Instructions on how to use herbicide are 4,500+ words

That is ahistorical, however. I have a 1936 physics textbook, from before anybody considered making an atomic bomb, which contains all the necessary formulae and scientific information. The Manhattan Project was mainly an engineering project., not really science. Had WW2 not happened it is entirely possible that nuclear power would eventually have developed for energy generation use, but it would have taken a very long time due to the need for large scale engineering to get enough U-235 in the first place.

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Who knows without the incentive of the bomb we may have gone down the thorium route instead.

Or perhaps the large scale engineering would have been for heavy waterā€¦

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Sounds like a moderately good idea.

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Well, you know, the better the moderator, the less you have to enrich the plutocrats uranium.

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For use in swimming pools for swimmers who have trouble keeping their noses above water?

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Add lots of salt, and anyone can walk on this water.

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fair enough.

i would still argue that the manhattan project and subsequent spending manufactured (ouch, bad pun) demand for particular scientific advancements. if people considered the key to winning the war was secret underwater bases, weā€™d know a lot more about the oceans than we do. the ā€œfactsā€ underlying nuclear energy, or about the sea, havenā€™t changed ā€“ but the focus of science can.

look also at pharmaceutical companies which have a track record of only publish good results. science is a human endeavor, and the way people practice it matters. if it were neutral, the way people practice it wouldnā€™t matter.

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I was channeling several Facebook pages Iā€™ve come across where if you donā€™t love GMOs unquestionably then you must be a science hating anti-vaxxer. And to be fair, the anti-vaxxers are happy to play the other side of that bun fight, which means that thereā€™s no way to crowbar any sort of meaningful discussion in.

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ā€œGMOs are tech, with all of the dangers and benefits that implies. Agribusiness corporations, OTOH, are scum.ā€

Works for me.

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Not quite. If you challenge GMOs (or the corporations that produce them), if you ask any difficult questions at all, you must be a science hating anti-vaxxer.

On the other hand, if you suggest that GMOs may not be the pure, unalloyed turd of Satan then you must be a Monsanto shill lying so you can poison all teh children.

I gave up on trying to have conversations about it as it was just too depressing, which I think may have been the ultimate aim of both sides.

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