this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
619 points (99.4% liked)

Political Memes

12110 readers
2921 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

1) Be civilJokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

2) No misinformationDon’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

3) Posts should be memesRandom pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

4) No bots, spam or self-promotionFollow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

5) No AI generated content.Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

So one particular example of this is... grants studying how flies breed.

Yep, face value, no investigation, sounds kinda silly.

But, what its actually for, is for learning how to introduce sterile bugs into populations of them that are actively spreading some kind of plague.

... Like the screwworm outbreak that is currently ravaging the southern US and central America.

Yep. Yep, we had people and stuff and systems in place to be able to handle that.

But then Trump and Elon's DOGE boys just... wiped all of that out. And our reward from that, is a plague.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Even better if they can twist it to be something about weird sex: “why are our taxes going to a buncha eggheads studying the sex lives of bugs? Whaddareya, perverts?”

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Early people figured out crop rotation real fucking quick...

Because it's literally the only way to grow any crop on the same plot of land pre industrial fertilizers

A lot of cultures just grew multiple plants in the same plot that complimented each other.

Monoculture is a huge problem, but incredibly recent on humanity's timescale. Don't think that we live in normal times just because these are the times we live in.

People talk about the dotcom bubble or the AI bubble, but considering humans have been at least 300,000 years as a species without any significant evolution...

Civilization is the bubble, we ain't meant for this shit.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Crop rotation is absolutely not obvious. It needs observation and experimentations with the very basic food production ones lives depends on.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Buddy...

They weren't idiots, it's not hard to figure out if you grew the same crop in the same place it worked out worse than before.

Not to mention this isn't a hypothetical, archeology exists bro

Don't think people thousands of years ago were dumber than us, humans have been unchanged for over 300k years.

300,000 years ago ancient humans were born just as intelligent as any of us born today. And they dealt a lot more with plants, anyone that grew the same crop on the same land for multiple seasons would (and did) figure this out.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I never said they were dumb. But it takes a long time of observing and reasoning to get such a result. And yes, archeology shows that between alternating crops and non-use as the early version and the "modern" three-crop-rotation is a four-digit gap.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

but it takes a long time of observing and reasoning to get such a result

That's good logic, but you're using it wrong...

You're saying it took a long time for them to figure it out, but also that they figured it out almost immediately after the last ice age.

Now think about that...

Even if you say it took a thousand years after the last ice age, we had ~200,000 years as a species before the last ice age started, and we've been thru multiple.

If we figured it out right after the last ice age, why didn't the group of humans between the last two ice ages figure it out?

The most plausible answer is that they did, and that anyone expecting to find evidence from before the last ice age even started doesn't understand anything about archeology.

I'm not saying they had modern society, but statistically speaking they figured out agriculture because virtually every human population this cycle was able to figure it out independently real quick after the whole ice age thing blew over.

[–] dondelelcaro@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

humans have been unchanged for over 300k years

This is incorrect. All populations are always changing and being selected, even if the overall variation in a population is much larger than the change over time. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_human_evolution for more details.

[–] nickiwest@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (12 children)

The earliest evidence we've found of agriculture is from no more than 15,000 years ago.

The Roman Empire appears to be the earliest evidence we have of formal crop rotation, but that doesn't mean they were the first to do it.

Letting fields lie fallow to replenish the soil was so important to ancient cultures that it's recorded in the Torah as instructions received directly from God.

Leviticus 25:1-7

The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten...

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] camembear@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

So… people that work the land know it’s obvious?

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You know, like the agrarian peoples worldwide who all independently figured this out almost immediately after starting agriculture....

They're saying no farmers could have figured this out, because only farmers could...

[–] camembear@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

as if by doing stuff, you figure stuff out about that stuff.

I think critical thinking is the most endangered thing out there

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It's like Stonehendge and the Pyramids...

I forget what comedian said it, but:

If all you had was a shit ton of gold, slaves, time, and a bunch of rocks, you'd figure it out too

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 5 points 1 day ago

TBF to the people contradicting you: I think some peoples (sic) stuck to slash-and-burn for way too long. Certainly in Finland: lots of forest, few people.

Maybe they even saw that other plants will grow on the abandoned fields but had no use for them. Maybe they even realized the potential for crop rotation but had no alternative crops to rotate with. Extreme poverty and the continuous need to get as much nutrition as possible from the ground might have been a factor.
And remember, the potato is a fairly recent addition.

Also, any form of agriculture is civilisation.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Hum...

People turned entire regions into deserts by irrigating and picking crops wrongly.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago
[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 5 points 2 days ago

'Shrimp On A Treadmill'

load more comments
view more: next ›