GM Rules, Organic Drools

Do you worry about GM foods? Do you ever sit around your grande latte and say stuff like "You know I just don't think we should mess with nature" or "Technology and Nature just shouldn't be mixed" or "We just don't know the long term effects, science doesn't know everything"?

Its you.

You are the dumbest person.

Genetically modified food is one of the greatest innovations mankind has ever made. It has saved literally billions of lives. Its guessed that Norman Borlaugh, one of the leading proponents of GM food, personally saved one billion lives. I know I'm constantly blowing figures out of proportion to make a point but I mean it. The man literally is responsible for 1/7th of the entire population having something to eat.


He did that with some incredible science and a will to save people. For those keeping score by the way, that's 1Billion to Scientists, 0 to stinking hippies and Greenpeace.


In today's world, its cool to reject science, because we're all backwards ass idiots with weird guilt problems about the earth, as though it belongs to anyone but us. But the fact is science is why you have enough food to be able to choose between your Organic yoghurt and the GM food, science is why you are able to live long enough to bother wondering about what we're doing to the planet, if you wanted us to stop fucking around with nature you should go back 1000 years and kill off anyone who comes up with the idea of crop rotation or irrigation or genetic modification.


Genetic modification? I'm just saying that to be funny right? No you moron. Breeding plants together to create stronger strains has been around since forever, and that's all GM is. No squid genes, no fluffy corn, just more corn per acre, more disease resistance and better tasting food. Its fucking awesome.

Honestly though this is a bit of an old topic, I don't think many people seriously believe that GM foods are bad, especially no one who is likely to read this blog. But just in case, here. There's been an actual lowering in stomach cancers in the past 10 years. There's been a lowering of colon and rectum cancer. In fact to cut this short, there's been a lowering of every cancer since 2000. GM foods are not causing cancer in any way shape or form. Considering ever bit of food you eat is GM in some way shape or form, even if you grow it yourself in your own stupid hippy garden, its not surprising that the issue is still seen as "inconclusive" to some. If GM food killed people, we'd have a lot more dead people frankly, and the opposite is happening.

 Never mind the fact that every single food agency and peer-reviewed science journal has declared GM food safe and the only people who disagree are "The Organic Farmers Association" and Greenpeace. In the interests of fairness, some reports have also been published by heavily pro GM lobbyist groups stating the safety of GM food. Let it be known that I think dishonesty is horrible no matter which side is being dishonest.

Anyway, there's your rant and your evidence to back my shit up. Stop bitching about something that has genuinely saved the world. A lot of you guys don't realise this but 30 years ago people were very very worried about where we'd get food from, people were terrified that we'd not be able to grow enough shit to feed everyone on the earth. Well we solved that problem with GM foods and its benefits. GM foods literally saved the human race and all we can do is pretend we're too good for it.

To say nothing of all the brown people who would die if you shitty organic cunts got your way
-Nems

Book 22 - Blindsight by Peter Watts

65,000 alien probes appear in a flash above earth, a forgotten deep space probe picks up signals from the very edge of known space and a crew composed of broken zombies and a monster are sent to have first contact with an alien intelligence.

That is the biggest undersell I've ever done. Peter watts manages to scare the shit out of you while making you think your little brains out. I spent the book equal parts in fear and in awe at the ideas, speculative philosophical debates and all round future-y stuff. The book starts off slow and a little confusing but it quickly changes and becomes an amazing journey with discussions and uncomfortable arguments about the state of being, of consiousness, of our place in our own world as we rapidly invent things better than we could ever hope to be. Each character is broken in some fundemental way and uses technology to make up for that problem. I won't spoil it by analyising everything because I'd rather you did it for yourself, its damned fun and rewarding too.

I havn't even spoken about the plot yet, the plot is deceptively simple on the outside, while seemingly just another First Contact story, it is so much more. It has a concept of aliens that has never been done before (As far as I know), First contact ends just about as you'd expect but the journey to that ending is way different than you could imagine.

My only real complient is that half way through it feels like our perspective shifts and we're following another character for a little bit, but thats probably my fault. It gets hard to keep up when one of the characters is split into 4 different personalities and one lives through machines and sensors.

Really really read this. The genius has even left it up for free on his site. Right within these bloody words

Maybe I might ended up overselling it a bit but only because it was such a bloody good book. read it nowww.

Book 21 - Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time. This is the story of a man who suffered through one of the worst bombings in history, and also happened to time travel to a different planet sometimes.

I didn't really intend for my last book of the year to be anything specific. In all honesty it would have ended up being either Dracula or Blindsight or Getting Stoned with Savages, had it not been for my plane getting delayed.

As it turns out, Slaughterhouse is a fantastic read. A great anti-war book with some fasinating passages and parts that will blow your mind (imagine an alien who can see in 4 dimensions. Now imagine what he'd think when he saw a dead body).

I really really enjoyed this book. It was very meaningful without being overly in your face about it, it had a nice tight storyline and it was very very well written. Sometimes the time traveling leaves you a bit disorientated, and the constant repetition of So it Goes gets comedical at some points, but overall, I highly recommend this book.

Book 20 - Short Story Collection by Ted Chaing

A big collection of short stories by Ted Chaing who you may remember write Hell is the Absence of God.

Ted Chaing is a very talented person. Every story he writes is guaranteed to have a very very interesting concept and 9/10 will have a very good story and good writing to top it all off. The problem arises only when he tries to write endings. The poor man can not do endings at all.

Its hard to review short stories, so I'll just go ahead and say that Ted is fantastic at writing amazing worlds. Every story in this collection is magical and amazing and unbelieveable. Its just a shame that sometimes his writing ability stops him from pulling it together in one nice package.

Still suggest you give him a read, if only for the story about Golems, or the one on AI.

Book 19 - The High Frontier by Gerald O'neil

Not a sci-fi book, not a hopeful utopic look at the world, not overly hopeful but solidly realistic in his estimations. A roadmap to human orbital development, C.1979

I've wanted to read this book for years now. I really wanted something that could show me the hows and whens of the whole issue. I think in my head I built it up as some bible of orbital development, something that explains everything and makes it easy for me. And somehow I was right. If you ever want to be completly sold on the idea of space development, read this. It clears up everything and makes every element of the process clear and obvious and shows how we could have fantastic structures in space for cheap. On 1970s tech. It also helps that he massively overestimates everything. Makes you think he understands better.

My only criticisms are that O'Neil seemed fixated on 3 activities; Ballet dancing in space, 0G Love Hotels and man powered flight. Three things one can understand being excited about but maybe a better time would be while righting a tourist guide for the station, not while writing a speculative paper on how one might build a station. The only other thing is that the first 3 chapters are full on Doomsday mode. He makes some excellent points but comes out sounding a little depressing.

buy it buy it buy it

Book 18 - Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

An insomniac and his best friend attempt to destroy civilisation and thousands of idiots around the world miss the point.

Fight Club is a popular movie. It's also a very good book, which is obvious seeing how I'm currently reviewing it now. The thing about Fight Club is that almost no one who watched or read it really understood it. They walk away from the text with the idea that Tyler is right, that Tyler is wise and intelligent and Fighting is a good idea. This is basically the worst interpretation possible. Fight Club is about being yourself. Despite the movie/books constant assurances that you are not special, the message of the book is that you can be. Its not about fighting the system through self destruction, its about being more than normal by taking charge of your life and moving forward with your own goals and mind at the forefront. It is a parody of the whole, raging against the machine thing we all go through, its a joke against the overtly masochistic way men aim to be. Every character in Fight Club, besides the narrator and only right at the end, are laughable, pitiable wrecks of human beings that you are supposed to feel sorry for. You are supposed to walk away from the piece with the knowledge that you do not have to be a butch manly man, you do not have to be anything other than yourself.

I can't say much else in these short reviews. Just read it because it is great and also its short and I know you like that. Keep what I said in mind and enjoy it. Its a misunderstood but good book.

Book 17 - The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

A woman finds herself the execurtioner of an old boyfriend's will. While processing and sorting his effects, she stumbles on evidence of a secert conspiracy regarding an underground postal service.

What can I say? Its a classic. Its a novel about a million and one different subjects and subtexts. Ranging from the British Invasion of the 1960s, to Humanities need for certainties in life. I really enjoyed this read. I've been meaning to read it for a very long time but just wasn't able to get around to it. The book is utterly differnt from what I expected but in a very very good way. The characters are fantastic, the story is great and the world is very well done. I'm being very general but if I say anything more then I'll just spoil it for you.

The one big issue is the writing. Even Pynchon has said he hates the way the book is written. I found it pretty hard to follow at times and required quite a bit of effort to get through. some passages are really hard to parse and the story jumps from location and event over and over. It fits the story undoubtably but it does make for a difficult read.