crushendo [he/him]

  • 2 Posts
  • 33 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: September 16th, 2020

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  • crushendo [he/him]tomainAre GMOs good?
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    4 years ago

    I'm not strictly opposed to this take, but I always point out to people that moving away from monoculture means no more mechanization, which means dramatically increased labor requirements, which in the US means vast exploitation. farm labor is a terrible job. obviously we should fight for farm labor workers and protections, but I'm not convinced farm labor can ever be a good job on a large scale



  • crushendo [he/him]tomainAre GMOs good?
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    4 years ago

    Hey I'm an agricultural engineer who has worked with GMOs before and currently researches ag + climate stuff. GMOs are fine, they've done some good and might be able to do a lot more. The problem is though that GMO advocates tend to fall into techno-optimist cliches where they say CRISPR and advanced multi trait GMOS are going to save the world, when they very clearly arent. From a climate perspective, GMOs are next to useless due to the ~13 year development cycle they have, meaning they cannot act nearly fast enough to avert the coming crisis. GMOs and other technical solutions are often propped up by people who dont want to do any of the work that will actually be required to stave off climate change, like massivly overhauling the global economy and clamping down western consumption. They can be useful at some things and we shouldnt throw them aside, but its also not really worth spending a ton of time defending them, and the people who do are usually bad actors.






  • crushendo [he/him]toaskchapo*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    when I was really young I wanted to be an underwater photographer. I thought it would be dope to go scuba diving and take pictures of rad fish all day, maybe make a photo book. under communism, I will fulfill my dream










  • I'm lucky my younger self had strong anti military instincts and a penchant for the outdoors, which steered me into agricultural engineering. It still takes some effort to maneuver into something actually useful, as a ton of people just end up helping silicon valley types try to "disrupt" farming. but after going back to grad school, I'm on my way to working in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in ag