ynthrepic

ynthrepic, 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

Is the royal family not the richest in the UK? Edit: Not just me wondering this I see!

ynthrepic, 9 days ago

The good news is that if someone went back and changed the past, then events would transpire such that they never had to go back in time for that reason, and so they wouldn’t., i.e. nothing would change. Not unless the whole exercise spins only the time traveler off into their own new universe in which they’re the only one with a memory of this alternative timeline from which they came.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

Yeah… There’s a bigger question too that is, why can’t other foods containing Vitamin A be supplied to the starving people of the Philippines? There are so many sources.

Let’s consider how fucked it is that even considering introducing this crop to the wild is necessary.

I’ve previously supported golden rice, but you’ve changed my mind. We should just be doing more to support developing nations directly. The world has sufficient abundance we shouldn’t need to take these dangerous shortcuts. Not yet.

Try me when we’re closer to Mad Max earth.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

This.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

I don’t like Greenpeace, but these are good arguments.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

That’s exactly what I’m saying we should do. Brown rice ironically while it is food, might be like giving a baby an economic pacifier instead of trade milk and expecting it to grow. The Philippines has a range of biodiverse crops and other commodities that have more value than just the one food to feed them all, which would undercut the market and stifle local knowledge over time.

That said someone here suggested a more advanced plan to seed the beta-carotine gene into the native species, which is awesome in theory, but could create patent law violations and just generally be incredibly risky to the very biodiversity we’re trying to protect.

This is why I think while the science is very cool, we should avoid such irreversible treatments unless it’s a last resort.

Mosquitos on the other hand. Love the idea of genetically editing those fuckers out of existence. As the world inevitably warms, malaria is only going to spread further and wider. We should be getting ahead of that catastrophic future while we have the chance.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

Sure, but that doesn’t really address the argument in making. It’s a lazy way out that benefits the western world for its low cost and the fact is carrying a patented gene modification. We should be doing more, not relying on risky shortcuts.

Maybe one day all rice cultivars will be golden and the world we’ll be better off for it. But if the history of other GM crops is anything to go by, it sucks for the environment, and low prices screw local farmers over.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

What about when rice prices crash and local small scale farmers go out of business?

ynthrepic, 30 days ago

I don’t follow. What goal posts have I shifted? I don’t deny that rice is easy. My point is that it’s a shortcut that could have other negative consequences that more funding could avoid.

ynthrepic, 29 days ago

Direct would be doing the farming for them, or handing over food directly. Or sending in workers to train local farmers to grid Vitamin A rich crops.

Rice is a shortcut, and sure it might “work”, but there are other potential long-term externalities at play here, that golden rice alone is insufficient to account for. It would be a plaster covering a surface wound when there is internal bleeding to worry about.

ynthrepic, 29 days ago

I just said what “directly” would actually look like after you said to help then directly. I didn’t endorse this approach necessarily. My point is that getting them to grow our GM crop is not “direct”.

I feel that you’re intentionally trying to one up me instead actually have a proper discussion here. Why not assume my intention here is to change my mind because together we might actually figure something out? This back and forth is all a waste of time otherwise.

My actual opinion is that we give them monetary aid conditioner on certain outcomes, and send in experienced people to support transitions to more sustainable and productive food production. The money can upgrade housing, farming and transport infrastructure, and help boost Vitamin A rich crop yields and sale prices. Also subsidize imports if Vitamin A rich foods to make up the difference if local yields are insufficient.

Expensive, hard work, job creating activities, instead of shortcuts.

ynthrepic, 28 days ago

I’m sorry that the only example you actually floated immediately contradicted your previous position of not driving farmers out of business.

How does supporting local farmers drive local farmers about of business?

Except there are kids whose lives and health we can save, right now, if we just start growing golden rice.

“Right now” would be mass sustained imports of Vitamin A supplements. Golden Rice still has some ways to go to be establish on existing rice farms, and then enjoy a successful growing season, even if it had been approved to proceed. If we want to “think of the children” seriously, money shouldn’t be an object and we’d be looking at multiple strategies all at once, and not relying solely on an experimental product like this.

We are talking about extremely poor people and areas here, where there is little or no infrastructure to support this as a long-term solution.

Sure, but that’s part of the problem isn’t it? Why don’t we also go in and fix that right now?

What you are suggesting requires drastic change and a lot of upfront money, and continued on-going long-term support and financial assistance.

Indeed. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s never going to happen. Given that fact, perhaps we need cheap and nasty shortcuts like golden rice in order to help poor people save themselves with minimal outside resources. Potential patent issues aside if the gene mixes in with local rice varients, and other risks to the environment, it would be great if there was more Vitamin A available in their poverty diets. But, I can see why there is opposition to this. It makes sense, and it’s not just “ignorant” people like me who think this, clearly.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

Three US democratic party is fairly “conservative” relative to European social democracies. That’s all.

ynthrepic, 1 month ago

You won’t be getting universal healthcare, decent paid parental leave, comprehensive worker protections, or 4-8 weeks’ holiday pay per year for the foreseeable future.

ynthrepic, 2 months ago

Work is fine, if it’s meaningful to you. Consuming is basically everything we do that isn’t “work”. And death is inevitable.

If we didn’t all have to do soul destroying jobs when we’re young, I think we’d grow up with less of a desire to waste our youths trying to die young taking stupid risks in the name of YOLO or whatever. It also doesn’t help most of us never stop do sounds south destroying jobs.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. More progressivism is needed to get us toward a post-work future. Check out ‘solar punk’. That’s a future worth wanting.

ynthrepic, 2 months ago

My understanding is that it was a Tumblr fad that became viral outside of Tumblr because it’s easy to recognize the absurdity, and it made a great target for ridiculing the woke (back when “woke” was a complement, and we just called this sort of thing being “politically correct”).

Point is, you can’t just impose new words on purpose. Language doesn’t work that way. It’s all about the viral memes taking off. So it’s always best to adapt existing language.

“They” is finally clicking in my mind as a singular gender neutral word, for example. It took a while, I have to admit.

ynthrepic, 2 months ago

Depends on the type of accident, but generally as far away from the point of impact with the bus as possible.

On balance of likelihood that’s going to be the back of bus.

High speed rear end is unlikely for a city bus. Most likely the bus rear ends someone because it can’t stop in time, or a head-on collision of some kind on a narrow road.

ynthrepic, 2 months ago

That’s what I meant too, so yeah. Other than the driver’s seat of course.

ynthrepic, 3 months ago

“…for the auto industry” Did they just edit a clickbait ass title?

Disdain Trump, but shitty media isn’t helping.

ynthrepic, 3 months ago

The side effects and risks are worth it when you only get one shot at puberty. If you don’t transition as a pre-pubescent teenager, you will never “pass” as well, especially as a transwoman.

A really good example of how successful you can be if you’re early is Corey Maison. There are cases of transition regret of course, but they’re still a very small percentage of the total, and that percentage is reduced by puberty blockers giving young people more time to figure out themselves and their own bodies, and to make the choice that’s right for them.

ynthrepic, 3 months ago

I was just interested to see what the reaction would be in this forum.

I thought the politics here was progressive honestly. Now I don’t know what it is.

Clearly the joke appeals to the audience of The Daily Show, which is not insignificant in US demographics.

ynthrepic, 3 months ago

Have you ever elected a progressive entertainer, and one with a pretty solid political track record to boot?

Honestly, I would put money on her running. Probably not this term, but quite possibly the next

ynthrepic, 3 months ago

It’s a skit, but there’s an element of sincerity to it.

I had thought The Daily Show was quite big outside of the US. But yeah if you don’t follow US politics there’s nothing to see here.

ynthrepic, 3 months ago

Shit posters are often some of the most insightful on issues like this. Comedians are not above picking sides when it comes to the culture wars. I would have thought the idea of Taylor Swift as president would be better received here than this. Not least of all because of how much it would piss off Trump. Even just more memes about it would be encouraging.

ynthrepic, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

I hear your righteous ideals and agree with them, but we will never get to a Solar Punk society or some other vision of a future worth wanting without convincing the powerful of the world to want it too. It’s never happening in a single generation, and it will be the work of our children our children’s children to establish the culture and the practical momentum toward that future.

Only something like 1-3% of people are psychopaths. I would argue high society, the ultra wealthy, are absolutely overrepresented, maybe 10-fold at least under capitalism when wealth buys protection and discretion, and you can get away with living a more hedonistic existence without consequences. But even so, that’s still only 10-30% of billionaires say, that are true psychopaths who care only for their own ambitions and designs.

The rest are just not aware that there are better ways, convinced their ideas are the right ones, and that they can do what nobody has been able to do before them. But they are the ones who have the wealth and resources to try.

You can absolutely be a progressive billionaire, and I’d argue right now, many, if not most of the world’s wealthiest are doing what they think is right for the world. It’s just hard to change anything like this in meaningful and enduring ways. So many moving parts, so many minds to change. They are still not as powerful on their own as whole government’s. So, nobody has quite figured out how to get there yet. But what progressives do by definition is they try. I would argue Taylor Swift is among these people who are trying. Like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and many others we could name.

Conservatives believe in the old ways, and that certain cruel status quos are necessary or natural. That being poor for example is your fate, your destined role. And likewise if you’re wealthy somehow your “earned it”. This belief is often enough for otherwise good people to turn a blind eye to the suffering that is occurring because of them. Or use it to argue their means justifies the end they seek. But most still care deep down. It’s just better for them and theirs not to do anything that would compromise that. And can you blame them? Maybe more than the average person. But, keeping a decent job, working hard, and living a middle class life in a liberal democracy is its own kind of “conservativism”. That’s what most of us are doing. You could just as easily argue almost nobody is actually “progressive” when the rubber meets the road, and who could blame us when it’s true a “normal” life under modern capitalism is how we get to live to be a hundred. It’s not obvious or even really confirmed that better options are in fact better. It’s all a theory waiting to be proven.

This is all to say, it’s about the best strategy for how we get there. Taylor Swift would kick Trump’s ass in a popularity contest, and she’d really boost moral. She’s more experienced than most celebrities in the political sphere and most of politics is fundraising and posturing anyway. What’s important is how much she defers to and empowers the experts. She seems like someone who will.

ynthrepic, 4 months ago

If only telling morons not to be morons was the solution to morons being morons.

ynthrepic, 4 months ago

Got the top row at Big Day Out here in NZ circa… 2004 or 2005 I think it was? Was pretty neat but the accoustics was so bad could barely hear anything.

ynthrepic, 4 months ago

‘Something’ is what we abstractly call that which is both not nothing and has some significance to us beyond being merely anything.