“Study the science of art. Study the art of science… Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
…seeing the interconnectedness of diverse aspects of the world went out of fashion after the Renaissance, when Western thinkers largely adopted a more atomistic, analytical approach to science and philosophy pioneered by scientists such as Galileo and philosophers such as René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes [who viewed] the world in terms of individualised foundations or building blocks, which could be best understood through analysis rather than integration. The new approach was: if you want to know how things work, take them apart and examine the pieces.”We humans can take things apart. It’s examining them – or not – and putting the pieces back together with coherence that challenges us.
News blues…
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| Poisoned vultures in Mozambique. Photo: Andre Botha/AP Click to enlarge. |
At least 87 critically endangered birds died in Mozambique after eating poison planted by poachers in the carcass of an elephant.Making connections
[In India]… from 1992 to 2007, [the] most common three vulture species declined by between 97% and 99.9%... only once the vultures had gone did people realise the crucial job they had been doing in clearing up the corpses of domestic and wild animals. Rotting carcasses contaminated water supplies, while rats and feral dogs multiplied, leading to a huge increase in the risk of disease for humans.
…a decade [later]… the key cause [of vultures’ deaths] was confirmed… feeding on animal carcasses containing diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely given to domestic cattle but poisonous to birds.
… a similar story is unfolding in Africa … home to 11 of the world’s 16 old world vulture species. … From Kenya to Ethiopia, Botswana and South Africa, these birds have been a reassuring and seemingly permanent presence wherever big game animals roam. But now there are signs that Africa’s vulture populations are also plummeting at an alarming rate.
…while deliberate poisoning by poachers does occur, other cases are unintentional. “Pastoralists and rural farmers try to protect their livestock from wild dogs, jackals, lions and hyenas by poisoning predators, and vultures are the unfortunate collateral damage.”
“Another fundamental problem is the rapid economic growth and accompanying consumption and construction of infrastructure,” he says. Power lines and wind turbines are a particular problem if safe design principles are ignored. Vultures – due to their large size – are especially vulnerable to colliding with them, or being electrocuted when perching.
…“Vultures play a vital role within human ecosystems that most people are unaware of, and so they don’t class their conservation as important. We only have to look to Asia as an example of what could happen in the face of continued vulture declines in Africa.”
…scientists have referred to the diversity of life on Earth as “biological diversity”, or just “biodiversity”….[defined] as operating at three levels: the diversity of genes within any particular species; the diversity of species in a given place; and the diversity of habitat types such as forests, coral reefs, and so on. But … [a] fourth level has been almost entirely overlooked: cultural diversity.
Culture is knowledge and skills that flow socially from individual to individual and generation to generation. It’s not in genes. Socially learned skills, traditions and dialects that answer the question of “how we live here” are crucial to helping many populations survive – or recover. Crucially, culturally learned skills vary from place to place. In the human family many cultures, underappreciated, have been lost. Culture in the other-than-human world has been almost entirely missed.
… in many species, survival skills must be learned from elders who learned from their elders. Until now, culture has remained a largely hidden, unrecognised layer of wild lives. Yet for many species culture is both crucial and fragile. Long before a population declines to numbers low enough to seem threatened with extinction, their special cultural knowledge, earned and passed down over long generations, begins disappearing. Recovery of lost populations then becomes much more difficult than bringing in a few individuals and turning them loose.
…Cultural survival skills erode as habitats shrink. Maintaining genetic diversity is not enough. We’ve become accustomed to a perilous satisfaction with precariously minimal populations that not only risk genetic viability of populations but almost guarantee losing local cultural knowledge by which populations have lived and survived.
…What’s at stake is: ways of knowing how to be in the world. Culture isn’t just a boutique concern. Cultural knowledge is what allows many populations to survive. Keeping the knowledge of how to live in a habitat can be almost as important to the persistence of a species as keeping the habitat; both are needed. Cultural diversity itself is a source of resilience and adaptability to change. And change is accelerating.
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Daily Maverick Webinar Exclusive, “Influence: From South Africa ‘94 to Trump ‘20, how elections are manipulated & monetised across the world.”In 1993, Western strategic communications specialists were brought in to help political parties prepare for South Africa's first democratic election. Their work in part paved the way for the development of a lucrative and far-reaching new business model: the commodification of democracy, through the manipulation of election campaigns.Join Influence directors Richard Poplak and Diana Neille in conversation with Nigel Oakes on what went on behind the scenes of the '94 election; how it helped establish a host of new weaponised communications tools for geopolitical processes in the 21st century, and what we can expect in the lead-up to the 2020 election in the United States.
Nigel Oakes is a British behavioural thought leader and defence scientist, whose ideas have laid the foundation for many significant developments in both military influence and population analysis. He is the former CEO of SCL Group, which was the holding company for Cambridge Analytica, and is the current Chairman of the Behavioural Dynamics Institute. Oakes was one of the consultants who helped prepare for the 1994 elections.I urge you to watch this webinar.
Nigel Oakes describes himself as “amoral” – and, indeed, that’s his excuse for doing things that would be better undone.
After the webinar, read Christopher Wylie’s book, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America. (Get the kindle edition at your local library or buy at Amazon )
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Time to hibernate.Little overnight frost last night and none predicted tonight.
The garden looks gray, burned, and exhausted.
I’ll prune frost-burned plants later in the season. For now, what remains of the damaged plants – blackened and shriveled buds, leaves, and limbs - provide shelter for undamaged plants.
Uniform gray, burned, and exhausted plants and gardens in evidence throughout the neighborhood during my (mercifully uneventful) daily walk.
Overcast weather was cold enough that, despite wearing a heavy faux-sheepskin jacket and thick pants, I did not overheat.
Dogs barked. I barked back. Dogs barked more. I passed by. Next household’s dog barked…
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