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Joined 5 months ago
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Cake day: May 7th, 2024

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  • Absolutely, but if you were really interested in facts this information is not hard to find once you stop watching cable news…… I doubt you’ll read any of it but here is a random google search….

    Your snark, arrogance and cynicism are unwarranted and inappropriate.

    But I do appreciate your providing some info - I was genuinely curious and didn’t quite know where to find this evidence - initial searches did not turn up the kind of “overwhelming evidence” you claimed existed. I’m not for a second disputing the USA’s involvement in coup attempts or regime change in general - I think this is quite adequately documented. But your claim was that there is “…overwhelming evidence Blinken has supported multiple coup attempts” but the best you can do is to essentially say he’s guilty of this personally because he has worked for the US government.

    That’s honestly pretty weak.




  • This sounds excessive, that’s almost 1.1$/day, amounting to more than 2kWh/24hrs, ie ~80W/hr? You will need to invest in a TDP friendly build. I’m running a AMD APU (known for shitty idle consumption) with Raid 5 and still hover less than 40W/h.

    This isn’t speculation on my part, I measured the consumption with a Kill-a-watt. It’s an 11 year old PC with 4 hard drives and multiple fans because it’s in a hot environment and hard drive usage is significant because it’s running security camera software in a virtual machine. Host OS is Linux MInt. It averages right around 110w. I’m fully aware that’s very high relative to something purpose built.

    You will need to invest in a TDP friendly build

    Right, and spend even more money.









  • As the article points out, it’s not just a question of safety.

    “Farmers who brought this case with us – along with local scientists – currently grow different varieties of rice, including high-value seeds they have worked with for generations and have control over. They’re rightly concerned that if their organic or heirloom varieties get mixed up with patented, genetically engineered rice, that could sabotage their certifications, reducing their market appeal and ultimately threatening their livelihoods.”





  • It is selecting genes through breeding or doing the same thing in a laboratory.

    It is a completely different mechanism. The best way to simply describe this is perhaps to say that in selective breeding you are allowing random mutations to happen naturally - IOW allowing the plant to naturally “adapt” to it’s environment. This is crucially different in that you are not going in and saying “oh these genes are the ones we want let’s only bring those out” but rather “these are the characteristics I want, let’s select the organisms that display those”.

    To put it another way: in selective breeding you are selecting for a collection of characteristics. A great example is saving seed from a crop you have grown. Those seeds will always do better in your specific environment than commercially purchased seeds of the exact same cultivar. Why? Because there are small random mutations across a number of genes that are better adapted to your specific environment to produce the characteristics you want. Those genes are often not actually understood nor is the effect of different combinations of genes. By working backward from exhibited characteristics you are working from known successful combinations.


  • It all depends what your definition of genetic modification is.

    No it doesn’t.

    It’s a completely disingenuous argument and a false equivalency. We know that we are referring to GMO vs selective breeding. These are completely different mechanisms and in the latter case we understand the consequences and implications because humans have been doing it for millennia. In the former case we have not been doing it very long at all and do not yet fully understand the consequences and implications. I’m not saying that makes it inherently wrong, but it is a vast area of unknown ramifications. And given human’s already long history of fucking with nature and finding out my money is on those ramifications being less than ideal.



  • I know there are great alternatives, but they all have higher labour requirements.

    1. Not necessarily - I’d argue any higher labor requirements are more than offset by the increased value the producer (ie higher margins); 2. So what. Modern capitalism can’t tolerate that - this is very true. Because we have these very long complex food production chains that demand the lowest possible input costs in order to survive. But there is a way out and it doesn’t require re-inventing capitalism: decentralization of production and promotion of smaller more diversified farms. This absolutely can be done and we know because we have been doing it, just not quite enough to offset the corporate forces of centralization. Small farms and farmer’s markets need help and part of that is up to consumers to make the choice. Part of it is regulatory capture by big food corporations who have shaped our food chain to make sure that small farms are at a huge disadvantage.

    On #1 - a diversified farm growing “speciality crops” (USDA speak for food we consume directly instead of commodities) will typically have margins >20% and can easily net $25k or more an acre. In commodities, even the highest net for almonds and pistachios might only get you $1.2-1.5k per acre. Many commodities like corn can have a negative margin and only survive through subsidies.

    All this matters because farmers have literally been digging their own graves and become little more than share croppers. It’s so hard to be viable direct to consumer there is little choice - a really classic example being chicken production where it’s virtually impossible to be an independent producer because companies like Tyson have made sure all the regulations favor them. So now they’ll loan you the money for facilities you’ll never pay off and you have no choice but to sell to them at whatever price they set.


  • I wish this was common knowledge.

    Looking at the marketing of big ag and big food, it’s not surprising. The first lie of industrialized agriculture was that it was necessary to feed the world and “free people from slavery to the land”. It’s absolutely true that technology has massively improved agriculture and a great deal of that technology is hugely beneficial… but it also created an industry that, in essence, produces too much. It is driven to lower costs, and thus margins for producers while increasing profits for large corporations. The longer the food chain the more hands needing profit, thus spreading out value and increasing the need to add value through processed food, clever packaging and increased consumption.

    By decentralizing agriculture we can shorten the chain - reducing excess production, leaving more value for the producers, reducing the impact of monocultures by spreading them out and reducing their size and ultimately bringing better and more equitable distribution of nutrition to consumers.