condemning Monsanto with bad science is dumb

[shava]

30. I assume you have a plan to fund this then?

Because, you know, that's why these kids probably came out with this seat-of-the-pants treatment. No one is going to fully fund this research against Monsanto. It puts their reputation up against a PR machine that will go out to destroy them, likely sue the living crap out of their lab for things perhaps having nothing to do with this particular research, and so on.

So perhaps if you were the biological equivalent of George Soros, you could criticize like this, then back a lab for further development. Otherwise, it rings a bit hollow. Who is this "we" who has to have a plan, eh? Who will bell this cat before we are all poisoned maybe?

How would you feel about that with a correlation in hand and a twenty year old heart beating in your chest?

As I said, they had cojones (pardon the sexist tone -- ovaries are quite equivalent! I am female...).

They couldn't possibly have gotten the funding in this climate. It would have been nearly impossible for them to have gotten good advice from anyone in the established academy even if he or she believed in their hypothesis. Even at MIT (where I used to be associated) where they are known for sheltering mavericks historically on either end of various odd spectrums (Chomsky and the Kochs, for example).

There is possibly a book to be written, "Barnstormers of Science," which starts in the 1800s noting that the brave idiots would have qualified as *everyone*, and documents how in the later 1800s and into the 1900s the academy gradually ossified and established pecking orders and journals and a mandarin system such that young people never had a chance without buying in and being just more fodder. It didn't start out like that from perhaps the 1500s to 1900-ish though.

Science (and by extension, engineering) was the instrument of the Enlightenment, nearly outside of the old priestly scholastic system at first, especially 250-200 years ago, supercharged by the industrial revolution, much more free of politics and hierarchy.

This is some of the romanticism you see around steampunk and "mad science" today, as the increasing commodification of tech continues to whore out science, tech, and engineering to mere chattel of the lords of capital.

Some of the science is there to destroy the world, some is there to save it -- all very adventurous -- but until fairly recently more of those decisions seemed to be in the hands of the technologists, not the money men, quite so consistently. Properly, non-science people feared that. Geeks tend to impulsivity. But in groups they tend to more morality than capitalists, because they tend to work out trends more long term, in self-regulating communities. The memetics of geek culture are fascinating, and they've turned, generationally, to sustainability from militarism -- so capital is systemically taking the tech out of our hands.

Structures, increasingly, are being created in finance to make sure that tech people are locked out of leadership in their own companies, because, I think, we often have ideas that take more factors into decision making that go beyond profit, beyond single products, and into what makes a good lab or engineering company long term and not just a good cash cow.

But it's also very hard to get geeks to do more than bitch on the Internet about this. In fact, after more than thirty years on the Internet, I'm frankly disappointed at the binky quality of the medium -- it satisfies so much of the need for people to feel a sense of community (say on forums such as this) that they never leave the comfort of their ergonomic chairs for one or two evenings a week for a community meeting or two to effect real change.

That would involve breaking the silo and dealing with difficult people. Challenging preconceptions, crafting and living with compromises. Nasty uncomfortable things, make you late for dinner. Much easier to stay home and watch Game of Thrones and anticipate the politics than to actually deal with risks in the real world.

My time of adventuring is likely over. I had a rather bad stroke in a good instrument that laid me low a couple years ago, so all I can do is write and bitch now, and wait for the SSDI to kick in, and hope I don't end up homeless in the meantime (the safety net has holes -- seems that if you are too smart, and present too well, it's very hard to convince people you only have a couple good hours a day twixt migraines/seizures and people won't pay you for them if you can't meet deadlines consistently, as a former engineer with a wiped math center -- c'est la vie).

But now that I have time to stop and observe, rather than my former 4x normal speed forward, I see people substituting talking about the problems for doing anything about them. Signing petitions for contacting the actors doing harm, or any direct action at all, or even contacting their delegation in DC to say "Don't support these people if they come to lobby you."

Most congressional offices throw away internet petitions -- did you know that? They ignore them because they are too easy. They serve as ways for organizations like Change.org to collect your address and raise money, and education you on an issue (that last being a worthy enough end if it gets you to do something as a follow up...ever...).

So there's my rant for the day. Log of DU, call your congressional delegation. Find a meeting with your local dems this week or with local government or a nonprofit you care about, and get involved if you aren't already.

None of the real work is done online. Democratic committee work isn't here. The laws aren't made online. The schools aren't run online. Utilities aren't regulated online. City and county government isn't run online. The things that matter to you aren't done here, and probably never will be. So if you aren't doing that, please give it a chance and do so, and get involved, because I can't really anymore, and I miss it and worry about it terribly.

Shava Nerad
former technical/research staff, MIT, UNC/CH Hospital, University of Oregon (which is what brought me to this particular discussion)

former chair of Budget and Finance, Multnomah County Oregon (PDX)
former state committee, Oregon
key volunteer, Oregon for Dean
key volunteer, Oregon for Kerry (with the button that read: "I am in love with Howard Dean but in an arranged marriage with John Kerry&quot
campaign chair, mayoral run, Portland OR (we lost but got the most votes per $ expended, on a first run for my really smart pro-biz/pro-schools but unknown guy so we knew we had very long odds, and he later decided maybe politics wasn't his thing -- but we also spoiled the rather corrupt in-the-pocket-of-developers candidate who we didn't want to win so we were pretty pleased)
(and more before or after but this is the thick of it)
(all of which is which is what brings me to exhort you to go out and do the work since I can't much anymore)

Founding executive director, The Tor Project (which is what I'm probably best known for, oddly enough, after a whole career of other stuff in digital divide and other interesting work in science/engineering)