The status of ArmoredDragon financial or other potential gains from GMOs is also very important to judge the value of the information in his post, I think you will agree.
Of which I have none, by the way. I do not have any investments in anything agricultural (I mostly hold funds in technology, medicine, bonds, and international mid-cap.)
Sorry, but this is utterly wrong. The reason the non-bruising produce is a problem is simple: it tastes terrible.
Ya think? Really? And what do you think happens to the produce when it tastes terrible? Go ahead, take some guesses.
Dumbass.
The best thing you can do is recognize the reality, and stop freaking out over "imaginary" enemies, or pretending Greenpeace, with a budget in the millions, is somehow capable of defeating ADM, McDonalds, Monsanto, and others with actual HUGE amounts of money to lobby the actual Congress critters, who granted, don't give a shit about science,
And therein lies the problem: Them, and the general populace, are less likely to trust those companies over greenpeace. Just like you, them, and greenpeace, don't give a shit about science. That, and you proved at the start of your post that you're fucking stupid.
No, the activists haven't lost: Their fear campaign has already caused a lot of damage, and continues to do so. It's hard to sell produce that doesn't bruise (which reduces huge amounts of waste, including waste of what is needed to grow the plant, such as water) because anti-GMO activists have convinced the masses that it causes cancer or that it will make your dick fly off. This even applies to GMO tech that aims to eliminate the chance of acrylamide (a strong carcinogen) from showing up in cooked plant matter (including coffee.) Somebody has already created a potato with this gene, but they're not going to sell it because the mere fact that it is advertised as such also advertises that it is GMO, and for that reason alone, many will not buy it, hence it is not marketable. Furthermore, entire countries have banned it entirely based on anti-GMO bullshit, in fact it's even banned in most of Europe, which activists use as yet another talking point to try to validate their bullshit. Some cities in California forbid it as well, but California already proved that it was anti-science last week, so that isn't any surprise.
The best thing you, or anybody else can do, is to actively debunk these shitheads (start by pointing out that every bit of research papers against GMO is either false, outright scientific fraud (this is the most common ), or misleading. Also, Greenpeace does by far the most damage. They spend HUGE amounts of money on an ongoing FUD campaign, and believe me, their war chest is quite big. I'd lobby your Congress critters to revoke their tax exempt status, especially given their more about politics than anything else, and they certainly don't give a shit about science (this is the same reason many other countries have revoked their tax exempt status. People have proven them wrong so many times on this, and every time this happens, they just shift their argument. GMO is a huge opportunity to preserve the environment, and when this is shown to them, they still want it banned. Doesn't sound much like an environmentalist organization to me, rather it sounds more like Scientology, who also claim to be environmentalists.
I can somewhat sympathize. While I'm not always on slashdot, I kind of have to stay inside, ever since my kidney transplant last December. Tacromilus makes your skin less resistant to UVA radiation, plus it reduces your immune response to cancer.
I used to do a lot of outdoor stuff, but now I do light workout in the gym (until I heal.) They say I can use sunblock, but it's such a pain in the butt to apply every time. Even though I'm white, my skin doesn't really burn, so I usually never bothered with sunblock.
Beginning a word with capital letter could give it a distinct meaning - closer to famous proper nouns than the adjectives they otherwise are. But then most people being careless, even omit that distinction. As you did.
While, while you're being careless, If you pay attention, I eschew these labels, especially vague ones. And yes, when I'm referring to parties, I do capitalize the first letter. In this case, I meant what I said.
2. More importantly, libertarian can be any one advocating for overall improvement in liberty of the people.
...And like what I said previously, I avoid labels, especially vague ones. When you use words like "can", then what are you doing?
The topic is greenhouse gasses, CO2 and coal consumption. Try to keep up.
Except you're conflating a lot of shit just to suit your own retarded narrative, including bringing in electricity for who knows what reason, because not only does it not support your argument, but in fact it does th4e opposite. Electricity consumption doesn't necessarily spell carbon emission, and the US is in fact lowering its coal consumption while china also increases theirs (yes, they did so last year.) Furthermore, China IS the world's largest coal consumer, so no, we're not "twice" as bad as china in that regard, or even *as* bad as China. In fact, the rest of the world, US inclusive, has been lowering its coal consumption while China has only increased it recently.
So go fuck yourself, and try to keep up with current events better.
We may use "so more electricity" as you put it, but here's a fact for you: The most polluted city in the United States doesn't even break the world's top 1,000 polluted cities list (the highest in the US are mostly clustered in progressive California.)
Except the US remains in the #2 spot in manufacturing. China only overtook us because they produce tons of cheap crap like water bottles and t-shirts, whereas our top manufacturing is in capital goods like earth movers, tractors, and jumbo Jets.
I think he's trying to say I am, but in truth I'm not. In fact, I think the term right and left are kind of dumb because they imply that you sit in one of two camps. I don't sit in any camp, to be honest. For example, it's often said that if you are against gun control, then you're right wing, but if you favor legalization of cannabis, then you're left wing. I sit in both camps, so where does that put me? I'm not libertarian because I like net neutrality, and I'm not centrist or moderate because I have strong opinions on many things.
Perhaps the best word to describe me is independent. As for this topic, I'm against professional victims, mainly because they think they're systematically oppressed, but really it's all in their head. They are in fact narcissists, and they love the attention they get when others believe them, and the media eats it up. Narcissists are fucking assholes, and people should stop feeding them the attention they want, because it just feeds their addiction, which in the end just makes them even bigger assholes.
The proper term is "professional victim". You know, like feminazis, social justice warriors, and certain minorites that take the mere fact that they're a minority to mean they're entitled to label everything as being racist or sexist, like that lady who attacked the Hugh Mungus guy.
(1) Bonds are often set excessively high for minor crimes -- so high that some people can't bail out, since they have nothing to offer as collateral.
In many cases that is the point, and it is both perfectly reasonable and constitutional in many of these cases. If somebody has a long history of generally thinking the law doesn't apply to them, and the judge can clearly see that, then guess what? The judge is going to want to make it hard for them to make bail by themselves, so they'll depend on somebody else. If somebody else is willing to put up that money for them, then it's likely that this somebody else is going to make SURE the guy shows up to arraignment.
(2) Even if there's no real evidence of a crime, people are often jailed or kept on bail, and prosecutors collude with judges to keep delaying a fair trial.
First of all, prosecutors and judges don't "collude", they can't even speak to one another in private about the case. Even a crappy lawyer can have the case dismissed for that. The defendant and the defendant's counsel can't do the same either. Besides, why on earth would they collude about anything? They can both lose their jobs, and neither has anything to gain from it.
Second of all, the defendant can demand the right to a speedy trial, and if they do, the request must be honored. However, this is almost always a bad idea, because chances are the police and prosecutors have had a chance to interview witnesses and collect evidence against you well before you were even charged, which gives your defense team less time to examine the evidence and find their own witnesses, which puts you at a disadvantage. Public defenders (which are often the crappy lawyers) are more likely to encourage you to request a speedy trial so that they can get paid quicker.
And finally, the bond hearing is NOT a trial. The prosecutor is only required to present a statement of what crime they believe you committed on good faith, and lying about it can get them disbarred. This is why evidence is not required. In most cases, there is no evidence against you in a crime, rather the entire case relies on witness statements.
(3) Why the fuck are we prosecuting people for drug possession in the first place? Costs money, and consenting adults should be able to do what they want with their own bodies.
I don't know, but that's not relevant. The judge makes the determination of bond based on the severity of the punishment attached to the crime, not the crime itself. Furthermore, it's not up to the judge to decide what laws are just and which ones aren't. If there are laws that conflict with the one that you were charged under, that is one thing the judge and/or jury can consider when determining guilt.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
The sentiment is nice and all, but this is demonstrably false. World hunger is already solved, as global food production already exceeds global demand. The only reason famine still exists is because of regional politics. A food shortage isn't causing North Koreans or Africans to starve or struggle to find clothing, it's either their governments have created a situation that prevents food from being made available to them, or in many cases local warlords are using food and the bare essentials as leverage for power.
I already showed that you're stupid, now you're about to look much worse.
The US spends more on war and the machines of killing than the rest of the world combined.
False. The combined global spending on militaries is 1.7 trillion. This puts the US at about a third of the combined world.
It doesn't seem to have produced useful results. When was the last time they won a war? Why does most of the world hate America?
Do you even know a single fucking thing about history? Who am I kidding, of course you don't, otherwise we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
But I'll sum up a few recent things: If you're in Europe, the US is the biggest reason you aren't a former USSR state (we were, and still are, by far the largest military contribution to NATO, and the Marshall Plan, aside from the money that was outright given to Europe to rebuild after it just finished destroying itself, was used by the US military to provide services that Europe couldn't have survived without. For example, the Berlin Airlift.
Even today, the mere presence of the US military is keeping many foreign powers in check. Russia and China especially, as neither would stand a chance in hell against our Navy alone. In fact, our Navy could execute a total blockade on both countries from far out into the Pacific and totally drain their economies. An invasion on our part is completely unnecessary. Even one of China's own generals admitted this. And you're an idiot if you think China and Russia don't have present ambitions for expansion. Putin right now wants to claim Ukraine, and China is already trying to claim it owns all of the South China Sea, much of which rightfully (according to UN) belongs to many other countries, including Japan, Korea, and Philippines (in fact, Philippines is having to pay its own people to live on some of its otherwise unoccupied islands so that China can't claim them without it being an act of war.)
The problem isn't the bail bondsmen. The problem are American courts that set excessive bail and keep people in jail for relatively minor crimes (often victimless crimes like drug possession) in the hope that they agree to a plea bargain.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The arraignment doesn't even start until after your bond hearing, so you don't plea anything at that point, let alone make a plea bargain. The purpose of the bond is an assurance that you'll show up to court when it is time for your arraignment, which is when you'll make your plea. If you don't show up to court, the court keeps all of your money, then they issue a warrant for your arrest, only now you're guilty of another offense as well. If you don't post bond, then you wait in detention until it is time for your arraignment.
Judges don't always require you to pay a bond. They make this decision based on whether they think you're a flight risk. Chances are that if you have a decent job, own a business, own a house, have a reputation of being a responsible person, or have other life situations that you aren't likely to want to just suddenly abandon, then the judge will do what's called an RoR, which requires no bond. Things like not paying child support, showing a propensity towards violence, believing that your decision to shoplift was somebody else's fault (i.e. you're irresponsible,) and the like, will make the judge more likely to raise your bond price, or even deny bond outright.
While the seriousness of the charge will also likely raise your bond (if not have it denied completely, i.e. for capital murder) the judge will still make you pay bail for smaller crimes if they think you're likely to not show up for your arraignment. So yeah, drug possession will demand a high (for you) bond if you have a reputation of being an irresponsible dickwad, and yes, you're more likely to be poor if you're an irresponsible dickwad.
Ignoring that this whole argument is just a thinly veiled slight at the US (and it completely ignores where most of the US economy's spending actually goes, including the fact that most of the world is utterly and hopelessly dependent upon US developed non-weapons technology) I really don't think weapons are a poor choice of investment. At least in the case of weapons, you have a practical use for research and development for the more expensive of technologies, and what's more, you have a discriminator for bad technologies built-in. Just throwing money into the industry and hoping that something awesome will happen is less effective. Europe has been doing it for decades and they've still fallen well behind the US private sector, which has to rise or fall on its own merits.
An yes, grassroots citizen scientists to come up with home remedies! Let's start some PSAs to make sure you always keep CRISPR on hand next time you get a minor HIV infection. It will have the motto: T4 count low? Always remember to keep the CRISPR next to the Crisco!
Next on Martha Stewart: That congestive heart failure bothering you? Try mixing a 1 part lemon, 2 parts baking soda, and 5 parts CRISPR. You'll be good as new, and you'll smell lemony fresh!... I can tell that thinking isn't your strong suit.
Every four years a bunch of stupid people cry about democracy being over and now America is doomed because their guy lost, so now they've decided to leave, and some state wants to secede. Same shit, different election year.
That article about the brain drain to Canada smelled of partisan anecdote.
Cars and parachutes are a poor analogy anyways. This is more like opening up a binary copy of the Linux kernel with a hex editor, and making changes to it with only a very rudimentary knowledge of assembly, and hardly any knowledge of the Linux kernel in general. Screwing up with that means the kernel crashes or something just doesn't work right. Screwing up with CRISPR, assuming something besides nothing at all happens, is going to fail spectacularly...like oh say...cancer formation in multiple major organs simultaneously.
Well, maybe he's not actually dead. Given how eccentric the guy is, maybe this is just phase 1 of his latest experiment: He wants to see if, with the power of CRISPR, he can become undead.
If people take these risks voluntarily, human gene therapy can make rapid progress and not be subject to million dollar a shot monopoly pricing. Drug companies don't like these kinds of grassroots efforts because they undercut their business.
I don't think any of these grassroots efforts have actually undercut their business in any meaningful way. I think that, if anything, people who sell fake cures that are already known to not work (i.e. using hyperbaric chambers to cure AIDS) would be much bigger targets since at least they divert much bigger sums of money than grassroots cures that nobody even produces to begin with.
Besides, most of these grassroots efforts ARE fake.
Slashdot Mirror
The status of ArmoredDragon financial or other potential gains from GMOs is also very important to judge the value of the information in his post, I think you will agree.
Of which I have none, by the way. I do not have any investments in anything agricultural (I mostly hold funds in technology, medicine, bonds, and international mid-cap.)
Sorry, but this is utterly wrong. The reason the non-bruising produce is a problem is simple: it tastes terrible.
Ya think? Really? And what do you think happens to the produce when it tastes terrible? Go ahead, take some guesses.
Dumbass.
The best thing you can do is recognize the reality, and stop freaking out over "imaginary" enemies, or pretending Greenpeace, with a budget in the millions, is somehow capable of defeating ADM, McDonalds, Monsanto, and others with actual HUGE amounts of money to lobby the actual Congress critters, who granted, don't give a shit about science,
And therein lies the problem: Them, and the general populace, are less likely to trust those companies over greenpeace. Just like you, them, and greenpeace, don't give a shit about science. That, and you proved at the start of your post that you're fucking stupid.
No, the activists haven't lost: Their fear campaign has already caused a lot of damage, and continues to do so. It's hard to sell produce that doesn't bruise (which reduces huge amounts of waste, including waste of what is needed to grow the plant, such as water) because anti-GMO activists have convinced the masses that it causes cancer or that it will make your dick fly off. This even applies to GMO tech that aims to eliminate the chance of acrylamide (a strong carcinogen) from showing up in cooked plant matter (including coffee.) Somebody has already created a potato with this gene, but they're not going to sell it because the mere fact that it is advertised as such also advertises that it is GMO, and for that reason alone, many will not buy it, hence it is not marketable. Furthermore, entire countries have banned it entirely based on anti-GMO bullshit, in fact it's even banned in most of Europe, which activists use as yet another talking point to try to validate their bullshit. Some cities in California forbid it as well, but California already proved that it was anti-science last week, so that isn't any surprise.
https://gmo.geneticliteracypro...
The best thing you, or anybody else can do, is to actively debunk these shitheads (start by pointing out that every bit of research papers against GMO is either false, outright scientific fraud (this is the most common ), or misleading. Also, Greenpeace does by far the most damage. They spend HUGE amounts of money on an ongoing FUD campaign, and believe me, their war chest is quite big. I'd lobby your Congress critters to revoke their tax exempt status, especially given their more about politics than anything else, and they certainly don't give a shit about science (this is the same reason many other countries have revoked their tax exempt status. People have proven them wrong so many times on this, and every time this happens, they just shift their argument. GMO is a huge opportunity to preserve the environment, and when this is shown to them, they still want it banned. Doesn't sound much like an environmentalist organization to me, rather it sounds more like Scientology, who also claim to be environmentalists.
I can somewhat sympathize. While I'm not always on slashdot, I kind of have to stay inside, ever since my kidney transplant last December. Tacromilus makes your skin less resistant to UVA radiation, plus it reduces your immune response to cancer.
I used to do a lot of outdoor stuff, but now I do light workout in the gym (until I heal.) They say I can use sunblock, but it's such a pain in the butt to apply every time. Even though I'm white, my skin doesn't really burn, so I usually never bothered with sunblock.
Beginning a word with capital letter could give it a distinct meaning - closer to famous proper nouns than the adjectives they otherwise are. But then most people being careless, even omit that distinction. As you did.
While, while you're being careless, If you pay attention, I eschew these labels, especially vague ones. And yes, when I'm referring to parties, I do capitalize the first letter. In this case, I meant what I said.
2. More importantly, libertarian can be any one advocating for overall improvement in liberty of the people.
...And like what I said previously, I avoid labels, especially vague ones. When you use words like "can", then what are you doing?
The topic is greenhouse gasses, CO2 and coal consumption. Try to keep up.
Except you're conflating a lot of shit just to suit your own retarded narrative, including bringing in electricity for who knows what reason, because not only does it not support your argument, but in fact it does th4e opposite. Electricity consumption doesn't necessarily spell carbon emission, and the US is in fact lowering its coal consumption while china also increases theirs (yes, they did so last year.) Furthermore, China IS the world's largest coal consumer, so no, we're not "twice" as bad as china in that regard, or even *as* bad as China. In fact, the rest of the world, US inclusive, has been lowering its coal consumption while China has only increased it recently.
So go fuck yourself, and try to keep up with current events better.
While I don't speak for GP, something tells me that he's referring to the postmodern era.
Could also be a quid-pro-quo deal in this tariff crap.
Illegal for any US company to do business with them period.
We may use "so more electricity" as you put it, but here's a fact for you: The most polluted city in the United States doesn't even break the world's top 1,000 polluted cities list (the highest in the US are mostly clustered in progressive California.)
Except the US remains in the #2 spot in manufacturing. China only overtook us because they produce tons of cheap crap like water bottles and t-shirts, whereas our top manufacturing is in capital goods like earth movers, tractors, and jumbo Jets.
I think he's trying to say I am, but in truth I'm not. In fact, I think the term right and left are kind of dumb because they imply that you sit in one of two camps. I don't sit in any camp, to be honest. For example, it's often said that if you are against gun control, then you're right wing, but if you favor legalization of cannabis, then you're left wing. I sit in both camps, so where does that put me? I'm not libertarian because I like net neutrality, and I'm not centrist or moderate because I have strong opinions on many things.
Perhaps the best word to describe me is independent. As for this topic, I'm against professional victims, mainly because they think they're systematically oppressed, but really it's all in their head. They are in fact narcissists, and they love the attention they get when others believe them, and the media eats it up. Narcissists are fucking assholes, and people should stop feeding them the attention they want, because it just feeds their addiction, which in the end just makes them even bigger assholes.
The proper term is "professional victim". You know, like feminazis, social justice warriors, and certain minorites that take the mere fact that they're a minority to mean they're entitled to label everything as being racist or sexist, like that lady who attacked the Hugh Mungus guy.
(1) Bonds are often set excessively high for minor crimes -- so high that some people can't bail out, since they have nothing to offer as collateral.
In many cases that is the point, and it is both perfectly reasonable and constitutional in many of these cases. If somebody has a long history of generally thinking the law doesn't apply to them, and the judge can clearly see that, then guess what? The judge is going to want to make it hard for them to make bail by themselves, so they'll depend on somebody else. If somebody else is willing to put up that money for them, then it's likely that this somebody else is going to make SURE the guy shows up to arraignment.
(2) Even if there's no real evidence of a crime, people are often jailed or kept on bail, and prosecutors collude with judges to keep delaying a fair trial.
First of all, prosecutors and judges don't "collude", they can't even speak to one another in private about the case. Even a crappy lawyer can have the case dismissed for that. The defendant and the defendant's counsel can't do the same either. Besides, why on earth would they collude about anything? They can both lose their jobs, and neither has anything to gain from it.
Second of all, the defendant can demand the right to a speedy trial, and if they do, the request must be honored. However, this is almost always a bad idea, because chances are the police and prosecutors have had a chance to interview witnesses and collect evidence against you well before you were even charged, which gives your defense team less time to examine the evidence and find their own witnesses, which puts you at a disadvantage. Public defenders (which are often the crappy lawyers) are more likely to encourage you to request a speedy trial so that they can get paid quicker.
And finally, the bond hearing is NOT a trial. The prosecutor is only required to present a statement of what crime they believe you committed on good faith, and lying about it can get them disbarred. This is why evidence is not required. In most cases, there is no evidence against you in a crime, rather the entire case relies on witness statements.
(3) Why the fuck are we prosecuting people for drug possession in the first place? Costs money, and consenting adults should be able to do what they want with their own bodies.
I don't know, but that's not relevant. The judge makes the determination of bond based on the severity of the punishment attached to the crime, not the crime itself. Furthermore, it's not up to the judge to decide what laws are just and which ones aren't. If there are laws that conflict with the one that you were charged under, that is one thing the judge and/or jury can consider when determining guilt.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
The sentiment is nice and all, but this is demonstrably false. World hunger is already solved, as global food production already exceeds global demand. The only reason famine still exists is because of regional politics. A food shortage isn't causing North Koreans or Africans to starve or struggle to find clothing, it's either their governments have created a situation that prevents food from being made available to them, or in many cases local warlords are using food and the bare essentials as leverage for power.
I already showed that you're stupid, now you're about to look much worse.
The US spends more on war and the machines of killing than the rest of the world combined.
False. The combined global spending on militaries is 1.7 trillion. This puts the US at about a third of the combined world.
It doesn't seem to have produced useful results. When was the last time they won a war? Why does most of the world hate America?
Do you even know a single fucking thing about history? Who am I kidding, of course you don't, otherwise we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
But I'll sum up a few recent things: If you're in Europe, the US is the biggest reason you aren't a former USSR state (we were, and still are, by far the largest military contribution to NATO, and the Marshall Plan, aside from the money that was outright given to Europe to rebuild after it just finished destroying itself, was used by the US military to provide services that Europe couldn't have survived without. For example, the Berlin Airlift.
Even today, the mere presence of the US military is keeping many foreign powers in check. Russia and China especially, as neither would stand a chance in hell against our Navy alone. In fact, our Navy could execute a total blockade on both countries from far out into the Pacific and totally drain their economies. An invasion on our part is completely unnecessary. Even one of China's own generals admitted this. And you're an idiot if you think China and Russia don't have present ambitions for expansion. Putin right now wants to claim Ukraine, and China is already trying to claim it owns all of the South China Sea, much of which rightfully (according to UN) belongs to many other countries, including Japan, Korea, and Philippines (in fact, Philippines is having to pay its own people to live on some of its otherwise unoccupied islands so that China can't claim them without it being an act of war.)
You're welcome.
The problem isn't the bail bondsmen. The problem are American courts that set excessive bail and keep people in jail for relatively minor crimes (often victimless crimes like drug possession) in the hope that they agree to a plea bargain.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The arraignment doesn't even start until after your bond hearing, so you don't plea anything at that point, let alone make a plea bargain. The purpose of the bond is an assurance that you'll show up to court when it is time for your arraignment, which is when you'll make your plea. If you don't show up to court, the court keeps all of your money, then they issue a warrant for your arrest, only now you're guilty of another offense as well. If you don't post bond, then you wait in detention until it is time for your arraignment.
Judges don't always require you to pay a bond. They make this decision based on whether they think you're a flight risk. Chances are that if you have a decent job, own a business, own a house, have a reputation of being a responsible person, or have other life situations that you aren't likely to want to just suddenly abandon, then the judge will do what's called an RoR, which requires no bond. Things like not paying child support, showing a propensity towards violence, believing that your decision to shoplift was somebody else's fault (i.e. you're irresponsible,) and the like, will make the judge more likely to raise your bond price, or even deny bond outright.
While the seriousness of the charge will also likely raise your bond (if not have it denied completely, i.e. for capital murder) the judge will still make you pay bail for smaller crimes if they think you're likely to not show up for your arraignment. So yeah, drug possession will demand a high (for you) bond if you have a reputation of being an irresponsible dickwad, and yes, you're more likely to be poor if you're an irresponsible dickwad.
Ignoring that this whole argument is just a thinly veiled slight at the US (and it completely ignores where most of the US economy's spending actually goes, including the fact that most of the world is utterly and hopelessly dependent upon US developed non-weapons technology) I really don't think weapons are a poor choice of investment. At least in the case of weapons, you have a practical use for research and development for the more expensive of technologies, and what's more, you have a discriminator for bad technologies built-in. Just throwing money into the industry and hoping that something awesome will happen is less effective. Europe has been doing it for decades and they've still fallen well behind the US private sector, which has to rise or fall on its own merits.
Woosh
How do we know it was herpes? What if multi-drug resistant clamydia made its way down to his lungs...
An yes, grassroots citizen scientists to come up with home remedies! Let's start some PSAs to make sure you always keep CRISPR on hand next time you get a minor HIV infection. It will have the motto: T4 count low? Always remember to keep the CRISPR next to the Crisco!
Next on Martha Stewart: That congestive heart failure bothering you? Try mixing a 1 part lemon, 2 parts baking soda, and 5 parts CRISPR. You'll be good as new, and you'll smell lemony fresh! ... I can tell that thinking isn't your strong suit.
Every four years a bunch of stupid people cry about democracy being over and now America is doomed because their guy lost, so now they've decided to leave, and some state wants to secede. Same shit, different election year.
That article about the brain drain to Canada smelled of partisan anecdote.
Cars and parachutes are a poor analogy anyways. This is more like opening up a binary copy of the Linux kernel with a hex editor, and making changes to it with only a very rudimentary knowledge of assembly, and hardly any knowledge of the Linux kernel in general. Screwing up with that means the kernel crashes or something just doesn't work right. Screwing up with CRISPR, assuming something besides nothing at all happens, is going to fail spectacularly...like oh say...cancer formation in multiple major organs simultaneously.
Well, maybe he's not actually dead. Given how eccentric the guy is, maybe this is just phase 1 of his latest experiment: He wants to see if, with the power of CRISPR, he can become undead.
If people take these risks voluntarily, human gene therapy can make rapid progress and not be subject to million dollar a shot monopoly pricing. Drug companies don't like these kinds of grassroots efforts because they undercut their business.
I don't think any of these grassroots efforts have actually undercut their business in any meaningful way. I think that, if anything, people who sell fake cures that are already known to not work (i.e. using hyperbaric chambers to cure AIDS) would be much bigger targets since at least they divert much bigger sums of money than grassroots cures that nobody even produces to begin with.
Besides, most of these grassroots efforts ARE fake.