Imagine street lights that are self-constructing, self-repairing, self-replicating, solar-powered, and carbon-negative because they’re just bioluminescent trees
Imagine fibrous plants that grow super-strong spider silk. Plants that grow as fast as bamboo but as strong as steel
Imagine medicine coming in fruit instead of pills. Oh you want to transition? Here, take this HRT shrub. Put it on your windowsill, water it daily and throw some compost at it every once in a while, and eat one berry per day
Imagine crops that are more nutritious, disease- and pest-resistant, and grow in harsher climates and soil conditions, helping to provide more reliable food to impoverished peoples with no downside whatsoever oh wait we already have those don’t we
We can’t have rad forest cities full of dope biotech if we’re too scared to let people do the research that’ll lead to that. Science has spoken: the fear is unjustified, and GMOs are safe. Let’s embrace them!
From now on? I thought we already were! 😬
So here’s an interesting little bit of biotech that’s being worked on to help combat food insecurity…
Errr, first off, a little background? Plants have three different types of photosynthesis, based on the biochemical pathways the plant uses to capture CO₂ and make sugars for energy. The most common one is C3 photosynthesis, and it’s very old. This kind of photosynthesis probably evolved sometime in the mesozoic era, back when there were still dinosaurs wandering around.
Another type is C4 photosynthesis, which is a more recently evolved pathway. C4 carbon fixation is a lot more efficient, provides plants with more energy, and captures more CO₂. It evolved in environments with lots of light, so it’s common in warm parts of the world. In fact, C4 photosynthesis is so efficient that even though only about 5% of plants use it, they account for about 23% of the carbon fixation of all terrestrial plants!
C4 is the pathway used by sugarcane, which is what gives sugarcane one of the highest photosynthetic efficiencies of any plant. It’s also the pathway used by maize (corn) and sorghum (a popular grain in parts of Africa).
Anyway, that brings me to the genetic modification part.
The modified rice would theoretically be able to give higher crop yields, and do so using fewer nutrients and resources. As an added bonus, it would also help remove excess CO₂ from the atmosphere. The efforts are being coordinated by the International Rice Research Institute, who’ve received millions of dollars in donations towards the project – they’re the same organisation behind the golden rice project which was about making rice more nutritious for people affected by food scarcity.
Anyway tl;dr science is cool, genetic modification is a good thing, and it can be used to help end world hunger.
At my last company, one day someone in accounting approached me at lunch and quietly told me I need to ask for a raise because I was way underpaid.
They gave me a number to shoot for. It was about twice than what I had been making at the time.
So I went online, did some research, found some figures backing up my claim, put it all together and went to my boss.
I got what I asked for.
If it hadn’t been for that person in accounting telling me I was way underpaid, I’d have never known. I went from barely scraping by to being able to have a savings account and getting all my debts paid thanks to them.
You should at least check sites like salary.com to start the process of seeing what you should be making.
Like 93% of the self-contradictory behavior of fandom antis clicks into place when you realize the majority of them are victims of right wing authoritarian training from birth
Here, ‘right wing’ means ‘hates social change & prefers the established order/traditional way of doing things’, not ‘republican’. (Though in America it’s Republicans who have been taken over by right wing authoritarians. (Specifically Christian fundamentalist authoritarians.))
Authoritarianism can also be ‘left wing’, meaning ‘wants to overthrow the established order/traditional way of doing things’. people who supported Stalin when he overthrew Russia’s rulers would have been left-wing authoritarians.
All it takes to be an eager follower of authoritarian rule of any kind is
being very, very afraid
pretending you’re not afraid by being self-righteous
And reacting with
dogmatic loyalty to your ingroup – anyone who agrees with you – and your chosen leader to the point of defying logic, reason, and truth
burning resentment towards people who make you aware of your fear – and taking it out on a scapegoat (someone who you can pretend is scary, but you know can’t hurt you back)
deciding that you and your group is soafraid of somethingRight about everything that it’s your duty to wipe outthe thing you’re afraid ofthe Evil you oppose – and make everybody else agree (or pretend to agree) with you along the way.
like @curlicuecal said: authoritarianism can be found anywhere, and authoritarians can walk all kinds of life paths. it takes root wherever a would-be despot finds enough scared, hyper-submissive people they can rally to their cause and start crusading with.
I mean, fandom antis aren’t political right-wingers, but they’re doing just fine at this, aren’t they?
someone said:
People who dont like pedophilia are radical right wingers now huh?
first of all, a fun fact: most people who call literally everyone who they don’t like ‘pedophiles’ actually are radically right-wing – both politically and in the ‘everything that isn’t traditional is bad’ sense. like: antis literally lifted this tactic from fundamentalist Christians who say all gay people are pedophiles.
‘people who disagree with me are sexual perverts!!!’ is the most right-wing propaganda tactic there is.
that aside: please read more closely.
I don’t think fandom antis are right wing authoritarians: I think a whole bunch of them are the kids of right wing authoritarians.
I think their parents instilled all their own fear and anger and hatred and rigidity into their kid’s brain from day one. and after stuffing their kid with all this fear and alarm about the chaotic world out there … what should we expect their kids to feel when they realize they’re LGBT+/queer, or have a mental illness, or don’t believe in the same God as their parents do, or whatever else puts them on the ‘wrong’ side of order vs chaos?
If they don’t outright oppress & bury their own self-awareness – if they tentatively venture out and look for their own people – is it reasonable to expect adolescents who grew up trained for an authoritarian lifestyle to not fall facefirst into politically leftist spaces that promise authoritarian safety, rigidity, aggression and leadership? is it a surprise that many of them settle into spaces that keeps the things that might still scare them (their sexuality and their awareness of it, their gender, their sex drive or lack thereof) strictly off-limits? that lets them blow off their anger in familiar patterns of aggression towards outsiders? that lets them keep feeling like a Good Person despite their fear otherwise?
my point is this:
are all fandom antis from homes like this? of course not. anti-shipping isn’t a monolith, though the authoritarian part of it is by far the most organized.
Do all people who grew up in authoritarian homes react this way when they realize they don’t fit the proper mold? Heck no: a lot of people break out of authoritarian thinking as a whole when ejected from the fold like this.
but when I look at fandom anti-shipping as a movement that is primarily authoritarian in operation & design, a lot of the things I couldn’t understand before begin to make sense. (which I’ll elaborate on someday, I’m sure.)
re: this part of my argument above:
Authoritarianism can also be ‘left wing’, meaning ‘wants to overthrow the established order/traditional way of doing things’. people who supported Stalin LENIN when he overthrew Russia’s rulers would have been left-wing authoritarians.
1) I totally meant to say ‘Lenin’ there. this is what happens when I add a sentence at the last minute before hitting ‘post’.
2) @korrasera says I’m wrong about left-wing authoritarianism being a thing in this reblogand as I think I get lost easily in right wing vs left wing semantics, she’s probably right. please check out what she has to say.
at first, after the contestant minh thu professed her love for the other contestant truc nhu, they walked out of the show together:
but apparently afterwards, the bachelor quoc trung met up with truc nhu and convinced her to remain on the show, which pretty much broke hearts everywhere:
BUT i just found out that minh thu and truc nhu are officially together as a couple!!!
backup 