Intelligent design as a resource

[daylen]

I have been reading several books on permaculture lately, and I thought of an idea. Why isn't intelligent design ability considered a resource? The ability to creatively observe and respond to change in a system varies with respect to time just as does water, energy, social capital, and so forth. In designing a sustainable system, the variation of intelligent design ability itself should be accounted for.

For instance, consider the contingency of the lead designer of the system dying without passing on this valuable resource, then a system that requires consistent intelligent design would become fragile. This resource requires time to develop and years of practice which further amplifies the potential problem. Developing a large social web of connections would minimize the variance of this resource, and fall-back systems (that have similar structure to the original system) should be in place that require less intelligent interaction to sustain.

I think a parallel to this thought was mentioned by Jacob at some point when he considered falling back to an annuity/perpetuity if he failed to intelligently design a portfolio in his older age.

Just venting thought.

[bryan]

Of course, this problem is not unique to permaculture. It is accounted for in some models/theories where it is a more obvious, important risk factor (business, military, economics). It would be good if humans were better able to (be aware of and) estimate risks

On the bright side, eventually intelligence will be banked inside of systems of computer systems and humans won't need to worry about such things ourselves

[Gilberto de Piento]

I read the title and thought you meant something else. Intelligent design is an alternative to believing in evolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

[halfmoon]

I read the title and thought you meant something else. Intelligent design is an alternative to believing in evolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

Glad I'm not the only one.

[7Wannabe5]

@daylen: I think what you are attempting to describe is an aspect of embodied energy. You might be too young to remember this but there used to be a public service commercial for the United Negro College Fund that included the very memorable line "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." IOW, skin tone is a terrible method for measuring how societal investment in educational funds might be best allocated. This is a poignant example of how any time you are applying a rigid linear method of analysis, you are being too stupid because you are not allocating adequate life-energy to the brain functioning that would allow you to be smarter. IOW, you are sacrificing overall increase in resiliency of system in favor of efficient growth in mono-dimension.

Another example would be the difference between goal of preparing a meal that contains less than X% fat and Y% sucrose and is palatable vs. preparing a meal that is delicious and nutritious. Or the difference between the value of maintaining a University in your locale vs. X% of students in your locale achieving Y% success on standardized test. IOW, qualities that can readily be intuited through broad sensory and intellectual perception vs. quantities that can be measured and likely eventually achieved by a robot.

Even putting aside the current availability of cheap petroleum, using PVC to power robots is more efficient use of solar/land acreage than growing potatoes to power human beings. Therefore, it becomes more important than ever to value that which makes us human in our own wonderfully creative myriad inefficient ways.

[enigmaT120]

When I see tripe for sale in the stores, I can't stop myself from thinking "A mind is a terrible thing to taste." even though I've never tried it.

Intelligent Design isn't really an alternative to evolution, it's just an attempt to insert God into normal evolutionary theory, saying He gives it little prods to guide it. I think it's blasphemy. I have no idea why it was ever invented, though even the papacy seems to have accepted that it's possible.

[halfmoon]

I'm pretty sure that tripe is stomach lining, not brain. Also can mean nonsense, as in "Intelligent Design (the religious version) is utter tripe."

[enigmaT120]

Oh. I haven't eaten that either, except as sausage casings. I thought there was some specific word for cow brains as food but I can't find it.
Thanks!

[bryan]

Never heard of tripe being used for sausage (you probably mean intestines?). Tripe can be decent if chewy or rather rank. I usually stay away from ordering it at restaurants or cooking it myself on the chance that it is rank (if it's home-processed and your family/friend chef attests to it's non-rankness, sure).

[George the original one]

Pho is about the only way I've found tripe to be accessible for I have no stomach for haggis.

Google says cow brain is Cervelle de Vea in Europe or sesos in Mexico. Either way, mad cow disease is to be avoided, I think.

[Dragline]

Yup, tripe is guts. Good in soup if done right, particularly the Romanian "Ciorba de Burta", which translates literally as "belly broth."

[Ego]

Back when we were dating, Mrs. Ego's grandmother would make menudo especially for me and she would sit and watch me eat it. I think she was trying to encourage me to go away.

[halfmoon]

I've had tripe only in dim sum. It was delicious thanks to the sauce. The restaurant we used to work in served sweetbreads, which customers invariably believed were testicles for some reason. They're actually the thymus or pancreas and were basically a soft, spongy vehicle for another great sauce.

DH thinks Americans are a bunch of wimps because we generally shun organs or otherwise unfamiliar parts of the animal. He ate sour lung on a regular basis back in Munich. My mother used to serve beef tongue, and I eat it now in taco or burritos. On the other hand: we saw packages of Pork Anus in a Chinatown meat market, and I draw the line there. Wimps R Us.

What was the original topic again?

[Dragline]

I had a tripe taco tonight. It was good, but not as good as the spicy goat meat. There was a beef tongue available. Maybe another time.

I have a Czech friend who is constantly trying to smuggle in various meats from Europe. The Swedish sausage was duly confiscated. Then there was the horrible story about the carp that ended up in "lost luggage" for two weeks. I'll ask him about Pork Anus.

[halfmoon]

Then there was the horrible story about the carp that ended up in "lost luggage" for two weeks. I'll ask him about Pork Anus.

Did you ask your friend? I also NEED to hear the horrible carp story.

DH hasn't (knowingly) eaten pork anus, but he loves blood sausage and blood-and-tongue sausage. When I grew up in Pennsylvania, scrapple was regularly sold in grocery stores; maybe it still is. This is a gelatinous cake made from unknown meat scraps (as my brother would say: the parts that think, the parts that blink, and the parts that stink) cooked with cormeal and lard. It's commonly sliced, then fried in more lard (because no such thing as too much lard, eh brute?) and eaten for breakfast.

For what it's worth: my grandfather ate a lot of this stuff, and he lived a long, active life.

[Dragline]

My MIL makes scrapple when we visit them in Northeast PA. Mystery breakfast meat! Tastes great with hot sauce on it.

Eating fresh carp is a Christmas tradition in the Czech Republic and other parts of central and eastern Europe. Families will often keep live carp in their bathtubs so they are fresh for Christmas Eve dinner. So my friend was given this large carp (freshly killed) by some relatives to bring back from Prague to the US. He figured it would survive a trip and plane ride at cold temperatures, so packed it in his checked luggage. Unfortunately, his luggage got lost and took a trip to Miami. He did not get it back for two weeks.

Needless to say, the carp was inedible by then. And all his clothes smelled like dead fish.

[halfmoon]

See? I knew I needed to hear that carp story! It will live forever in the retelling.

You just blew up another misconception we'd been clinging to: carp are nasty-tasting. I googled this, and apparently (as with most things) opinion varies with region and culture. However: I think we can unite worldwide in agreement that any fish would be undesirable after spending 2 weeks on land in Miami.

Tastes great with hot sauce on it.

I envision this as a marketing slogan for all sorts of mystery meat: scrapple, Spam, Soylent Green...

[EMJ]

we saw packages of Pork Anus in a Chinatown meat market,

off, off topic

This American Life
Ben Calhoun tells a story of physical resemblance — not of a person, but of food. A while ago, a farmer walked through a pork processing plant in Oklahoma with a friend who managed it. He came across boxes stacked on the floor with labels that said "artificial calamari." So he asked his friend "What’s artificial calamari?" "Bung," his friend replied. "Hog rectum." Have you or I eaten bung dressed up as seafood? Ben investigated

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- ... gers?act=1

[halfmoon]

Now I know why we only buy calamari steaks! No ring(er)s.

[jacob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB-JzPBJalA ... also applies to "eating".