicate it in the real world a whole lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment