Fake Flowers
Just use a bottle opener
I take lots of risks. Many I probably can’t justify, like riding a bicycle in Kyiv, where the benefit of arriving places a few minutes earlier couldn’t possibly justify the risk of a horrible accident multiplied by the value I place on my own life.
Similarly, I probably don’t check my wallet often enough to see if I’ll be able to afford one low-sulfite beverage at least once a week. Now, granted, there’s the concept of bounded rationality— namely, if I took out one day a week to walk to work and look for Mukuzani bargains, I’d probably feel a little more safe and content, but I’d be throwing away a seventh of my life before that.
So rationality has costs.
Which brings us to the banana and the watermelon, which arrived unexpectedly from Mykolaiv region last night, delivered to our doorstep with bunches of grapes. We put the banana on top of the watermelon in order to demonstrate the latter’s tremendous size. Unfortunately, the picture makes the watermelon look smaller than it actually is in respect to the banana.
This got me wondering what Mykolaiv region’s official flower is.
A brain that is going to soak up ecologically useful information, like where flowers and fruits come from, will probably have a survival advantatage over brains that just like to look at rocks or dirt or sand or sky. Flowers are forerunners of fruit. Ecosystems with lots of flowers are likely to be rich and productive. If you prefer to live in places with flowers, you are more likely to find yourself in a place with lots of food sources. And, more to the point, if you pay attention to where the flowers are now, you can predict where the watermelons will be several months from now.
My search for the official flower of Mykolaiv region ended in disappointment. It’s a fake flower dreamt up by Ukraine’s Culture Ministry. The exercise reminded me of the realization we came to on March 4, namely that Putin might actually a drop nuclear bomb to subdue Ukraine1. We concluded then what will happen cannot be avoided. If someone wants to kill himself, there’s little you can do to prevent it.
The same goes with watermelons from Mykolaiv2. Either they arrive unexpectedly or they don't.
The lesson Ukraine’s spherical cow teaches us is that numerous non-cooperating agents using the same pure strategy for analysis are guaranteed to fail. That's why we shouldn’t pay too much attention to official daily updates by ISW and foreign intelligence agencies about the status of fascist Russia’s genocidal campaign in Ukraine3.
Ukraine’s Spherical Cow. Oh, that place is so crowded. No one goes there any more (October 16, 2021)
Ignore Analysts. Stay away from experts (June 18, 2022)