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In the Acknowledgements, Neal thanks the Blue Origin team for the time he spent with them in the 2000s. Maybe he didn't want to hurt their feelings.


Agreed. Apple's $3T+ is built on a colossal mountain of e-waste fueled by consumerism. Like bottled water companies saying their plastic caps are 30% smaller.


Totally. Same for Monsonto and their glyphosate.

"Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide" https://foe.org/resources/merchants-of-poison/


I'm not disagreeing, but Glyphosate is not a pesticide. You're talking about the pesticids that are forbidden in europe but allowed in the States and forced in Canada/Mexico (i have seen a documentary about what the US force on Mexico to allow them in Nafta, honestly Trump wanting to pull out of Nafta was a great, great idea for Mexicans medium to long-term).

Glyphosate cause other issue, it isn't a neurotoxic (most pesticids are, that's why weed and tobacco were used as natural pesticids before chemistry). It only work as a chlorophylia suppressor, an EDC for plants if i may (it's not really, but close enough). In small quantities, it does not seems to have any effect on human hormones. But while the half-life is "only" a few months, the quantities used (especially in gardening and arboriculture) mean the human exposition is stronger than in tests, but also that huge amount are washed into rivers where it kills plant life and ultimately fishes.

Also it push non-productive GMO, and in my opinion, non-productive GMO (basically more water efficient plants, stuff like golden rice) should be avoided.


Glyphosate may not be a pesticide but it is suspected of harming bees in subtle ways.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/bee-alert-is-a-controversial-...


Yes, but the issues once again seems to stem from overexposition and continuous usage (in gardening and arboriculture). I'm not saying we whould continue to use it as we are, we ought to limit it, but reasonable usage exists, like to enhance direct seeding under a vegetative cover (basically you kill your winter vegetative cover with glyphosate and a roller, wait a week, seed under the dying cover). You don't even have to use glyphosate here to be honest, but small quantities really facilitate the work and allow to use a diversified cover.

We should ban glyphosate in gardening and arboriculture though.


For the record, we're already dumping hundreds of millions of kilos of poison on our food in the form of glyphosate and other pesticides, albeit not PFAS. Whereas the shock here is that we're already so full of poisons that our own sewage is untenable for use as fertilizer.



Given the absence of effective biosolids/pesticides regulation by the FDA/EPA/USDA, with PFAS levels increasing in soil, the US will become unable to grow food that isn't poison.


> … we're already so full of poisons that our own sewage is untenable…

Do you have a reference? This sounds terribly fascinating.


it's literally what TFA is about. read the first paragraph at least


Revolver is underrated.


What alleged company is this? (allegedly)


Previous thread, specifically a critical question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39137491

Also, if this data is for sale then it's a reasonable bet that other governments have bought it too (i.e., Russia, China, etc). Is that "legal", then? What's the difference?


Well, the critical answer had a very large flaw in it.

The 4th amendment mostly prohibits seizures by the government. It has nothing to do with what the government is allowed to have [1].

Private data is not protected by the 4th amendment anymore than public data is. The government may not seize your private data without a warrant. This applies to say Equifax as well, the government cannot seize Equifax's records on you. However, giving Equifax money and Equifax giving data is an exchange / transaction / not a seizure so it doesn't matter.

A much more minor flaw is the argument that "you or I" can't buy this data. 1st because it's just false. Journalists have fun buying this data all the time. 2nd sometimes goods are sold to qualified customers. Try buying a jet fighter; its do-able, people own harriers (just not the guy Pepsi owed one to).

---

The sub-point in the critical answer that I think is the much bigger deal is the lack of transparency. Your publicly funded police department should not be able to obscure where they're spending money.

---

However, the article brings up an example not address by the critical answer. "This included paying an administrator at a private parcel delivery service to search people's packages and send them to the DEA".

That sounds a lot like a search by the government (or it's agent).

[1]: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/


Related ~100 pg report from Dec 2022. We'll researched and well articulated, in my opinion at least.

In history books it's appropriately shocking to see those photos of kids playing in clouds of DEET sprayed by trucks, 1950s and 60s, yet today we're many orders of magnitude beyond that with glyphosate.

https://foe.org/resources/merchants-of-poison/


Perhaps at least some of that "non-functional" DNA is so only after the completion of our nanotechnological self-assembly process, which is surely somewhat complex.


We'll all need Inception-style totems soon.


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