Comment by bananalychee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bananalychee | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The SLF infestation was met with a whole lot of handwaving, of "look how dangerous this is", but not much in terms of concrete solutions. Then the population naturally stabilized as predators started feeding on them with basically no action taken other than some city weirdoes stomping on them. Turns out you don't need almighty Scientists to do Nature's job all the time. If this situation is different I'm open to the idea that intervention is needed, but all this parroting of uninformed BlueSky propaganda claiming everything is going to fall apart any time now, just you wait, is getting old. In January planes were falling out of the sky because Trump, in February no more social security because Trump, in March we can't forecast the weather anymore because Trump, in April staglation because Trump, in May World War 3 because Trump, in June forest fires because Trump, and in July Trump is killing the bees. What will the madman do next!

I came from a town where farmers work with university scientists and the ones who don't are basically doing tourist farm stands. Likewise, I see the NSF + NIH funding cuts from fellow scientists, eg, cancer researchers, being cut, and hear from multiple agency leaders navigating it but cannot speak out publicly. But feel good about pretending scientists do nothing and modern medicine and food supply isn't due to them.

And yes, if you think the scientists self-reporting on their funding cuts are fake, the objective truth problem is most definitely you.

We're able to feed the world's population today because scientists developed disease-resistant and high-yield varieties of wheat, rice, and other crops, and because scientists developed pesticides and fertilizers. To feed a growing population, particularly with the threat of plant diseases constantly mutating, we basically have to keep doing that scientific work forever.

Most of those scientists work for the private seed companies not the government. Sure they started from government research but they then turned those ideas into real seeds.

Nature...uh...finds a way. It's just that next time, we might not get to be around to find out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com