Kujua (to know) as prediction

 

Source: https://tconglobal.com/the-predictability-thinking-index/

1.       Jua – know.

Etymology

From Proto-Bantu *-jɪ́jiba.

Verb

-jua (infinitive kujua)

to know

Nominal derivations:

ujuzi (“knowledge, experience”)

 

2.       Jua – sun.

Etymology

From Proto-Bantu *ìjʊ́bà.

 

The primary symbol of predictability and permanence is the sun. In the equatorial zone (tropics), everybody knows that the sun will rise from the east at a particular time and position and set to the west at a particular time and position. There are only very slight variations in this time and position in the tropics. These variations get more pronounced further south or north, but the predictability remains constant when the times and positions are measured using repeatability and reproducibility over a specified period of time. Predictability is a factor of the cultivation of ujuzi (knowledge,experience) whose primary inputs are budget(resources) and timeline(procedure).

An example of this kind of measurement in an environment of seeming variability is ‘climate’. Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged from measurement over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to “millions of years”. Some of the meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, longitude, terrain, altitude, land use and nearby water bodies and their currents.

Climate may also mean the prevailing trend of public opinion or of another aspect of public life.

"The current economic climate"

Similar: Atmosphere, mood, temper, spirit, feeling, feel, ambience, aura, tenor, tendency, essence, ethos, attitude, milieu, vibe(s)

Control, Risk, Anxiety and imaginations

Within Eurasian societies, the desire for predictability is usually typified by the “silver bullet” folklore. In Eurasian mythology, a bullet cast from silver is often one of the few weapons that are effective against a werewolf or witch. Swedish folklore tends to ascribe silver bullets as a catch all weapon against creatures, as wizards or the skogsrå, that are "hard" against regular ammunition. In mythical stories, a werewolf (from Old English werwulf 'man-wolf'), or occasionally lycanthrope (from Ancient Greek λυκάνθρωπος, lukánthrōpos, 'wolf-human'), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature). The idea of therianthropism is a reflection of psychological anxiety towards unpredictability for an entity that desires absolute control. Belief in werewolves developed in parallel to the belief in witches, in the course of the Eurasian late middle ages and the early modern period. The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon. During the early period, accusations of lycanthropy (transformation into a wolf) were mixed with accusations of wolf-riding or wolf-charming. The case of Peter Stumpp (1589) led to a significant peak in both interest in and persecution of supposed werewolves, primarily in French-speaking and German-speaking Europe. ‘Witches’ and ‘werewolves’ are symbols of unpredictability. The idea of a silver bullet being the only ammunition capable of killing these imaginary creatures symbolizes the elimination of unpredictability and acquisition of control. These symbols can be labelled on real people, groups, ideologies, cultures, and so forth to rationalize them as pariahs as a prelude to their extermination.

A contemporary example of a ‘silver bullet’ is oil. It can be transformed to various products and put to a variety of uses that require energy to produce work. With dwindling oil reserves there has been rhetoric of an “energy crisis” accompanied by the rhetoric of “climate change” which is used to rationalize and justify a variety of interventions. Various energy sources categorized as “green energy” have been receiving high capital investments in the hope that one of them could emerge as a silver bullet equivalent to oil. This is a highly unpredictable terrain that has seen high losses due to still vague risk profiles, inadequate feasibility, and low technological capability which, when applied through a predictable methodology often produce unsatisfactory results.

There have been examples of relatively unpredictable intervention producing more satisfactory results. For example, the extraction of timber for fuel feedstocks - used to produce biofuels - produces more satisfactory regeneration results through measured but unpredictable methods of burning a forest compared to controlled logging. The effects on the people from air pollution and excess heat in the forest fires incidents has not been factored into this particular research published on Environmental Reviews journal. 9(4)

“As a rule, harvesting and wildfire affect biodiversity in different ways, which vary a great deal among ecosystem types, harvesting practices, and scale of disturbance. The scales of disturbance are different in that patch sizes created by logging are a small subset of the range of those of wildfire. In particular, typical forestry does not result in the large numbers of small disturbances and the small number of extremely large disturbances created by wildfires. Moreover, the frequency of timber harvesting is generally different from typical fire return intervals. The latter varies widely, with stand-replacing fires occurring in the range of 20 to 500 years in Canada. In contrast, harvest frequencies are dictated primarily by the rotational age at merchantable size, which typically ranges from 40 to 100 years. Forest harvesting does not maintain the natural stand-age distributions associated with wildfire in many regions, especially in the oldest age classes. The occurrence of fire on the landscape is largely a function of stand age and flammability, slope, aspect, valley orientation, and the location of a timely ignition event. These factors result in a complex mosaic of stand types and ages on the landscape. Timber harvesting does not generally emulate these ecological influences. The shape of cut blocks does not follow the general ellipse pattern of wind driven fires, nor do harvested stands have the ragged edges and unburned patches typically found in stand-replacing fires. Wildfire also leaves large numbers of snags and abundant coarse woody debris, while some types of harvesting typically leave few standing trees and not much large debris. Successional pathways following logging and fire often differ. Harvesting tends to favor angiosperm trees and results in less dominance by conifers. Also, understory species richness and cover do not always recover to the pre-harvest condition during the rotation periods used in typical logging, especially in eastern Canada and in old-growth forests. As well, animal species that depend on conifers or old-growth forests are affected negatively by forest harvesting in ways that may not occur after wildfire. The road networks developed for timber extraction cause erosion, reduce the areas available for reforestation, fragment the landscape for some species and ecological functions, and allow easier access by humans, whereas there is no such equivalency in a fire-disturbed forest.”

D J McRae, L C Duchesne, B Freedman, T J Lynham, and S Woodley. (2011). Comparisons between wildfire and forest harvesting and their implications in forest management. Environmental Reviews. 9(4): 223-260. https://doi.org/10.1139/a01-010

The forest variables of: stand age and flammability, slope, aspect, valley orientation, and the location of a timely ignition event, would be the units of measurement used in determining which forest to set alight, and also where and when to set it alight. The implications of the potential scaling of these activities are disastrous to lives, property and health and it is very ironical how they are intertwined within the general rhetoric of “climate change” and “green energy” as a solution to “rising temperatures”. While the forest fires themselves cause rising temperature.

 

References

D J McRae, L C Duchesne, B Freedman, T J Lynham, and S Woodley. (2011). Comparisons between wildfire and forest harvesting and their implications in forest management. Environmental Reviews. 9(4): 223-260. https://doi.org/10.1139/a01-010

Sven Rothman (1941): Östgötska folkminnen. Uppsala. s.41

TUKI (2001), Kamusi Ya Kiswahili-Kiingereza; Swahili-English Dictionary. Published by Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili (TUKI), Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.