Nope this is not about a new performance management appraisal system. That discussion will be saved for tomorrow, in a meeting, not in a blog. Unless there is high demand for that sort of material. If you are really craving appraisal info please let me know and I’ll post the minutes of what is sure to be a scintillating event.
Instead this post is about ecosystems, intelligence, complexity, and probably a few other things. I was recently asked a bunch of questions by a relative back in North America, which fell broadly under his interest in grassland sustainability. These questions included items like:
1. Is there traditional wisdom in place that allows the grass to recover from grazing or is it pretty much continuous grazing of the same land?
2. Is there any evidence that wells/boreholes might increase desert growth of an area because larger populations of people would be in the area?
Instead this post is about ecosystems, intelligence, complexity, and probably a few other things. I was recently asked a bunch of questions by a relative back in North America, which fell broadly under his interest in grassland sustainability. These questions included items like:
1. Is there traditional wisdom in place that allows the grass to recover from grazing or is it pretty much continuous grazing of the same land?
2. Is there any evidence that wells/boreholes might increase desert growth of an area because larger populations of people would be in the area?
And many others.
I won’t bore you with the detailed responses, but as I was drafting my still relatively uninformed opinions into some sort of a reply, I started to realize something: The harder we work to control our environment, the harder we have to work to control our environment. Nature has a way of regulating systems so that they stay in balance. This regulation is simple and requires no great intelligence on our part. If there is a lot of grass, cows will be healthy, re-produce rapidly and increase in number. If there are a lot of cows, grass will run out, and some cows will succumb to hunger, disease etc. Which is all well and good, except that sometimes us humans, being the intelligent beings that we are, decide that we don’t like this balance. We don’t want our cows to die, so we re-arrange things to suit our needs. And the more we re-arrange things the harder it gets to predict what the results are.
We keep our cattle alive through irrigation, building dams, fertilizing our fields, genetically engineering our crops, medicating our animals etc. These strategies allow us to feed ourselves which is good, but lead to a host of other problems which are bad. Medication keeps the animal healthy which is good, but some medications cause side effects in animals/humans which are bad, so we do more research and find new alternatives, which are good etc.
The Dinka haven’t done a lot of re-arranging. They’re just getting started. If it doesn’t rain here cattle still die, which is bad, or is it good? Sometimes the answers aren’t as simple as they appear, or maybe they are. The world is full of intelligent people. We better make sure that our intelligence can keep pace with our ability to make things more complex.
This provokes interesting discussion, Luke--our world is intelligent indeed! By the way, we would like to hear about the 'scintillating' meeting.
ReplyDeleteI am sure that your detailed (albeit relatively "uninformed" which given the relative nature of you location is more informed that I could give) will be appreciated by the un-named North American relative. :)
ReplyDeleteIt seems that nature is very intelligent, whether it is a body or an earth (which may be considered a body on a grander scale) is built to work toward health. For example, a fever, which indicates illness is also a response to an "invasion" and an attempt by the body to kill off the intruders. (Of course your friends who are healthcare providers will be able to give more specific examples.)
I'm with you, that I hope that as humans, we don't kill our body (earth) -- and are intelligent enough to figure out how to work together and with her intelligence.
Thanks for sharing your musings!
Hugs,
Liw