"in This New Version, You Play The Ghost Of A Dream Of A Memory Of A Cyborg Warrior Trying To Find Her

it doesn't matter how much you tell tumblr that all their silly and bad features don't work and you hate them because they're not for you. they're jingling keys to dangle in front of venture capitalists, the most gullible motherfuckers on earth, so they will keep pouring money into the giant money pit that is this website. this is also why all social media websites add features pretty much

struck with a shitpost idea

The USAmerican imagination cannot consider land that is multi-purpose.

A corn field is Corn, an endless monoculture, and all other plants must be eliminated. A residential area is Houses, and absolutely MUST NOT!!! have vegetables or fruits or native plant gardens or small livestock. A drainage ditch is only a drainage ditch, and cannot harbor Sedges and native wetland plants, A sports field is for A Sport, and let no one think of doing any other event on that field, shops and storefronts must have their own special part of town that everybody has to drive to, which requires parking lots...and God forbid we put solar panels on roofs or above parking lots or anywhere they can serve an extra purpose of providing shade, instead of using a large tract of perfectly fine land as a "solar farm."

Numerous examples. But it is the most annoying with agriculture. The people who crunch all the numbers about sustainability, have calculated that a certain percentage of Earth's land is "Used up" by agriculture, which is troubling because that leaves less "room" for "Wilderness." It is a big challenge, they say, to feed Earth's humans without destroying more ecosystems.

Fools! Agriculture is an ecosystem—if you respect the ways of the plants, instead of creating monoculture fields by killing everything that moves and almost everything that doesn't. Most humans throughout history, and many humans today, sustain themselves using a mixture of foraging and agriculture, and the two are not entirely different things, because all human lifestyles change the ecosystem, and the inhabitants of the ecosystem always change themselves in response.

Even if you are a hunter-gatherer that steps very lightly in the forest and gathers a few berries and leaves here and there, you are being an animal and affecting all other parts of the ecosystem. By walking, breathing, eating, pooping, drinking, climbing, singing, talking, all of those things affect the ecosystem. If you gather leaves to sleep on, that affects the ecosystem...if you pile up waste, that affects the ecosystem...if you break a tree branch, that affects the ecosystem...if you start a fire, if you create a small shelter, if you cut a path, that DEFINITELY affects the ecosystem.

This idea, that human activity destroys the ecosystem and replaces it with something Else, something Not an ecosystem, is so silly. "But you just said that even the earliest most technologically simple human societies altered their environment!"

Yes, I did. Because we believe that "pre-agricultural" humans could have no effect on their "wilderness" environment, we ALSO believe another false idea: That when humans affect an environment, they destroy "Wilderness" and change it to something else, like Agricultural Land, that can never have biodiversity and never benefit many life forms.

I think it is the European idea of agriculture that it always involves people settling down and relying on a few special plants that are domesticated intentionally and grown in specially dedicated fields. After all, this idea of an agricultural lifestyle, is in contrast with the "hunter-gatherer" lifestyle, which is assumed to be what humans do before they "figure out" agriculture. The European mind imagines "pre-agricultural" folks ignorantly bumbling about, thinking plants and animals conveniently pop out of nothing for their benefit.

Bullshit! I shake my head in disappointment when I see websites describing Native Americans using wild plants as if those plants just-so-happened to grow, when those same wild plants just-so-happen to thrive only in environments disturbed by humans in some way, and just-so-happen to have declined steeply since colonization, and just-so-happen to be nonexistent in unspoiled "Wilderness" locations, and (often) just-so-happen to have an incredibly wide range where they either once were or are incredibly common, making it very...fortunate that they just-so-happen to have a wide range of uses including food, medicines, and materials for clothing and technology.

Accidentally of course, without any human impact from the humans that were impacting everything. /s

"But if it wasn't an accident, how did it happen?" Here is how to understand this idea: Look at the weeds! The weeds will teach you.

Look at the plants you always see growing without being planted around human buildings and roads, and learn their history. Often you will learn that these plants have many marvelous properties, and have actually been used by humans for thousands of years.

In fact, some of the most powerful and difficult to control weeds, were once actually some of the most essential and important plants for human civilizations to depend on. The dreaded Kudzu, in its home in East Asia, was one of the main plants used for clothing for over 6,000 years, and not only that, it has been cultivated for food and medicine for millennia. You can make everything from paper to noodles out of Kudzu! And Amaranth, the most expensive agricultural weed in all the USA, produces edible and healthy grains as well as several harvests of greens per growing season, and several species of the genus have been fully domesticated and formed a staple crop of Mesoamerica.

Meanwhile...some people have come up with this neat "new" idea called Polyculture, which is where you plant a field with two crops at once and somehow get better yields from both of them. WITCHCRAFT! Unrelatedly, there are other ideas like "Cover Crops" and "Agroforestry" that for some reason have the same beneficial effect.

Wow...It turns out, sterilizing the whole environment of every plant except one crop...isn't actually a good way to do agriculture in many places in the world.

Just think about it from an energy point of view...

We have some places used for "Agriculture," where we wring the land as violently as possible to squeeze green vegetation from light energy.

And we have other places for Other uses, where we spend massive amounts of fossil fuels mowing, chopping, poisoning and trimming to STOP the land from producing its incredible bounty of green vegetation.

And in the agricultural fields, we spend even MORE resources killing the unwanted plants that grow spontaneously

This system is hemorrhaging inefficiency at both ends. It simply isn't a one-to-one conversion of land and fossil fuels to food energy. The energy expenditure of agriculture is mostly going into organizing the vegetation's energy into the shape and configuration we want, not the food itself.

In the Americas, indigenous agricultural systems involve using the plants that exist in the environment to construct an ecosystem that both functions as an ecosystem and provides humans with food, clothing, and other important things. This is the most advanced way.

Most of our successful weeds are edible and useful. A weed is simply a plant that is symbiotic with humans. My hypothesis of plant domestication is that it was initiated by the plants, which became adapted to human environments, and humans bred them to be better crops in response. Symbiosis.

Humans did not pick out a few plants special to intensively domesticate out of an array of equally wild plants, instead they just ate, selected, and bred the plants that were best adapted to live near human civilization. That is my guess about how it happened.

Just think about it. Why would you try to domesticate teosinte (Maize ancestor?) It sucks. Domesticated plants in their wild form are usually like "Why would you put hundreds of years of effort into cultivating this?" Personally I think it's because the plant grew around humans and humans ate and used it a lot because it was abundant. So we co-evolved with the plant.

Supporting this hypothesis, there are many crop plants that mutated and evolved back into weeds, like "weedy" rice, "weedy" teosinte, and "weedy" radishes. Also weeds develop similar adaptations to crop plants to survive in the agricultural environment.

Consider Kudzu. Everyone in the USA knows it as an invasive weed, but since ancient times in China, it was a crop that provided people with fabric from its bast fibers, food from its enormous starchy roots, and many medicinal and other uses. Kudzu is not evil, it simply has a symbiotic relationship with humans, and just as any other species might serve as a biological control, the main biological control of kudzu in nature is the human species.

Think of the vast fields and mountain sides of the South swallowed by thick mats of Kudzu covering lumps that used to be trees. Think of the people toiling away to clear the Kudzu, while wearing clothes made of cotton that was grown in a faraway place using insecticides and depleting fresh water, using energy from their bodies that came from crops grown in fields far away.

Now imagine people working to harvest the Kudzu, to cut the new vines and dig up the starchy roots and use the plant the way it is used by the people who know its ways. Imagine the people using the starch from the Kudzu root to make flour and noodles and sweet confections. Imagine workers processing the vines into thread which is woven into fabric. The hillsides and fields flourish with plants that used to be suffocated, and hillsides and fields in faraway places also flourish with their own plants, instead of being made to grow cotton and crops to provide for the needs the Kudzu provides for.

Imagine the future where we accept our symbiotic relationship with the plants!

day 6 / ???

to me that always came across as making a point about radical ideas not actually being unthinkably extreme like liberals sometimes pretend. kids can often figure out stuff like, hey, maybe it's messed up to have both homeless people and empty homes at the same time. even if it's simplistic, it shows the basic concepts as obvious things that people should agree with.

people say shit like "my radicalization was that when i was a child i wanted everyone to be treated nicely" and it's so annoying. that's not radical you can be a liberal and say that shit. what you're saying is "i have a child's understanding of politics." your childish idealism isn't going to establish a proletarian state that supresses the bourgeoisie and builds a socialist economy

deeply unserious set of images made in ten minutes

[original post]

A lot of people aren’t fans of Plasma as an element. The secondary elements have very few references in the actual story of Bionicle, Plasma especially. Given its redundancy with Fire, it’s not hard to see why it was the most voted out element in this poll. I have a soft spot for it though, and not just because I have a story idea with a Toa of Plasma I’ve been rotating in my head for the better part of two years now… Anyway, I figured I’d take a go at coming up with a (metaphorical and literal) place for Plasma as an element so it's not just Fire+.

Su-Wahi is an expansive badland, inhospitable to most. Special care must be given when traveling; similar to Fire or Stone aligned regions, the heat is omnipresent, and water is scarce. Unique to Su-Wahi, however, is the radiation. Without preparations, spending too much time in the region will make travelers sick in a way normal medicine cannot cure. The most striking feature of Su-Wahi is the Sun. The massive light is embedded into the ceiling of the dome, similar to the Sun Holes of Metru Nui, but never dims.

Though much smaller and less impressive than any of the districts in Metru Nui, Su-Metru is the largest settlement in the region. The city is centered around its refineries and power plants, both literally and metaphorically. Six residential districts form a ring around the city, where the Matoran can live, relax, and sleep between their 6 hour shifts. These work days may be much shorter than what other Matoran are used to, but the work is dangerous, and mentally and physically taxing. The system was designed by the Turaga council to ensure that the plants and refineries were always staffed by well rested workers with clear heads. The central principle of Su-Metru is Responsibility, the synthesis of Duty and Unity. The knowledge that their negligence could lead to disaster weighs on the city's inhabitants constantly.

In the badlands of Su-Wahi, certain rare ores are mined and sent to the city, where they are processed, refined, and enriched, and then inserted into objects called cores. When power is applied to these cores, the enriched protodermis turns into ionized protodermis, which gives off tremendous amounts of heat. Inert cores are transported to reactors, where they are used to boil large amounts of water to spin turbines and create energy. 

The most powerful cores are sent to the largest reactor in the city, the Kaita Engine. In the heart of the city, twin rings, multiple mio in circumference, accelerate ionized protodermis. The two beams are directed into a central chamber where they collide and produce staggering amounts of energy. Curiously, the walls of the central chamber seem to then absorb the energy. The exact nature and origin of the Kaita Engine is only known to the Turaga council. Being allowed to work at the Kaita Engine is considered a great honor, and an even greater responsibility, as it is widely believed that the absorbed energy provides power to Mata Nui himself. Long ago, a series of accidents caused the Kaita Engine to be temporarily turned off. To the horror of the Su-Metru inhabitants, the sun itself began to go out. 

There are only a few settlements outside of Su-Metru, the majority of which are mining towns. In an obscure corner of the desert lies the Deep Vault, a massive construction patrolled by an especially surly group of Su-Matoran. Here, spent cores, radioactive waste, and other irradiated objects are contained deep underground. Giant stone spikes and walls cordon off the field, and massive signs warn off tresspasses, their messages repeated in Matoran, Skakdi, Vortixx, and Makuta. Nothing of value is buried here. This is not a place of honor.

While the ore used to create enriched protodermis is mined in Su-Wahi, the rare metals used to build cores and reactors are primarily imported from Earth and Iron aligned regions. The city also imports from Water and Ice regions for coolants for their reactors, and medicine that treats radiation sickness that is produced in the Green aligned regions is in high demand.

The primary export of Su-Metru are the enriched protodermis cores, the specialized containment cells used to store and shield them, and Su-Matoran operators. Ionized protodermis has a myriad of uses, but Su-Matorans refuse to sell powerful cores unless an engineer is also employed, to ensure they are used properly. Many cities and organizations have their own ionized protodermis reactors and employ Su-Matorans on a permanent basis to operate them. Other operators make regular trips to deliver fresh cores and transport spent ones back to Su-Wahi to be buried in the Deep Vault.

Given their dangerous cargo and important duty, traveling Su-Matoran are granted freedom of movement and are rarely accosted on their travels. Yes, that Su-Matoran could be carrying information from an enemy faction, but they could also be transporting radioactive material that could make everyone on your island sick if it gets into the ground water. Because of this, Su-Matoran are also employed as couriers and messengers. Traveling Su-Matoran need to be resourceful and prepared, and have more than a passing knowledge of first aid and medicine; some Su-Matoran choose to devote themselves to healing and become doctors. Species and elements of all types employ Su-Matoran as site managers due to their strict adherence to safety protocols, and though they have no special resistance to energized protodermis, and it has completely different properties than ionized protodermis, Su-Matoran are still the first ones contacted when it needs to be dealt with. 

Su-Matoran are serious, no-nonsense types with very little tolerance for tomfoolery. The hotheaded, rash Ta-Matoran put them on edge, and more than one Le and Po-Matoran have found their playful mischief has made them an enemy for life, no matter how many times they say “it was just a prank, brother.” Su-Matoran get along with the stoic and mature Ga, Ko, and Onu-Matoran, but are still unlikely to fully trust them. It’s not that they don’t want to trust them, it’s that they can’t afford to. Matoran of Lightning are the most likely to make true friends with Su-Matoran. They can bond over the dangerous work and responsibilities they share, and the Vo-Matoran’s optimism tempers the Su-Matoran’s pessimism. 

Becoming a Toa does not relieve their responsibilities, it just gives them new ones. Wielding elemental plasma is incredibly dangerous, and many have sworn off using their powers until they are trained by a more experienced Toa. Most Toa of Plasma join teams in pairs, one acting as a mentor to the other. Even experienced Toa prefer to work in teams with others of their element; they consider the redundancy a benefit and not a limitation. Of course, not all Toa of Plasma have the benefit of being trained by another of their kind… 

Another notable inhabitant of Su-Wahi is the local Makuta. Su-Matoran are resistant to the high amount of background radiation, but Rahi are not. The radiation causes mutations both in individuals and across generations in a way different than what energized protodermis, Visorak venom, or a certain Vortixx’s Rhotuka can create. The process has fascinated the local Makuta, and though technically they are assigned to the broader region, they spend much of their time in the badlands. Unlike others of their kind, the Makuta is sympathetic to the Matoran. They've spent centuries studying the awful effects radiation has on the body, and have stationed multiple Rahkshi of Quick Healing across the city to provide care should an accident occur. In the most extreme cases, heavily injured Matoran are transported to the Makuta’s lab to be treated. Eccentric and single-minded, other Makuta have written them off as a non-issue. They even survived Teridax’s coup of the Brotherhood and later take over of the universe, making them one of the last few Makuta left on Spherus Magna.

via @swatercolor [insta]