So right next to the roadway there's a much larger set of surfaces that could support angled solar panels, that are never in the shade, and where trucks won't drive over them?
I'm all for dual-use, but some pairings just don't make much sense.
That does seem to be one of the big promises in the marketing literature - but from what I can find it sounds like it's not really the reality.
I'm sure marketing over-promises, like always. On the other hand you already know what I think of your sources.
In part because weeds are evolving resistance as well, meaning that farmers need to use ever-increasing amount of Roundup to get the same results. That's not the *recommended* tactic, but it's the cheap and easy one, so it's what gets used.
OK, we'll assume that the regulatory plan fails miserably, no other similar product for another herbicide appears, and farmers keep being short-sighted to the point of absurdity. The worst that happens is that weed get resistant to Roundup, farmers switch back to conventional crops and other herbicides (that nothing is resistant to because people haven't been using them) and we end up in the same place we were in in 1990. Keep in mind that Roundup has plenty of competition - as soon as the increased cost of buying Roundup (on top of the premium for the seeds) is more than the savings in labor/fuel/etc then they'll switch back without hesitation.
Huh, hadn't heard of the Plant Patent Act before... I agree - so keep looking for *papers*... lay off the ad-hominems
I realize I'm being harsh (though technically they aren't ad-hominems), but I'm trying to communicate how badly mis-educated you are on this subject. You seem like an intelligent person, but nearly every verifiable fact you've mentioned is wrong, misunderstood, or one that I don't know for certain and you refuse to back up with an actual citation. Like this:
What's confusing? Resistance is edited into crops, specifically to increase the amount of toxins that can be used, the exact opposite of the benefits you're touting
A basically correct fact, but a completely incorrect interpretation. For example, take a farmer with weed problems:
Using conventional crops (ones produced by irradiating seeds), he might spray the maximum dose of an herbicide that won't kill his crops (say 60 lb). But because this doesn't kill the off completely, two months later he has to repeat, using another 60 lb to hold them off until harvest. So he applies a total of 120 lb of herbicide.
If he planted a GMO crop (with a single gene from another plant inserted deliberately) that's resistant to the herbicide, he can now spray 100 lb. This kills off the weeds completely, but leaves his crop untouched. So he never needs to spray again that year.
So yes, the GMO "increase the amount of toxins that can be used" at one time, but counter-intuitively reduces the amount that gets used overall. And none of that has anything to do with in vivo production of bt pesticide - it's the sprayed herbicide that would be used anyway.
As a bonus, it reduces the amount of fuel used (lower CO2 emissions) as well as the labor and wear-and-tear cost on equipment. If even lowers the amount of pesticide residue because the amount of time between spraying and harvesting is increased, giving it more time to break down naturally, and because the 'food part' hadn't even formed yet when it was sprayed.
Pretty big leap from eliminating GMO patents to destroying capitalism.... Eliminating GMO patents simply reduces the worst excesses of capitalism
That's fine. If you were just an anti-capitalist using fears of GMOs as a politically-convenient tool we could skip the minutiae of GMOs and go for the root cause.
And last I heard you can't patent plant varieties unless they're GMOs.
Plant Patent Act of 1930? I'm sure that was a response to Luther Burbank making Roundup Ready cherries in the 1920s./s
how genetic modification is actually being used - i.e. most commonly to allow farmers to radically increase the amount of toxins they apply to the crops.
It allows increasing the amount that can be used at one time, but because one large dose is more effective than two half-sized ones the total amount used can actually decrease. That's why per-acre herbicide use hasn't changed much since GMOs started being used commercially.
I found several papers googling "delta endotoxin dangers"
I found several web pages, and all were of the kind that lead to the kind of profound ignorance you've shown in the last two items I quoted. Again, I'm open to being convinced, but only by reliable (preferably peer-reviewed) sources.
"some of the main benefits of GMOs are reduced use of sprayed chemicals" - two words: "Roundup resistance"
That's not even an argument, I have no idea what you're alluding to. Resistance was predicted before anyone even started working on GMO crops, everyone in modern agriculture is aware of the potential problem the and current plans to mitigate it (e.g. refuges), nobody in agriculture believes it's going to cause anything worse than farmers rotating what kind of herbicide-resistant crop they plant. I can't wait for you to explain what you meant.
Personally I think a lot of the problems with GMOs could be alleviated by eliminating patents on DNA - remove the immediate profit motive
If you want to destroy capitalism, or if you just want to end patents on plant varieties, that's fine. But neither of those are specific to GMOs.
Lots of toxic things are used in organic farming - natural does not mean safe.
I didn't mean to suggest that - I'm pointing out that it's an issue that's only tangentially related to GMOs. As with the previous quote, you can't use X as an argument against GMOs if X applies to both GMO and non-GMO farming fairly equally.
And delta endotoxins have in fact been found to have rather serious effects on mammals, though generally not in naturally-formed crystals for some reason.
I couldn't find a reliable source for this, but I'm open to being convinced.
All "Organic" protects *you* from is certain classes of synthetic toxins, it's real benefit is reducing environmental pollution.
Well, it changes the mix of chemicals you're exposed to, yes. As for the last part, you realize that some of the main benefits of GMOs are reduced use of sprayed chemicals and diesel, right? Heck, the reduced topsoil loss from no-till farming alone probably makes GMOs more environmentally-friendly than many organics.
Have you not noticed Monsanto repeatedly suing farmers whose crops have been involuntarily pollinated by their crops?
No, because that doesn't happen.
Not to mention the fact that if you're growing Monsanto crops, you are legally required to buy new seed every year
I know this is a nitpick, but you can always purchase non-patented seed and reuse that to your heart's content, or plant seed you saved from before you planted the patented stuff, or possibly even just purchase a license to replant. You aren't 'trapped'. But, yes, as with any other patented product, you need permission to make copies.
rather than being able to replant saved seed as traditionally done.
People stopped doing that with corn when hybrid vigor was discovered. And what's with the Luddite overtones? When farmers bought tractors (and kept having to buy new ones) they stopped breeding their own work animals 'as was traditionally done' - was that a bad thing?
"GMOs are safe" is a nonsensically overgeneralized statement. It's entirely dependent on the *specific* GMO being discussed.
What about "the collection of GMOs that are currently available or in development", or "industry practices and the regulatory regime that allows GMOs into the food supply".
exist for the specific purpose of allowing the plants to be saturated with chemicals that are both known to be toxic to humans
Glyphosate has been used since the 70s, and would still be used with or without GMOs. Resistance to it allows crops to be sprayed with more of it at once, rather than having to spray more often and with herbicides that are more likely to cause human health issues.
and to be absorbed into the "food" part of the plant
What? Sorry, but I haven't even heard that claim before.
secondary risks of monoculture that inevitably accompany enhancing yield
We have more varieties of available now than we did after we started using hybridized crops more than half a century ago.
commercial banana monoculture was hit by a plague
So thank goodness we can now stick a single gene into multiple varieties, rather than having to cross them and hope we transfer the trait we want without sacrificing too much of the genetic diversity between them.
a legal stranglehold on the food supply
That's too vague to even be called a conspiracy theory. What do you think they're going to do, specifically?
there's no reason you couldn't engineer corn, or anything else, to produce any of a wide range of highly toxic substances that would make them as lethally poisonous as the most deadly of mushrooms
Yes, and that would be an interesting plot for a work of fiction that's fast and loose with the science. Just as with the previous quote, what's the point? Even if you somehow managed to get some of it into the food supply and somehow the toxic crop wasn't noticed due to dead animals or farmers, there's an extensive recall system already in place. Why not skip the hard part just put poison in the food before it's shipped?
And there are in fact already GMO crops (not deployed...I think) designed to produce their own pesticides internally
Bt corn has been grown for 20 years now. The delta endotoxin is very insect-specific, has been studied extensively, and is even used in organic farming.
Corn (even GMO corn) does not contain gluten. Some people refer to the storage proteins in maize 'glutens', but that's not the same thing.
That's a particularly nasty one that already happened (easy to google - GMO corn taco bell).
StarLink - the event that, even after extensive testing, didn't have any demonstrable health effects at all?
I imagine anything with nut genes or shellfish genes inserted would also be pretty bad (potentially fatal).
Only if you insert particular genes, and that's why nobody is dumb enough to do that.
If GMO is so great - LABEL IT.
When it's useful information, it is. Buy any bag of seed and you'll be able to find out exactly what traits are in it.
When it comes to consumer products, there's no point - almost every corn or product in the US contains a mix of GM and conventional crops - the whole point is that they're interchangeable after they're harvested.
within 10 years most people would be eating it at full price and not care any more.
They already are - surprise!
And people who were sensitive to gluten wouldn't be hospitalized after eating a corn taco shell.
Then they'll be free to complain that the new cell tower that hasn't been turned on yet is aggravating their 'WiFi sensitivity'.
Building nuclear plants uses lots of concrete, which itself is a big producer of CO2.
I wouldn't say that something that contributes 5% is a 'big producer', and even if we went 100% nuclear the amount used for building plants would be a rounding error in the total usage.We could probably compensate entirely by trimming an inch or two off the width of sidewalks.
According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons...
It is estimated that 5.5 million tonnes of uranium exists in ore reserves that are economically viable at US$59 per lb of uranium.You're welcome.
And since "There is a 300-fold increase in the amount of uranium recoverable for each tenfold decrease in ore grade." [same citation] that means that if the price went up 100-fold (and given that raw uranium is a minor cost of producing nuclear power, that still seems to be a viable senario) we would have two million years worth at current rates.
On top of that, reprocessing would multiply that by ~60, and it appears as is seawater extraction is viable at around $300/lb, and we haven't even touched on possible new technologies...
You've never heard of paying perpetual royalties to the people who built your home? Wierd.
That's usually called 'rent', but yes.
You've never heard of being denied making modifications to your home under federal law, or having anti terrorism resources dedicated to making sure you live in your home as the home builder intended?
It's usually more local ordinances, but yes. If I rent a house rather than buying, I have the right to hang pictures but not knock out walls, I can throw parties there but not run a business. If I want to own it myself, I have to buy it.
You know, there's lots of ideas that only come through copyright law, which is why companies are trying desperately to redefine physical goods as intellectual ones -- because you can own your home, but not if home builders can sneak in just the right poison pill to change your home into an intellectual property work
There are plenty of reforms I'd like to see in copyright law, including real limits on how long they last. But ownership of physical goods that people rent out lasts longer than copyright - it's literally perpetual.
Homeowners shall pay each tradesman who built their house in perpetuity, because there's still value in the fact that it's a house, after all! Don't like it? Well, that's just like being forced to renew ownership of your car!
So you've never heard of renting a house or leasing a car? Weird.
You do realize that you can purchase a copyright, as well as make lots of other arrangements, right?
Generally, if a drug is real, the more drug you apply the stronger treatment effect you observe (lots of caveats to this generality, but none seem too relevant here).
Why? First - it's not a drug. Second, even drugs (e.g. Seroquel) don't always do that - as you increase the dosage first it's an antihistamine, then causes low blood pressure, then it's an anti-psychotic - and that's a single molecule. Some drugs even manage to have a U-shaped response curve.
I would happily bet an amount of money that mattered to me that this result would fail to be replicated in a randomized, placebo-controlled study.
I would as well, just because of how often these early trials fail to produce usable results. But in the long run we have to make some long shots or we'll never get anywhere.
A hint to the mods: -1 is not for "I don't like the law you've just correctly explained to me".
You're over-simplifying a complex area of the legal system and a half-century of case law down to a single "if" statement. You also seem to think that the legal system blindly believes that correlation is causation. Either one of those would justify the down-modding.
You can negotiate with individuals. You just need to make sure that the average salary for men and the average for women is the same if they are doing the same work...
..or that you have clear, legal reasons for that pay disparity. It's perfectly legal to pay men more on average if you can demonstrate that the disparity comes from seniority, quantity of production, a merit system (that meets certain requirements), or (to quote the EPA) "a differential based on any other factor other than sex". Also please note that because it's the legal system, "any other factor" doesn't literally mean "any other factor".
If you are a CEO, work in HR, or even work as a manager, then you need to understand the law.
Yes, you do. But unless you're a lawyer who specializes in this area of the law please don't rely on your own surface understanding of the legal requirements.
That a supplier provides a service at the same cost for all people
Senior discounts are illegal?
a Starbucks coffee costs the same on Tuesday, that it did on Monday
Sales and weekend discounts are illegal?
it costs a rich person, the same it costs a poor person
Outside of getting credit that's usually true, but that's because there's usually no reason to do that and in most of the exceptions credit score is even more useful.
responsibility to pay a standard price
I don't think that exists, legally or morally. Even discrimination law doesn't expect such a thing.
I'm going to consolidate these, because some common themes have developed:
And yet the USPTO found the Lamarr invention to be sufficiently different to qualify for its' own patent.... Most jobs don't involve fixing power lines or repairing roofs, and btw, women do those things as well.... And every single one of those other jobs you named are being done by women as well as men.
I've never said otherwise about any of these things, so... could you re-read and respond to what I actually wrote?
I don't hate half the human race.
If you're a misanthrope rather than a misanderist, that's good to know, but not really an improvement. Humans have flaws, and I don't see any other species that's both available and willing to sustain a civilization. So pretentious primates are what we've got to work with.
And as for men choosing money over any other benefit, that's their choice, and one that comes with consequences.
Absolutely right. On the other hand, one of those consequences is that they make more money. You can't go around saying "choices come with consequences" and "equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome" and then point to an outcome on its own and cry "sexism".
You don't achieve equality via a biased hiring or promotion process. All you're doing is robbing the new favoured group of their dignity, the ability to say that they got where they were on merit. This rightfully creates resentment because at it's core, it's no better than trading sex for a promotion, or nepotism, or cheating.
I agree with this completely. The problem is that you (appear to) think that the wage gap is (in large part) caused by discrimination, and the sentencing gap isn't - despite strong evidence to the contrary. There are actual problems (like the name-change on resumes you mentioned) and my own opinion is that we should use blind auditions more often. It can't be used for political purposes, and it works on biases that we don't know about or don't care about (ugly people, men, short people, etc).
You're using evaluations for a university position as "proof"?
Just as a quick attempt to get you to be more open-minded. That might be a lost cause, though.
As for your "explanation" of the wage gap, it still exists even when hours worked are controlled for.
Some of it does, yes, that's why I said "the primary cause" and listed several others. For exaple, overtime alone causes a 6% wage gap - that's not the whole thing, but it is a contributor.
And what is this bullshit about "danger" of being outside?
There's a comma there. The first part was about how much more likely men are to die on the job (more than ten times as many men as women). Oh, wait, you're a bigot, so it will be all their fault for being stupid, right?
Most:"outside" jobs... sitting in the driver/operator seat. A power shovel with full suspension seat, full sound system, sound proofing, shock isolation, and easy-to-operate controls is not hard work. (I've done it, so I speak from experience).
You're an idiot. When someone goes up to fix a power line are they inside a cab? How about roofers?
As for commute and schedule flexibility, these apply equally to both sexes... the commute and schedule flexibility burden falls more on us than on men.
You're an idiot. Men on average have longer commutes, are much more likely to have job they can't come home from every night (long-distance trucking, oil rigs, timber camps, isolated mines, etc), and (as for almost any other factor you can name) men are more likely than women to choose money over any other benefit.
Men thinking with their dicks is directly related to differences in the sexes. It's pitiful to watch a group of guys all drooling when a 23-year-old job applicant comes in, no qualifications, and gets the job.
It's also 'pitiful' to watch a 50 year old manager break down in tears as well. The difference is that I don't look down on other people for having hormonal differences - whether it's having a higher libido than mine or going though meopause. I try to have compassion for them and help them to well.
Then again, this is a tech setting, where men will be boys.
I've spent my entire life around engineers and have been one myself for almost two decades, and I don't know anyone who acts that way. -shrug-
How is that relevant...? Answer: it's not.
I would like to understand why you hate half the human race, and this is relevant to that.
If you didn't put it all together to produce something new and patentable, you didn't invent it and can't claim credit for it.
Exactly! Patent 1869659 was in granted 1932, so Hedy Lamarr didn't invent the technology. She thought up a quirky new implementation, and with help from someone familiar with the mechanics involved, made an invention that was never put to use. I'm so glad we can agree on this.
The different incarceration rates based on gender correlate to testosterone.
Completely true, and if you're a bully you'll want to mock them for it (e.g. men think with their dicks).
On the other hand, pointing out the other things that correlate with testosterone levels, like willingness to take risks or mechanical aptitude, is wrong-think. Men and women must identical... except when women are better.
And given that men have much higher levels of testosterone, this would explain the higher male prison population.
It explains part of it, but not all of it. Even when you only look at non-violent, first-time offenders men get longer sentences and higher fines for the same crimes than women do.
Consider that both chemical and surgical castration [nih.gov] reduce the rate of repeat pedophile offenders from 50% to between 2% and 5%. Testosterone clearly plays a role.
Ok, but is that a change in risk-taking, libido, or some vague 'badness' that you obviously think men have?
Same with the wage gap - there's a wage gap based on gender
Yes, and the primary cause of it is the 'number of hours worked' gap. Then there are the 'danger' (e.g. risk of death), 'being outside' and 'inconvenience' (e.g. graveyard shift, commute, schedule flexibility) gaps. Somewhere down at the bottom of the list is the 'we don't know, but it might be sexism' gap.
I don't hate anyone. I do think that people like you are so obsessed with your narrative that you're willing to lie in order to feel better about yourself or as signal to other people, and that that kind of behavior is damaging. To give some examples:
You just can't believe that a woman can invent and get a technical patent, can you?
There's no imaginable reading of my post that would even suggest that. Do you see how much this has distorted your view of the facts?
No distortion involved, except on your part. No exaggeration on my part.
I offered three different minor corrections to one thing you said, and you've directly admitted that one of them was correct. The problem is that getting those minor facts wrong is a necessary part of what you're trying to do - exaggerate one person's accomplishment while erasing those of others, all in the furtherance of a political goal. You have to get a bunch of facts slightly wrong, so that you can pretend that Hedy Lamarr "invented spread-spectrum communications" on her own and the dozens of men with equal or greater contributions to the field didn't do anything other than take credit for her work.
Emmy Noether and Marie Curie made extremely exceptional contributions, please don't bring them down to the level of an above-average amature engineer.
Slashdot Mirror
There were buildings/houses everywhere.
So right next to the roadway there's a much larger set of surfaces that could support angled solar panels, that are never in the shade, and where trucks won't drive over them?
I'm all for dual-use, but some pairings just don't make much sense.
That does seem to be one of the big promises in the marketing literature - but from what I can find it sounds like it's not really the reality.
I'm sure marketing over-promises, like always. On the other hand you already know what I think of your sources.
In part because weeds are evolving resistance as well, meaning that farmers need to use ever-increasing amount of Roundup to get the same results. That's not the *recommended* tactic, but it's the cheap and easy one, so it's what gets used.
OK, we'll assume that the regulatory plan fails miserably, no other similar product for another herbicide appears, and farmers keep being short-sighted to the point of absurdity. The worst that happens is that weed get resistant to Roundup, farmers switch back to conventional crops and other herbicides (that nothing is resistant to because people haven't been using them) and we end up in the same place we were in in 1990. Keep in mind that Roundup has plenty of competition - as soon as the increased cost of buying Roundup (on top of the premium for the seeds) is more than the savings in labor/fuel/etc then they'll switch back without hesitation.
Huh, hadn't heard of the Plant Patent Act before ... I agree - so keep looking for *papers* ... lay off the ad-hominems
I realize I'm being harsh (though technically they aren't ad-hominems), but I'm trying to communicate how badly mis-educated you are on this subject. You seem like an intelligent person, but nearly every verifiable fact you've mentioned is wrong, misunderstood, or one that I don't know for certain and you refuse to back up with an actual citation. Like this:
What's confusing? Resistance is edited into crops, specifically to increase the amount of toxins that can be used, the exact opposite of the benefits you're touting
A basically correct fact, but a completely incorrect interpretation. For example, take a farmer with weed problems:
Using conventional crops (ones produced by irradiating seeds), he might spray the maximum dose of an herbicide that won't kill his crops (say 60 lb). But because this doesn't kill the off completely, two months later he has to repeat, using another 60 lb to hold them off until harvest. So he applies a total of 120 lb of herbicide.
If he planted a GMO crop (with a single gene from another plant inserted deliberately) that's resistant to the herbicide, he can now spray 100 lb. This kills off the weeds completely, but leaves his crop untouched. So he never needs to spray again that year.
So yes, the GMO "increase the amount of toxins that can be used" at one time, but counter-intuitively reduces the amount that gets used overall. And none of that has anything to do with in vivo production of bt pesticide - it's the sprayed herbicide that would be used anyway.
As a bonus, it reduces the amount of fuel used (lower CO2 emissions) as well as the labor and wear-and-tear cost on equipment. If even lowers the amount of pesticide residue because the amount of time between spraying and harvesting is increased, giving it more time to break down naturally, and because the 'food part' hadn't even formed yet when it was sprayed.
Pretty big leap from eliminating GMO patents to destroying capitalism. ... Eliminating GMO patents simply reduces the worst excesses of capitalism
That's fine. If you were just an anti-capitalist using fears of GMOs as a politically-convenient tool we could skip the minutiae of GMOs and go for the root cause.
And last I heard you can't patent plant varieties unless they're GMOs.
Plant Patent Act of 1930? I'm sure that was a response to Luther Burbank making Roundup Ready cherries in the 1920s. /s
how genetic modification is actually being used - i.e. most commonly to allow farmers to radically increase the amount of toxins they apply to the crops.
It allows increasing the amount that can be used at one time, but because one large dose is more effective than two half-sized ones the total amount used can actually decrease. That's why per-acre herbicide use hasn't changed much since GMOs started being used commercially.
I found several papers googling "delta endotoxin dangers"
I found several web pages, and all were of the kind that lead to the kind of profound ignorance you've shown in the last two items I quoted. Again, I'm open to being convinced, but only by reliable (preferably peer-reviewed) sources.
"some of the main benefits of GMOs are reduced use of sprayed chemicals" - two words: "Roundup resistance"
That's not even an argument, I have no idea what you're alluding to. Resistance was predicted before anyone even started working on GMO crops, everyone in modern agriculture is aware of the potential problem the and current plans to mitigate it (e.g. refuges), nobody in agriculture believes it's going to cause anything worse than farmers rotating what kind of herbicide-resistant crop they plant. I can't wait for you to explain what you meant.
Personally I think a lot of the problems with GMOs could be alleviated by eliminating patents on DNA - remove the immediate profit motive
If you want to destroy capitalism, or if you just want to end patents on plant varieties, that's fine. But neither of those are specific to GMOs.
Lots of toxic things are used in organic farming - natural does not mean safe.
I didn't mean to suggest that - I'm pointing out that it's an issue that's only tangentially related to GMOs. As with the previous quote, you can't use X as an argument against GMOs if X applies to both GMO and non-GMO farming fairly equally.
And delta endotoxins have in fact been found to have rather serious effects on mammals, though generally not in naturally-formed crystals for some reason.
I couldn't find a reliable source for this, but I'm open to being convinced.
All "Organic" protects *you* from is certain classes of synthetic toxins, it's real benefit is reducing environmental pollution.
Well, it changes the mix of chemicals you're exposed to, yes. As for the last part, you realize that some of the main benefits of GMOs are reduced use of sprayed chemicals and diesel, right? Heck, the reduced topsoil loss from no-till farming alone probably makes GMOs more environmentally-friendly than many organics.
Have you not noticed Monsanto repeatedly suing farmers whose crops have been involuntarily pollinated by their crops?
No, because that doesn't happen.
Not to mention the fact that if you're growing Monsanto crops, you are legally required to buy new seed every year
I know this is a nitpick, but you can always purchase non-patented seed and reuse that to your heart's content, or plant seed you saved from before you planted the patented stuff, or possibly even just purchase a license to replant. You aren't 'trapped'. But, yes, as with any other patented product, you need permission to make copies.
rather than being able to replant saved seed as traditionally done.
People stopped doing that with corn when hybrid vigor was discovered. And what's with the Luddite overtones? When farmers bought tractors (and kept having to buy new ones) they stopped breeding their own work animals 'as was traditionally done' - was that a bad thing?
Enjoy your DNA being permanently altered.
I'm not having my DNA altered, so...
Wait, was that a threat?
"GMOs are safe" is a nonsensically overgeneralized statement. It's entirely dependent on the *specific* GMO being discussed.
What about "the collection of GMOs that are currently available or in development", or "industry practices and the regulatory regime that allows GMOs into the food supply".
exist for the specific purpose of allowing the plants to be saturated with chemicals that are both known to be toxic to humans
Glyphosate has been used since the 70s, and would still be used with or without GMOs. Resistance to it allows crops to be sprayed with more of it at once, rather than having to spray more often and with herbicides that are more likely to cause human health issues.
and to be absorbed into the "food" part of the plant
What? Sorry, but I haven't even heard that claim before.
secondary risks of monoculture that inevitably accompany enhancing yield
We have more varieties of available now than we did after we started using hybridized crops more than half a century ago.
commercial banana monoculture was hit by a plague
So thank goodness we can now stick a single gene into multiple varieties, rather than having to cross them and hope we transfer the trait we want without sacrificing too much of the genetic diversity between them.
a legal stranglehold on the food supply
That's too vague to even be called a conspiracy theory. What do you think they're going to do, specifically?
there's no reason you couldn't engineer corn, or anything else, to produce any of a wide range of highly toxic substances that would make them as lethally poisonous as the most deadly of mushrooms
Yes, and that would be an interesting plot for a work of fiction that's fast and loose with the science. Just as with the previous quote, what's the point? Even if you somehow managed to get some of it into the food supply and somehow the toxic crop wasn't noticed due to dead animals or farmers, there's an extensive recall system already in place. Why not skip the hard part just put poison in the food before it's shipped?
And there are in fact already GMO crops (not deployed...I think) designed to produce their own pesticides internally
Bt corn has been grown for 20 years now. The delta endotoxin is very insect-specific, has been studied extensively, and is even used in organic farming.
Actually, some GMO's are really unsafe.
Time for fun - I'll get you the tin foil.
Like corn that contains gluten.
Corn (even GMO corn) does not contain gluten. Some people refer to the storage proteins in maize 'glutens', but that's not the same thing.
That's a particularly nasty one that already happened (easy to google - GMO corn taco bell).
StarLink - the event that, even after extensive testing, didn't have any demonstrable health effects at all?
I imagine anything with nut genes or shellfish genes inserted would also be pretty bad (potentially fatal).
Only if you insert particular genes, and that's why nobody is dumb enough to do that.
If GMO is so great - LABEL IT.
When it's useful information, it is. Buy any bag of seed and you'll be able to find out exactly what traits are in it.
When it comes to consumer products, there's no point - almost every corn or product in the US contains a mix of GM and conventional crops - the whole point is that they're interchangeable after they're harvested.
within 10 years most people would be eating it at full price and not care any more.
They already are - surprise!
And people who were sensitive to gluten wouldn't be hospitalized after eating a corn taco shell.
Then they'll be free to complain that the new cell tower that hasn't been turned on yet is aggravating their 'WiFi sensitivity'.
Building nuclear plants uses lots of concrete, which itself is a big producer of CO2.
I wouldn't say that something that contributes 5% is a 'big producer', and even if we went 100% nuclear the amount used for building plants would be a rounding error in the total usage.We could probably compensate entirely by trimming an inch or two off the width of sidewalks.
According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons ...
It is estimated that 5.5 million tonnes of uranium exists in ore reserves that are economically viable at US$59 per lb of uranium. You're welcome.
And since "There is a 300-fold increase in the amount of uranium recoverable for each tenfold decrease in ore grade." [same citation] that means that if the price went up 100-fold (and given that raw uranium is a minor cost of producing nuclear power, that still seems to be a viable senario) we would have two million years worth at current rates.
On top of that, reprocessing would multiply that by ~60, and it appears as is seawater extraction is viable at around $300/lb, and we haven't even touched on possible new technologies...
Next stop, foreskin regeneration!
You've never heard of paying perpetual royalties to the people who built your home? Wierd.
That's usually called 'rent', but yes.
You've never heard of being denied making modifications to your home under federal law, or having anti terrorism resources dedicated to making sure you live in your home as the home builder intended?
It's usually more local ordinances, but yes. If I rent a house rather than buying, I have the right to hang pictures but not knock out walls, I can throw parties there but not run a business. If I want to own it myself, I have to buy it.
You know, there's lots of ideas that only come through copyright law, which is why companies are trying desperately to redefine physical goods as intellectual ones -- because you can own your home, but not if home builders can sneak in just the right poison pill to change your home into an intellectual property work
There are plenty of reforms I'd like to see in copyright law, including real limits on how long they last. But ownership of physical goods that people rent out lasts longer than copyright - it's literally perpetual.
Homeowners shall pay each tradesman who built their house in perpetuity, because there's still value in the fact that it's a house, after all! Don't like it? Well, that's just like being forced to renew ownership of your car!
So you've never heard of renting a house or leasing a car? Weird.
You do realize that you can purchase a copyright, as well as make lots of other arrangements, right?
Generally, if a drug is real, the more drug you apply the stronger treatment effect you observe (lots of caveats to this generality, but none seem too relevant here).
Why? First - it's not a drug. Second, even drugs (e.g. Seroquel) don't always do that - as you increase the dosage first it's an antihistamine, then causes low blood pressure, then it's an anti-psychotic - and that's a single molecule. Some drugs even manage to have a U-shaped response curve.
I would happily bet an amount of money that mattered to me that this result would fail to be replicated in a randomized, placebo-controlled study.
I would as well, just because of how often these early trials fail to produce usable results. But in the long run we have to make some long shots or we'll never get anywhere.
It's really pretty simple. ... If the answer to 1 and 2 is "yes" then you're doing something illegal and need to sort your shit out.
It's wasn't that simple even when the EPA was passed. Please see the list in Section 3(d)(1).
A hint to the mods: -1 is not for "I don't like the law you've just correctly explained to me".
You're over-simplifying a complex area of the legal system and a half-century of case law down to a single "if" statement. You also seem to think that the legal system blindly believes that correlation is causation. Either one of those would justify the down-modding.
You can negotiate with individuals. You just need to make sure that the average salary for men and the average for women is the same if they are doing the same work...
..or that you have clear, legal reasons for that pay disparity. It's perfectly legal to pay men more on average if you can demonstrate that the disparity comes from seniority, quantity of production, a merit system (that meets certain requirements), or (to quote the EPA) "a differential based on any other factor other than sex". Also please note that because it's the legal system, "any other factor" doesn't literally mean "any other factor".
If you are a CEO, work in HR, or even work as a manager, then you need to understand the law.
Yes, you do. But unless you're a lawyer who specializes in this area of the law please don't rely on your own surface understanding of the legal requirements.
That a supplier provides a service at the same cost for all people
Senior discounts are illegal?
a Starbucks coffee costs the same on Tuesday, that it did on Monday
Sales and weekend discounts are illegal?
it costs a rich person, the same it costs a poor person
Outside of getting credit that's usually true, but that's because there's usually no reason to do that and in most of the exceptions credit score is even more useful.
responsibility to pay a standard price
I don't think that exists, legally or morally. Even discrimination law doesn't expect such a thing.
It seems to me the American constitution says things about "inalienable" rights.
Well, the Declaration of Independence does, but that's not considered to be legally binding in the same way as US Constitution.
And yet the USPTO found the Lamarr invention to be sufficiently different to qualify for its' own patent. ... Most jobs don't involve fixing power lines or repairing roofs, and btw, women do those things as well. ... And every single one of those other jobs you named are being done by women as well as men.
I've never said otherwise about any of these things, so ... could you re-read and respond to what I actually wrote?
I don't hate half the human race.
If you're a misanthrope rather than a misanderist, that's good to know, but not really an improvement. Humans have flaws, and I don't see any other species that's both available and willing to sustain a civilization. So pretentious primates are what we've got to work with.
And as for men choosing money over any other benefit, that's their choice, and one that comes with consequences.
Absolutely right. On the other hand, one of those consequences is that they make more money. You can't go around saying "choices come with consequences" and "equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome" and then point to an outcome on its own and cry "sexism".
You don't achieve equality via a biased hiring or promotion process. All you're doing is robbing the new favoured group of their dignity, the ability to say that they got where they were on merit. This rightfully creates resentment because at it's core, it's no better than trading sex for a promotion, or nepotism, or cheating.
I agree with this completely. The problem is that you (appear to) think that the wage gap is (in large part) caused by discrimination, and the sentencing gap isn't - despite strong evidence to the contrary. There are actual problems (like the name-change on resumes you mentioned) and my own opinion is that we should use blind auditions more often. It can't be used for political purposes, and it works on biases that we don't know about or don't care about (ugly people, men, short people, etc).
You're using evaluations for a university position as "proof"?
Just as a quick attempt to get you to be more open-minded. That might be a lost cause, though.
As for your "explanation" of the wage gap, it still exists even when hours worked are controlled for.
Some of it does, yes, that's why I said "the primary cause" and listed several others. For exaple, overtime alone causes a 6% wage gap - that's not the whole thing, but it is a contributor.
And what is this bullshit about "danger" of being outside?
There's a comma there. The first part was about how much more likely men are to die on the job (more than ten times as many men as women). Oh, wait, you're a bigot, so it will be all their fault for being stupid, right?
Most :"outside" jobs ... sitting in the driver/operator seat. A power shovel with full suspension seat, full sound system, sound proofing, shock isolation, and easy-to-operate controls is not hard work. (I've done it, so I speak from experience).
You're an idiot. When someone goes up to fix a power line are they inside a cab? How about roofers?
As for commute and schedule flexibility, these apply equally to both sexes ... the commute and schedule flexibility burden falls more on us than on men.
You're an idiot. Men on average have longer commutes, are much more likely to have job they can't come home from every night (long-distance trucking, oil rigs, timber camps, isolated mines, etc), and (as for almost any other factor you can name) men are more likely than women to choose money over any other benefit.
Men thinking with their dicks is directly related to differences in the sexes. It's pitiful to watch a group of guys all drooling when a 23-year-old job applicant comes in, no qualifications, and gets the job.
It's also 'pitiful' to watch a 50 year old manager break down in tears as well. The difference is that I don't look down on other people for having hormonal differences - whether it's having a higher libido than mine or going though meopause. I try to have compassion for them and help them to well.
Then again, this is a tech setting, where men will be boys.
I've spent my entire life around engineers and have been one myself for almost two decades, and I don't know anyone who acts that way. -shrug-
How is that relevant ...? Answer: it's not.
I would like to understand why you hate half the human race, and this is relevant to that.
You claimed it was invented before, but you didn't offer a link to any patent as proof.
Citations provided upon request.
If you didn't put it all together to produce something new and patentable, you didn't invent it and can't claim credit for it.
Exactly! Patent 1869659 was in granted 1932, so Hedy Lamarr didn't invent the technology. She thought up a quirky new implementation, and with help from someone familiar with the mechanics involved, made an invention that was never put to use. I'm so glad we can agree on this.
The different incarceration rates based on gender correlate to testosterone.
Completely true, and if you're a bully you'll want to mock them for it (e.g. men think with their dicks).
On the other hand, pointing out the other things that correlate with testosterone levels, like willingness to take risks or mechanical aptitude, is wrong-think. Men and women must identical ... except when women are better.
And given that men have much higher levels of testosterone, this would explain the higher male prison population.
It explains part of it, but not all of it. Even when you only look at non-violent, first-time offenders men get longer sentences and higher fines for the same crimes than women do.
Consider that both chemical and surgical castration [nih.gov] reduce the rate of repeat pedophile offenders from 50% to between 2% and 5%. Testosterone clearly plays a role.
Ok, but is that a change in risk-taking, libido, or some vague 'badness' that you obviously think men have?
when the same resume is submitted with both a male and a female name, people evaluate the male name's resume as more qualified
Not always.
Same with the wage gap - there's a wage gap based on gender
Yes, and the primary cause of it is the 'number of hours worked' gap. Then there are the 'danger' (e.g. risk of death), 'being outside' and 'inconvenience' (e.g. graveyard shift, commute, schedule flexibility) gaps. Somewhere down at the bottom of the list is the 'we don't know, but it might be sexism' gap.
Why do you hate real life so much?
I don't hate anyone. I do think that people like you are so obsessed with your narrative that you're willing to lie in order to feel better about yourself or as signal to other people, and that that kind of behavior is damaging. To give some examples:
You just can't believe that a woman can invent and get a technical patent, can you?
There's no imaginable reading of my post that would even suggest that. Do you see how much this has distorted your view of the facts?
No distortion involved, except on your part. No exaggeration on my part.
I offered three different minor corrections to one thing you said, and you've directly admitted that one of them was correct. The problem is that getting those minor facts wrong is a necessary part of what you're trying to do - exaggerate one person's accomplishment while erasing those of others, all in the furtherance of a political goal. You have to get a bunch of facts slightly wrong, so that you can pretend that Hedy Lamarr "invented spread-spectrum communications" on her own and the dozens of men with equal or greater contributions to the field didn't do anything other than take credit for her work.
Emmy Noether and Marie Curie made extremely exceptional contributions, please don't bring them down to the level of an above-average amature engineer.