Science has become a tool for validating existing dogmas rather than querying them out of existence. As universities bend the knee to their oligarch sponsors, we are depriving ourselves of the one quality we used to take pride in: the ability to think, search, discover. Educational institutions long ago became sterile, inward-looking businesses more concerned with their financial bottom line than the search for knowledge. I’ve been calling them sandwich shops: you go in, select your sandwich, eat it, shit it, then walk out the same person you were before, only more cognitively constipated and several tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I should know, having attained three university degrees that felt like I was being prepared to go to the moon and never come back. But that was only the beginning. Next slavery level unlocked: corporate adulthood. You now find yourself desperate for an entry level job, and you’ll do anything for any employer however environmentally corrupt and knee-bending to the regime they may be. Before you know it, an AI that has no student debt, no rent, expenses, salary or morals, has beat you to it. They didn’t even have to write a fucking CV.
The demise of research, science and any type of ethical work is yet another sign of a species in decline, but it should be no surprise given that humans have completely removed themselves from the university of nature: the source of all inspiration, observation, and billions of years’ worth of knowledge. We live in a world where the business of education now operates on corruption levels similar to the Sicilian Mafia, and a single pumpkin is smarter than a boardroom full of Harvard economists.
Yes, a pumpkin. This year I’ve been asked by my fellow tenants to grow pumpkins in our shared garden. They brought me a handful of seeds they kept from a delicious pumpkin they ate, out of which I’ve germinated two plants. I’m not a vegetable gardener, but I’m a plant biologist with a master’s degree from one of the world’s best plant biology programs. And the pumpkin plant, cucurbita pepo, is beginning to fascinate me. Not only as a plant, but as an economics teacher. Pumpkins are experts in energy and sustainability, having developed a plethora of ingenious resource management mechanisms that should be the envy of economists, sociologists and political scientists alike.
The first such mechanism that drew my attention is cucurbita’s reproductive system, which consists of both male and female flowers on the same plant. Pumpkins ensure that reproduction is not a “wine me, dine me”, expensive affair. Their female flowers are very energy-intensive for the plant to produce, because they come with an enlarged ovary. To save on resources the plant will therefore produce female flowers only if it is absolutely sure it has enough water and sunlight. It keeps a close eye on its available energy and carefully controls how many female flowers it produces, so that it doesn’t end up with too many gestating pumpkins. By carefully controlling the ratio of female to male flowers, the pumpkin effectively practices birth control. This ensures that however many “children” fruit it makes, they will all be healthy and strong. If at any stage the pumpkin feels there are too many fertilised female flowers for its energy budget, it begins a random process of abortion. This happens early enough in pumpkin development, so early in fact that, it may go unnoticed. But it is there as an extra measure to prevent reproductive overshoot. Were this to happen, the plant would become exhausted and none of its pumpkins would mature. It would mean extinction.
But that’s not all, and this next fact blew me away. To ensure that its prized, expensive female flowers do not go to waste and are guaranteed to be pollinated, the pumpkin doesn’t produce them until much later than the male flowers. The role of the early-appearing male flowers is to “advertise” the plant to the surrounding bees and other pollinators from the area. Over a period of weeks these male flowers “train” the bees so that they become regulars, especially during the morning hours when the flowers briefly open. This way by the time the first female flowers appear, there is already a bee clientele in place. Pollinator demand is met both in terms of numbers and timing, at the lowest possible investment by the plant. Told you, pumpkins are sustainability experts.
But the window of opportunity is very short, because the female flower can only stay open for about 4 hours before it dies. This is why the bee training sessions are crucial. The bee must visit during this brief morning window, go to a male flower, and then carry the pollen to the female flower. But how will it know to visit the male flower first? It doesn’t. Given that there are many more male than female flowers, the statistics work out in favour of the bee being much more likely to visit the male flower FIRST, pick up the pollen, and then go fertilise one of the female flowers. It’s just basic level statistics, and pumpkins are natural mathematical geniuses.
Once enough female flowers have been fertilised, the real struggle for resources begins: the plant now has to produce the huge orange fruit we are all familiar with, a task not to be taken lightly. The developing seeds within each young pumpkin release hormones which trigger the plant to divert all its energy towards the fruit. Each pumpkin becomes a local government asserting its right to resources for growth. But despite some of these local governments being closer to the root system of the plant, all developing pumpkins get a fairly equal share in the water and nutrients they need in order to grow. It is socialism in action. If only human central governments worked this way.
Another cool fact I learned about pumpkins is that they avoid making the same mistake twice, unlike capitalism who likes to fall on its face every three years, on the same exact side of the face. Pumpkins are so efficient at avoiding obstacles as they creep on the ground, it is believed they have a type of plant memory called thigmotropism: they actually remember places they’ve been which they may want to avoid in the future. It makes sense, for a creeping vine that travels large distances. My cucurbita is at the moment trailing across the top of a 2,500 year-old ancient Greek fortress wall, and it has just decided that it wants to explore the lower level of the garden. Carefully descending as it attaches itself through tendrils to secure its position, this pumpkin plant has nothing to fear. It is the perfect economic machine: constantly crunching the numbers, reevaluating its position, resources, dependents and obligations. It is an economic marvel worthy of an award for sustainability, resource management, social justice and degrowth, but strangely enough, the Nobel prize committee has rejected the nomination. The reason they gave:
“You’re not human.”
By the same author:
The Unholy Sin of Carbon Offsetting
Replacement Economics: The Scam That Saved Capitalism
Delusion Is the Ultimate Renewable Energy Source
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Tsakraklides is an author, researcher, chemist, molecular biologist, and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter, @99blackbaloons, and enjoy his books, A New Earth: The Apocalypse Locus, The Unhappiness Machine and Other Stories about Systemic Collapse,
Beyond The Petri Dish: Human Consciousness in the Time of Collapse, Apathy, and Algorithms, and others.
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