kickout

13 ms·

91.
by kickout 4y ago
you think controlled environments don't use chemicals to control pests??? They do, and they use them a lot, because controlling pests and pathogens is physically hard no matter how hard you try. Vertical farming is way, way more energy
92.
by kickout 4y ago
This article (if read completely) highlights the extreme lack of data on this subject and mostly does a good job explaining how each metric is 'loaded' (toxicity, nominal application amounts, off-target movements, etc.) This is a
93.
by kickout 4y ago
Pesticide use in conventional system can use synthetic chemistries whereas organic can only use 'natural' formulations. Thus, it is extremely difficult to compare apples to apples and most studies are flawed. Because the 'nat
94.
by kickout 4y ago
Absolutely nothing about organic production implies less pesticide. Opposite is true actually.
95.
by kickout 4y ago
as they should? water where water isn't naturally should be very expensive from an environmental footprint. Externalities and all that
96.
by kickout 4y ago
Not bad. It's merely a small snippet but it's indicative in tone and implicit in intent.
97.
by kickout 4y ago
True, but again, carnivore diets seem to be more popular historically speaking. Rightly or wrongly
98.
by kickout 4y ago
We've been eating meat _far_ longer than houses, phones, tech, etc. Will be _much_ harder to give that up. Been eating meat for hundreds of millennia
99.
by kickout 4y ago
Most field corn is not directly palatable for humans. Livestock feed, yes. There is lots of stuff we could eat to get nutrition from when shit hits fan. Most of us don't haven't tried though, lol
100.
by kickout 4y ago
We don't need programming, iphones, cars, computers, boats, houses, clothes, etc. But we like them.
101.
by kickout 4y ago
I mean, this comment is wrong. The US has some of the world most stringent food standards in the world. FDA, USDA, OSHA etc. wield immense regulatory power. Is it perfect? No. You can't sell meat at scale in the USA without the governm
102.
by kickout 4y ago
Not much, most of that land literally has no use besides animal grazing.
103.
by kickout 4y ago
Nope. Go after ethanol if you want wasted corn. We like/need meat, and there is plenty of corn production or grazing land to accommodate that production. Something like 30-50M buffalo lived and grazed in North America before they were
104.
by kickout 4y ago
Usually I shill my blog (in bio) where I _hope_ i'm sharing signal. In a weird type of way, there's little we can do immediately. Almost like a solar flare type of event. Ag and food production systems are so massively scaled, eve
105.
by kickout 4y ago
they do this because its most efficient/profitable, not because of a technical limitation. Those economic incentivizes could be changed rapidly given the proper political capital.
106.
by kickout 4y ago
Kind of agree. I don't think ag was malicious in that regard. No different than any business trying to maximize profits by any* means necessary (tm). Just so happens it affects human health.
107.
by kickout 4y ago
It's ok though. I like these threads on HN. Hopefully helps educate people. People on HN have a lot of skills to offer agriculture they likely aren't even aware of. Every article/discussion helps spread the message, hopefully
108.
by kickout 4y ago
Correct, those long tail problems aren't so long when variance is high and time scales are long (50-60 years)
109.
by kickout 4y ago
Will likely happen in our lifetime. I'm positive of it. not a damn thing we can do either. If it doesn't rain, no 'genome edited drought resistance' will matter. Crops need water period (be nice if they needed _less_ wat
110.
by kickout 4y ago
Mostly good comments in here. My take is we have at least 1-2 years of global supply of most grains. This is a completely political problem; its not like we're getting 2012 US Midwest levels of drought in back-to-back years (now THAT w
111.
by kickout 4y ago
Agree with you, but people on HN and other places tend to flame/heckle companies that don't do this too, aka Elon Musk. Love him or hate him he does things 'his' way without all the seemingly built-in middle layers. I li
112.
by kickout 4y ago
IMO, that's why we're seeing these article. Going to college is/was pushed heavily by teachers/society/counselors as _the only_ way to 'make it'. Add that to the fact that college costs in the US have skyr
113.
by kickout 4y ago
Disease vector is the primary reason at the moment
114.
by kickout 4y ago
Yes, genome engineering is a tool that can be used for evil, no different than most other tools. I am confident your worry would be easily detected and squashed if some lab were attempting such a dreadful thing.
115.
by kickout 4y ago
I'm confused. I'm not fear-mongering at all. I'm on the opposite side of fear--optimism. This is akin to a proof of concept with this mosquito species. It is likely the learnings will translate to other mosquito species. I ha
116.
by kickout 4y ago
No more than they have a right to decide if a chemical is applied to a water aquifer or a pesticide is sprayed in a different locale and then drifts over. Direct democracy type approaches have never been a good (or even correct) model for t
117.
by kickout 4y ago
Yes, but how does that contradict my statement? We would go after the biting species first and species that somehow are causing humans 'harm'. Don't think anyone wants to wipe out 800 species on a whim. IF the tool scales, we
118.
by kickout 4y ago
We kill entire species all the time as humanity, often unnoticed. I think its better that we have a explicit reason for doing so.
119.
by kickout 4y ago
You are correct but I think you are discounting the scalability of this approach and tech. I view this more as a proof of concept. In many years, it will likely be trivial to expand this to all mosquito species relatively effortlessly.
120.
by kickout 4y ago
Lol, wild seeing Hallam, NE on a post on HN about nuclear reactors. Drive by this place often, will stop and look at it now. Thanks

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