AI, Philosophy, Digestives, & Bleached Dogs

Or Why This Witch Gave Up Philosophizing for Baking

In his thought-provoking Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari¹ ponders a potential outcome of the advent of AI and data-driven algorithms that don’t merely track, but manipulate, our behavior:

What, then, will happen once we realise that customers and voters never make free choices, once we have the technology to calculate, design or outsmart their feelings? If the whole universe is pegged to the human experience, what will happen once the human experience becomes just another designable product, no different in essence from any other item in the supermarket?

Ouch.

Yet, it’s been happening already, perhaps for centuries, accelerating exponentially in over the last 40 years. Daunted? Yeah, I was, too, when I read it.

Then I lived a little. And baked.

I Gave Up Philosophizing

I used to tackle questions like these in the way I was taught in college—dialectic reasoning. Y’know, what Western philosophers—literally “lovers of wisdom”—have always done (till we nowadays think there’s no other way to love wisdom than to bone-dry, seriously and intently, think the fun out of life).

After transitioning, I began to see things differently, not by thinking but in doing. Like in eating, baking, drinking, and laughing.

Me, when I learned about bleached dogs. And me as a happier witch.

Digestives & Bleached Dogs

For two summers in the mid 1980s, after my junior and senior years of college, I took care of a gracious lady’s home while she traveled abroad. She had a Russian Blue cat (Ivan) and an adorable Sheltie dog named Sam that needed looking after, as well as a luxury condo with a jacuzzi. I mean, someone had to carry that burden, right?

When she came back at Summer’s end, she showed me pics of her travels. One year she went to Scotland and even further north to the Shetland Islands, the namesake and origin of little Sam’s breed—Shetland Shepherd. While we looked at pics, we snacked on these incredibly delicious cookies she’d brought back. She told me the locals called them “digestives.”

“That’s a bland name for these addictive little suckers,” I noted, then paused over a photo of her somewhere in the wilds of Shetland, surrounded by sheep and Shelties. But not Shelties like Sam. He had all the color and markings of midget collie. These Shelties were bigger and, well, paler.

A Sheltie, fresh from ceremonial bleaching.

“Do they bleach ‘em over there?” I smirked.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. It’s an indigenous ceremony to mark the solstice.”

“Wow! You met the hallowed bleached dogs of the North Sea!”

“Don’t be a smart aleck. That’s what the original Shelties look like. They were bred to herd sheep. Isn’t that right, Sam?” she said and gave him a cookie fragment.

I scratched my head. “Look bleached to me. And they seem drawn to you. Were you slipping ‘em digestives?”

Since then, I’ve associated digestives with Shelties.

Digestive Eternal Return

I didn’t come across digestives again till the 2000s, when they were being imported to American supermarkets as an “exotic” international delicacy. Any Shetlander or Scot’ll tell you they’re about as exotic as, um, a sheepdog. Still, I immediately bought them and gobbled them up.

See? That’s a human experience that data-points can track, but really, what are they gonna do with that intel?

In it’s own humble, smart-aleck way, my digestive-Sheltie association hallows a moment that’s, well, magik. I tied my taste buds and belly to a cultural artifact of a land I can only imagine and a dog breed’s history.

It’s human. Even more, it’s humanely fun. Yeah, kinda dad-joke fun. Odd fun.

Baking fun.

I don’t know what the future holds for the molding of human experience and the fate of civilization. By their nature, digestives are the antithesis of apocalypse. Every time I bake them, my kitchen reveals odors, movements, tastes, and emotions that I didn’t create. That nobody created. That end nothing but begin everything. They happened in the weird and wonderful convergence of human beings in a rich lady’s condo and on the wind-swept norse shores of a land faraway.

So, I bake them. And remember to savor. Everything.

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Digestives a la B*tch

Prep Time: 30min Cook Time: 15-20min Total Time: 45-60min Difficulty: Easy Servings: 12-15 biscuits/cookies

These suckers are not only addictive, they'll keep ya regular, I tell ya. A Scottish invention of the 19th Century, they're this universe’s version of Tolkien's Cram, only these taste good. I sometimes layer the tops with dark chocolate. You can also try jam. Even naked, though, these things make you feel like you're eating something hearty enough to take on Smaug. And you have my permission to eat them while you’re naked.

EQUIPMENT

2 baking sheets
Cooking Spray (to grease cookie sheets) or parchment paper
Grater
Silicone mat (optional)
Rolling pin
3in (8cm) cookie/biscuit cutter
Scotch blade
Fork
Wire rack

INGREDIENTS

⅔C (100g) Irish (Steel-Cut) Oats, plus a lot extra for rolling & dusting
½C (50g) whole wheat flour
6½t (0.4C) (50g) plain flour (or use all wholemeal flour, if you like)
¼C (50g) granulated sugar
½t fine salt
½t baking soda
5T (75g) butter
1 egg (beaten)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°) (400°F/200°C for high altitude).

2. Lightly spray two baking sheets and/or line with baking parchment.

3. Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl.

4. Grate butter into dry ingredients and rub with fingers till mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

5. Mix in (with hands) enough of beaten egg to make soft dough.

6. Pour b*tch-tonne of Irish Oats on workspace (I use silicone mat). Slap dough onto oats like a drunken Shetlander, sprinkle more oats over the top, then roll out ⅛ to ¼in (3-5mm) thick.

7a. Cut out circles and transfer to baking trays. (Using a scotch blade helps the transfer, as these boogers will be flimsy.)

7b. Re-roll scraps and cut out more circles, till dough is gone. Dust with oats as needed. (Depending how thick you rolled the dough, you should get 12-15 circles.)

8. With a fork, prick each circle a few times. (Go on. Get artsy with this jazz and make faces, say, from a Shetland Cubist milieu.)

9. Bake till mystically golden brown (15-20 min). Set out to cool 5 min.

10. Transfer digestives to wire rack till cool before storing (though you'll wanna much down on one while it's redolently warm). Store in airtight container at room temp. Should keep for a couple of weeks.

1. Harari makes clear that this is not his position. He’s offering it as a possible trajectory and asking what becomes of our lives if someone or something designs our experience of reality, a la The Matrix.