What's the point of the ugly genAI interstitial images? The blogging equivalent of wearing a dunce-cap.
Why does AI struggle with hands so much?
Are Plants Farming Us?
11–20 of 60 posts
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#12Have mostly heard this kind of talk before about the cannabis plant - by all indication it has existed alongside mankind for much of mankind’s history, seems uniquely suited to many of man’s needs, even practical ones like rope - grows easily alongside anywhere humans will typically habitate. It’s toxic to lots of other animals humans domesticate with, which is why it seems uniquely “targeting” humans as an evolutionary adaptation.
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#13For a wonderful scifi novel on this very theme, check out Sue Burke’s excellent Semiosis:
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#14I read something similar on Yuval Harari's Homo Sapiens, where he suggests wheat domesticated humans not the other way around. An excerpt can be found here [1]. Whole essay is great but I especially liked this part:
> The word “domesticate” comes from the Latin domus, which means “house.” Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens.
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#15This idea is a tale for people who are stuck in stubborness. It is to make one think that systems (of any kind) can be seen from more than one perspective. It's an attempt to foster empathy through an absurd (yet possible) idea. There are many of those kinds of tales. Sometimes it does not work, the listener can't bring itself to be empathic to other point of view. Always worth a try though.
Gould joked the purpose of the human organism is for shit to make more shit.
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#16Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#17Well that was a fun thought on a Sunday night. I work in AgTech. The thought that all of the engineering work I’ve put into the last 6 years is really a bunch of trickery that plants have inflicted on me and my coworkers really makes me smile. And that smile, like the author says, is just enough of a dopamine hit to get back up in the morning and keep at it!
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#18For a wonderful scifi novel on this very theme, check out Sue Burke’s excellent Semiosis: https://bookshop.org/p/books/semiosis-sue-burke/7103931
I was going to recommend this as well. As a sidebar: my wife and I planted a raspberry bush when we bought our house years ago, and every year it grows more and more out of control. I started calling it Steveland a couple years ago — not only is it gigantic at this point, but it's definitely farming the two of us, our dogs, and all of the squirrels and birds in our neighborhood.
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#19This reminds me of the concept of Vavilovian mimicry, where weed seeds gain resemblance to the crops they grow among over time. Eventually the seeds become so similar to a cereal grain that they begin to be grown for their own sake. Oats and Rye were both originally weeds trying to successfully hide in Wheat fields and survive weeding and winnowing.
Re: Are Plants Farming Us?
#20I read something similar on Yuval Harari's Homo Sapiens, where he suggests wheat domesticated humans not the other way around. An excerpt can be found here [1]. Whole essay is great but I especially liked this part: > The word “domesticate” comes from the Latin domus, which means “house.” Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens. [1] https://www.ynharari.com/topic/ecology/
He also talked about this "reverse chain of command" in the recent talk at Peking university:
Human evolves from worm. Human brain is originally a bunch of neurons centered around the worm's mouth to search for food. It is natural to think human is still controlled by stomach to this day (or spinal cord for that matter).