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@mk30@tilde.zone
mastodon 4.8.0-alpha.3+glitchwastewater specialist in training (back in school), art doodler, plant person, aspiring forest hag, living off-grid on hawai'i island. aloha 'aina!
plant/garden alt: @mk30@regenerate.social
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Joined October 06, 2022
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the halloweentown of the heart
update on WIP industrial ag mega-zine:
i'm so deep in the weeds on the green revolution that i'm reading about the agrarian development model of C. Subramaniam, India's Food and Ag Minister from 1964-66:
"Subramaniam's agrarian model can be divided up in three components: the economic, the technological and the organizational. The economic component consisted in the view that price incentives would motivate farmers to produce more since it would be profitable to do so. Technology was required since acreage expansion had reached its limits, making production increases dependent on yields per acre. And organizational effort was needed because in order for the first two components to work, institutions had to be created for determining what the level of prices should be and how to implement them. Also necessary was a research and administrative structure that would generate or adapt appropriate, yield-increasing technologies and transmit them to farmers."
this is from a paper called "Ideas, Interest and Institutions in Policy Change: Transformation of India's Agricultural Strategy in the Mid-1960s" by Ashutosh Varshney, published in 1989.
this paper argues that it wasn't the technology of the green revolution per se that led to increased agricultural yields in india starting in the late 60s, but the state's reorientation of its agricultural policy to the goal of improving yields via technology and to the use of price policies to shape agriculture (over previous strategies which were more oriented around redistribution of land and creation of farmer co-ops).
i gotta say, as someone who gets interested in the complexities of how societies change, the green revolution is a fascinating (if exhausting) subject to research. the scholarship is bottomless, and i'm still only focused on india. the green revolution was different in every country that experienced it.
anyway, people say one is "in the weeds" as if one is lost, but most weeds i know need one to get down on the ground and pull them up by their roots if one wants to really get at the problem. so that's what i'm doing: really trying to understand.
while i'm researching, i'm thinking about what information i'll present in the zine and how it will be organized. currently, i'm thinking it might be interesting to have a spread that contrasts elements of the "standard story of the green revolution" with the actual complexities of each of those elements. examples of the elements of the standard story are claims like "there was famine in india before the green revolution", "india's agriculture before the green revolution was backward", "the green revolution increased agricultural yields", "the green revolution solved hunger in india", and "the US developed the improved wheat and rice varieties that were central to the green revolution in order to address global hunger." each one of those is an extremely complicated question with loads of scholarship that continues to this day. instead of trying to "prove/disprove" each claim, i think that instead i'll try to point to information that complicates the story to the point where the reader understands that the simplistic story is simply inadequate. we'll see.
(addendum: further elements of the "standard" green revolution story include less-obvious assumptions like "the government of india was bumbling and just sitting on its hands while its agriculture stayed stagnant" (extremely untrue - members of the government were extremely sophisticated actors who took their country's agricultural situation extremely seriously, and who had in fact already increased yields significantly since partition), and "america foisted the agricultural revolution on india" (also somewhat untrue - although the government *was* influenced by the west, it was very interested in the western agricultural program. it's possible to say that the system was foisted on india's farmers, but not on the government). other elements of the "standard" story: "indian agriculture was unchanged for centuries", and "indian peasants didn't know how to farm." anyway, i really want to challenge the major theme of the standard story, which is that "the poor, backwards indians were saved by the generous and technologically-advanced west.")
Look at how many times the heritage foundation ghouls use the word "natural" or "inherent" when describing some stuff about women: https://www.transiticsnews.com/p/after-pushing-anti-trans-laws-to
Ideas about what's "natural" (vs "cultural") are central to a lot of messed up ideologies. The idea that something is "natural" is used as a cudgel to keep people in line: "girls shouldn't play sports, it's not natural" or "it's only natural for people to want to marry within their race", or "it's unnatural to be gay", etc etc etc.
This is why disciplines like cultural anthropology are necessary. The research that comes out of these fields helps answer the question "is x *really* natural, or does it vary by culture?"
Sometimes I wonder: if I didn't receive so many messages growing up about such and such thing being natural or inevitable, would I have been as interested in studying cultural anthropology in college, and would I instead have gone for a more practical major? Who can say.
As things happened, I absolutely *needed* to learn whether I really was meant to be a dumb, weak babymaker.....or whether it's inevitable for a certain number of people in a society to go hungry or be without a home (the answer is "no" and "no").
I defer to actual cultural anthropologists on this, but if someone asked me "ok, so what actually *is* natural about humans? (Meaning: occurs in all or nearly all cultures)", I think there's very little. I think almost all (if not all-all societies) have humans living in groups ("social species"), using tools (just like many other non-human animals), using language, and telling stories. That's about it. Pretty much everything else varies. If there's an obvious one I've missed, please let me know.
So don't let bigots bully you by telling you this or that is "natural"! Nearly everything about how humans are varies by culture, and anyway, where is the experiment that involves culture-less humans (which might show us what "natural" humans are like)? And those instances of"wild" children don't count, because humans raised alone do *not* reflect any kind of "natural" conditions (because we evolved growing up in groups).
#CulturalAnthropology #bigotry #feminism #trans
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on the subject of relationships between ecosystems, this documentary featuring the kogi people of south america has indigenous insights into how changes in different parts of a river system affect ecosystems in other parts of the river system.
although it's not presented as scientific results, i think it's a good example of local knowledge that shows an understanding of how changes in one ecosystem affect another ecosystem.
https://youtu.be/ftFbCwJfs1I?si=DbslzsP3pg7TPyEF
#ecology #nature #science #ecosystems #indigenous
I Knead Dem Biscuits
The new "ghost in the shell" series has such amazing animation and visual design. I love it so much. I also have no idea what's happening with the story because it's so confusing. and the fan service is so over the top that I lose track of the story because I can't stop trying to understand why the cyborg creation attendants are at work literally wearing no pants, sexy red underwear, and garter belts.
i love it when music and animation come together to make something that's greater than the sum of the parts 🥰 🪽
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@georgetakei @tippitiwichet "Iran slammed the world's finger into a car door! Well guess what, we can ALSO slam the world's finger in a car door! That'll show 'em!"
y'all, these calarts animations just keep getting better and better 😍
as you may know, i have a lot of dreams about living in weird houses.
last night i dreamed that i was in a huge, weird mansion/castle (someone else's - not something i would build). it had a huge medieval-style central hall with like...shields and weapons going up the walls all the way to the ceiling, which was maybe 40 feet high. it was all stone and in the style of one of those people who's obsessed with castles.
i had some people over and as we were entering, i showed them the main hall (which in the dream, i was confused about as well lol), and some people came out of the basement (which i didn't even know existed). they were squatting down there and i told them "it's ok, you can come up." basically, it seemed like someone else had built this house, left it, then it was empty for a while, these folks moved in, and then i was there.
i had a tiny, cozy apartment on the top floor. it was so tiny that as i was showing my friends around, we all had to squeeze through the hallway, etc. but, interestingly, when i was showing it to them, there was a whole closet that i discovered that i hadn't been using.
so i was showing my friends around, the squatters were hanging out too and charging up their phones, and i was telling my friends "yea, it's great, oh, except there are snakes that sometimes come out of the ceiling." and indeed, some brown snakes were hanging down out of the ceiling, right above the bed. my friends were like OMG and started backing away. i thought "the snakes seem ok, they haven't hurt me." but then a whole load of snakes were poking out and dropping down lower and lower to the point where they could get at me while i was in bed. then i thought "ok, i guess that is pretty bad. i'll move my bed." 😅
also, there was a huge partially-built/partially-destroyed house on the property. i could see it from the window of my tiny apartment. it was a brick house...it looked like chunks had been taken out of it. as i was looking at it, a youtube video was playing in the background about what a pain it was if you bought a lot with a half-built/half-destroyed house. it was talking about how difficult it would be to find a builder who would want to work on it, how complicated it could be to fix, how it's not clear whether it should be torn down or fixed up, and how both options were potentially extremely expensive, and how really, you couldn't live in a house like that. i remember looking out the window at that other house, knowing that it was on my property, my problem, and thinking "yea, this video is describing my issue exactly."
and i even told my friends "you know, i often have dreams about weird houses and partially-built/partially-destroyed houses" 😆
so that was basically it. i *do* often have dreams about weird houses and partially-built/partially-destroyed houses. places where some of the rooms are ok, but then there's a room that's unlivable with a huge hole in the roof or the wall. i *have* lived in a lot of weird houses, including houses where part of it was livable and part wasn't. some might even say i live in such a place now lol. so it's definitely related to ongoing problems with my living situation.
but also, i think that often my house dreams have the house as a metaphor for my mind, and house as a metaphor for my life in general. i guess it's a good sign that in this dream, at least i had a cozy apartment as part of this deal! maybe it's like, "there's a small safe space in your mind, even if the rest is kind of destroyed/incomplete/in disarray, and not really livable." granted, the safe space did have snakes that would randomly come out of the ceiling over my bed, which is not great, but also, no ghosts in any of the rooms this time! that's definitely a step up.
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@peter@thepit.social oh man, my tipsy happy lasts like....an hour max these days. It's wild.
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@peter@thepit.social I wonder how he decided that it was "much more efficient now" because there's no way that he could get the thing to compile/build/run....
He definitely took a big swing tho! 😳
i'm increasingly seeing AI blogs/sites listed as sources for AI summaries at the top of search results. the answer might even be correct, but the bad source makes me question it completely.
this seems like it was bound to happen. what do they call it...model collapse?
for the record, this is the source of the AI assist's answer for my query: https://lifestyle.sustainability-directory.com/area/ks-value/ it's an obvious AI site imo.
work continues on my industrial ag mega-zine. we're getting into the "consequences of pesticide use" section, and unsurprisingly, it's much more complicated than i expected. it turns out that pouring a bunch of poison onto the land has complicated and unexpected consequences that are extremely difficult to trace throughout an ecosystem! (nevermind the effects on agriculture itself...see: "pesticide treadmill".)
anyway, i've just started looking through "Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture" by Adam M. Romero and came across this quote:
"You may be asking yourself what war has to do with the transformation of waste into agricultural inputs. When I first began this project, I was not sure that it had anything to do with it. I was already familiar with Edmond Russell’s classic book "War and Nature", in which he describes the coevolution of agriculture and war since World War I. But as I read the Journal of Economic Entomology cover to cover..."
i looked up at the top of my screen and saw that this is a 365 page book and i was only at the beginning. so i guess i have a long road ahead. at least i don't have to read any issues of the journal of economic entomology!
below i've included a part of a spread on pesticides that i've already completed. this spread is about the war on the land and how war metaphors and imagery have been used to sell pesticides for at least 50 years... (and isn't it remarkable how much the photo of the helicopter spraying over a rice field looks like it could be a photo of the vietnam war?)
#IndustrialAgriculture #environment #ecology #pesticides #pollution
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@peter@thepit.social so they had no idea about what the token could do...which means that the AI created the token and set its permissions, right? Because if they had set up the tokens, they would know its permissions, right?
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@tippitiwichet@mastodon.social oh man, sounds a lot like my mom. She has lost $ in many pyramid schemes, sends hundreds of dollars to "gurus", and is constantly in a cycle of buying and returning clothes and buying more stuff on store credit. Her ability to pick dishonest people to work with is remarkable. Sometimes I get the sense that she keeps hoping there's some kind of shortcut to having a lot of $. I'm just happy she has a real profession now (she does real estate).
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@tippitiwichet@mastodon.social you're giving me a new perspective on my mom's neverending quest for wealth 😅
i always assumed it was because her dreams were too big (she wants soooooo many things...big, expensive things. she has fancy taste, you know?), but now that i think about it, she doesn't track her finances at all 😖
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@tippitiwichet@mastodon.social i suspect that people who are used to making problems go away with $ would be totally lost if placed in a situation where they didn't have money and instead had to resolve problems with creativity, tenacity, patience, acceptance, and most importantly: mutual relations of goodwill.
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@peter what this person made is an app that can never be changed, updated, debugged, or handed over. It's like a little specimen in a glass box.
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@guilhernunes_ so pretty! what kind of fruit is that in the background? it looks like what we call surinam cherry.
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@FantasticalEconomics is there a malevolent version of dunning Kruger? Because if so, palantir has it. Their "manifesto" reads like they really thought they were doing something and saying something Important 🙄
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the above post was inspired by the beautiful and thorough footnotes in the book "nature at war: american environments and WWII", edited by Thomas Robertson, Richard P. Tucker, Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Peter Mansoor.
i highly recommend the most 80s brand new yacht rock jam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob5hUHZJtE4
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@etp thx for the insight! for the record, my poll is 100% footnotes. no one has voted for endnotes. 😅
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@jenn@gardenstate.social the regulated skeletor has clearly never had to host my mother on a week-long visit!
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@weirdestate that half bathroom is meant to torture any guests who come over and need to use it.
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@tomasino@tilde.zone what kind is "predestination"?
Also: "relax, I'm from the future"?
Also: terminator movies?
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@weirdestate I wonder if the main job of this place is to get rented out for weddings or company retreats or something.
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@KimCrayton1 hear hear. Same thing for rest: you don't get to lie around if there are still things that need doing. And if you do lie around when things need doing, well you better feel guilty about it lol.
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@weirdestate@eigenmagic.net "uggghhh Jim is jerking it in the pod above me again. I knew I should've taken pod 11. At least it's up high."
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@etp ok i had to look up "doddle". so, with modern typesetting footnotes are easier than endnotes?
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@rostiger@merveilles.town well it seems that i have the same name as her, and i also love cats! 😺