Recently I read an article by John Gray on what cats can teach us. One very interesting point in that is that there are no feline suicide warriors. Morality/Ethics at certain scale becomes a war machine.
The insight about how the realized function can be the opposite of the stated function is really interesting, and underlies the focus of complexity science on the interactions between components, and the dependencies therein. If for A to perform it's stated function it requires B to perform it's stated function, then any disruption (i.e. to the stated function A or B) will have implications for the other, which is why redundancies are so important.
The cloggage of the Suez canal is just like the cloggage of coronary arteries. Obviously if you already have big plaques you are at an increased risk, but all it takes is the right ship turning sideways to wreck you.
Another point is the development of collateral circulation. In people with longstanding obstruction of blood flow, the body will develop alternative routes. We more commonly see this in patients with portal vein obstruction (with shunts and skin changes that reflect this) or coronary obstruction. In the latter, heart attacks tend to be less fatal (or at least less fulminant) when compared to people without prior obstruction (aka previously unchallenged circulatory systems).
Recently I read an article by John Gray on what cats can teach us. One very interesting point in that is that there are no feline suicide warriors. Morality/Ethics at certain scale becomes a war machine.
The insight about how the realized function can be the opposite of the stated function is really interesting, and underlies the focus of complexity science on the interactions between components, and the dependencies therein. If for A to perform it's stated function it requires B to perform it's stated function, then any disruption (i.e. to the stated function A or B) will have implications for the other, which is why redundancies are so important.
The cloggage of the Suez canal is just like the cloggage of coronary arteries. Obviously if you already have big plaques you are at an increased risk, but all it takes is the right ship turning sideways to wreck you.
Another point is the development of collateral circulation. In people with longstanding obstruction of blood flow, the body will develop alternative routes. We more commonly see this in patients with portal vein obstruction (with shunts and skin changes that reflect this) or coronary obstruction. In the latter, heart attacks tend to be less fatal (or at least less fulminant) when compared to people without prior obstruction (aka previously unchallenged circulatory systems).