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Comment by haccount | Hacker News Reader

It's technically impressive in a way but it's also a dystopian hellscape enabler technology.

The article even takes the opportunity to mention that It could be useful during "solar geo engineering events and nuclear winter". What kind of insane geo engineering event is envisioned where food crops cannot grow under natural sunlight and all food we eat is from GMO plants and mushrooms only?

Did I mention the health inspiring carbon-monoxide step in the electrolysis process to produce the food for the plants? I did now.

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A thousand atomic bombs are a dystopian hellscape enabler technology. Food that can grow without sunshine is a dystopian hellscape survival technology.

You could not have this more backwards.

EDIT: Unless you mean that someone would launch 1000 nukes on the belief that they could survive the impending hellscape only because of electro-ag mushrooms which is a possibility I strain to believe.

Harvesting Monsanto™ Dark-gro™ leafless GMO tomatoes with a cold LED headlamp in an underground bunker to the background hum of the electrolysis system that churns out megawatts worth of carbon monoxide feedstock.

Not dystopian?

I think he's saying that the nuclear winter is the dystopian scenario. The technology that allows you to survive the dystopia is not, by itself, dystopian. The technology that creates the dystopia (like nuclear weapons) are dystopian.

Worth noting that this same technology could let us reduce US agricultural land use by ~80-90% and rewild those same lands. Is having vast tracts of unspoiled wilderness "dystopian"?

Look at lucky Mr haccount here, with his fancy brand-name produce. You call that dystopian? Here we just slurp our 10% white vinegar straight out of the acetate reactor for 300 kcal per liter.

If the tomatoes are a dystopian enabling technology there, then so is the cold LED headlamp.

> What kind of insane geo engineering event is envisioned where food crops cannot grow under natural sunlight

For off-world, being able to dig a big hole, plug the leaks for atmosphere, and grow plants in it seems like it could be useful.

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