Author Archives: Ilse

Animal Exploitation for Profit, part 9384758375

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At the monday table talk, we discussed the implications of genetically engineered farm animals. Recently, a company has started selling salmon that has been genetically modified to grow twice as quickly as normal salmon. Genetically engineered plants have been on the market for years, but animals have not yet been sold in the United States. According to one of the scholars, the term “GMO” is not a technical term, as even selectively bred plants can be seen as “genetically modified.” We spent a great deal of time discussing whether GMO meat will have to be labeled as such, and whether it should be labeled as such. I agree with the scholar who stated that even if GMO products wouldn’t need to be labeled, anyone producing non-GMO foods will label their own products as “non-GMO” because it is a selling point for them. Of all of the ideas, this made the most sense to me, as you can see it in trends involving current food products. Fruit grown with pesticides aren’t labeled as “pesticide-grown,” but pesticide-free products are labelled as “organic.” Generally foods that appeal to these “conscious” consumers are labeled with whatever unusual selling point – vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, free range – instead of the other way around, due to the financial incentive for the producers. Someone mentioned that all GMO products will be legally required to be labeled as such, but if even QR-codes would suffice as “labels,” I think it is still likely that animal farmers will begin selling their products with GMO-free labels in order to clearly differentiate their food products

One topic that I would have liked to have discussed more is the idea of animal welfare and GMO’s. I am opposed to the creation of genetically engineered farm animals not because of health concerns, but because of the implications for animals’ wellbeings. The creation of GMO farm animals will only make animal agriculture more popular and more prevalent, resulting in more animals suffering and dying for human consumption. In addition, the genetic modifications made will be whatever results in the most profit for the producers, without taking into consideration how they might add to the suffering of the animals. For example, growing at twice their normal rate is likely physically painful and mentally traumatizing for the salmon in the article, but this is irrelevant to the fish farmers, who only care about how this makes their production cheaper.

Hairstyles for a Cornellian’s Coming of Age

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I found the Rose Cafe with Nicholas Carbonaro particularly interesting because he looked at an issue that many students struggle with – transitioning from student life to life as a young professional – from a very specific point of view – hair styling. This cafe stood out to me from others because this is the first that I have attended where the featured individual had a background primarily in art, not business or academia.

Humans seem to universally apply cultural significance to hairstyles. In every culture, past and present, one’s hairstyle signifies something about oneself. In Qing dynasty China, queues were worn to represent acceptance of the Manchu rule. In modern America, a black woman might choose to maintain her natural hair in a rejection of oppressive white beauty standards.

It’s common for a change in hairstyle to represent a change in one’s own life, such as a coming of age. An iconic example of this in cinema is Mulan cutting her hair before she joins the army in Disney’s Mulan. It’s interesting that Nicholas recommends that students partake in this culturally ubiquitous ritual as well by changing their own hairstyles when moving between life stages.

Nicholas gave some general descriptions of the differences in hairstyles for students and professionals, while still maintaining that his recommendations would vary depending on the individual’s needs. He mentioned that student hairstyles generally needed to be low maintenance, requiring infrequent cuts and little daily care, but could have a lot of variety; bright colors, “hippie” styles, and extremely long hair are all accepted in a college environment. On the other hand, young professionals normally need sharp, clean, natural-looking, conforming hairstyles that demonstrate that they can fit into a company culture. Many professionals have strict maintenance routines for their appearance, and if a new professional wants to impress, they will have to develop their own routine in order to keep up and save time.

What I find interesting about the differences in his recommended styles is how he suggests dealing with limited time. For students, he suggests choosing something that requires little attention and few appointments, while for professionals he suggests picking a style that can be maintained with a strict, invariable routine so they don’t have to spend time thinking about what to do while still obtaining consistent workplace-ready results. He expects students to be worse at making appointments and keeping up a daily routine, which makes sense, because students’ schedules are much more irregular, and they don’t need that same consistent level of presentability that professionals need.

Beans > Beef

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This table talk was actually rather difficult for me, as it forced me to face an issue I am very familiar with from a very specific perspective. I abstain from consuming any and all animal products for ethical reasons; I don’t support killing animals for pleasure. As a result, I’ve tried my best to educate myself on animal agriculture and its effects on animal welfare, the environment, and human health. The eco-anxiety table talk forced me to consider the issue of consuming animal products from a strictly environmental perspective, and it focused the discussion on one specific substitution: beans for beef. As someone who has completely eliminated animal products from my diet, it’s difficult for me to acknowledge that simply slightly reducing animal product consumption is also beneficial. In fact, it is probably more effective to convince more people to reduce their intake than to try to convince everyone to go vegan. People would be much more receptive to the idea of reduction, which would not negatively impact their social standing, or prevent them from ever eating their favorite foods again.

One important point that another scholar made during the table talk was that the “beans for beef” article in The Atlantic failed to account for individual financial considerations. Many Americans live in poverty, and simply do not have the time or the money to buy beans instead of beef. While beans are much cheaper than beef and are one of the cheapest foods in the world, many poor Americans are still forced to opt for beef. Because of heavy meat and dairy subsidies, fast food companies can sell extremely cheap beef-based meals. People working multiple jobs with very little finances end up buying these fast food options because they don’t have the time for anything else – even if beans are cheaper. It is easy to forget how difficult choosing plant-based options would be for the poor while discussing the issue in an all-you-can-eat dining hall at a prestigious university. Of course, the fact that the poor are unable to make this choice does not excuse privileged college students from making the right choice themselves, but it does make The Atlantic‘s idea of everyone making the beans/beef switch impossible.

🍎Fest Coast Best Coast🍎

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I had a blast at Ithaca’s Apple Harvest Festival last weekend! I enjoyed some great samosas, apple pie mix, and coconut-based ice cream! I’ve actually gone to Apple Fest every year that I’ve been in Ithaca, and I think it’s a local event that generally has a huge positive impact on the Cornell student population.

Apple Fest is the perfect event at the perfect time to give new students a little push to start exploring Ithaca. Its timing is just right: by late September, most students have settled in on campus and are comfortable with the surrounding area. Most don’t have too many prelims yet. It’s just the right moment to introduce them to the Ithaca Commons and the rest of Ithaca beyond Cornell. In addition, the event is food-centric, and food is one of the few motivators that actually works on lazy college students.

The event itself is perfect for giving students a taste of Ithacan culture. It stars local farms and small businesses. It’s a little quirky and alternative. It shows off Ithaca’s foodie culture. It’s extremely popular among families, so students can see that Ithaca is more than a college town. Also, like Ithaca itself, it’s surprisingly multicultural, with Indian, Greek, Thai, Laotian, Latin, and Trini food.

I’d also like to mention that learning about the apple industry before the event was pretty interesting as well! It’s strange thinking about how a simple food like an apple is still designed like any other product. Different breeds can target different audiences and are designed to exhibit different desirable features. I tried the Snapdragons this week, and they are as loud, red, and crisp as the name suggests!

Cornellian Dating Culture

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Last week’s seminar with Andrew and Cynthia gave me quite a lot of food for thought. Throughout the past week, I’ve found myself thinking back to other students’ comments on relationships at Cornell.

Many students mentioned that they felt that Cornell’s culture was not conducive to dating, and they notice much fewer couples here than at other schools or in other parts of the country. I think there are two primary reasons for this.

The first is Cornell’s intense academic and career-oriented student population. Most Cornellians were admitted to Cornell and manage to maintain their student status here by prioritizing academics over other parts of their lives. The rigorous academic expectations and tendency of students to commit to time-intensive extracurricular pursuits has resulted in a campus culture where students have much less time for dating. Like many people at the seminar mentioned, relationships take time and work. When students are already so spread out, and prioritize these other aspects of their lives, it’s extremely difficult for them to date. Many students I know (mostly engineers) don’t even have their lives together enough to eat three meals a day, get more than 5 hours of sleep, or exercise regularly. How can they fit another person’s needs into their lives?

The second is the general culture of the northeastern United States. In the northeast, talking to strangers is frowned upon, and people are generally less friendly than in the west or the south of the country. In addition, public displays of affection are heavily frowned upon. I’ve spent seven years of my life in high school and college in the northeast, and I saw more “PDA” in my two months in Hong Kong than in all my years in the northeast. And Hong Kong is already quite conservative! As a result, many students are likely underestimating the prevalence of romantic relationships at Cornell. Without public displays of affection, relationships are just less noticeable. The dating situation at Cornell is probably not as dire as we all think!

Escaping the Bubble

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For me, the trip to Cornell’s Botanic Gardens opened my eyes to the prominence of Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. It’s easy for engineers to get trapped inside of our own engineering bubble and ignore the rest of the university. It’s my third year at Cornell, and I’ve only ever had to take three classes not in the engineering school – and all of them were in the College of Arts & Sciences. I had never even set foot upon Cornell’s Botanic Gardens before this trip. The I’ve really only ever gone to the agriculture quad to study at Mann during my freshman year.

Seeing the Botanic Gardens, the building where Barbara McClintock stored her tools, the foreign flora planted for education purposes, the greenhouses where professors perform research, and the LEED-certified administrative center reminded me of the prominence of Cornell’s life sciences departments. hearing our tour guide go into detail about the scope of the gardens, the specific purposes of each section, the research performed there, the classes studying there, and the history made on Cornell’s grounds added weight to my image of the agricultural school.

I’ve gone to talks by life sciences professors and have many friends in the college, but it can easy to forget how prestigious the school is when you only ever hear people talk about it. Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is consistently ranked as the best agriculture/life science college in the country, and it contains many other #1 national programs, such as the Food Science major. Many famous life science researchers, such as Barbara McClintock, have performed revolutionary work at Cornell. Cornell’s practical agricultural roots are part of what makes the university unique and sets it apart from many other prestigious institutions. The Botanic Gardens, a physical manifestation of the work done by Cornell’s life science departments, solidified my own image of the school and its importance at Cornell.

Technophobia in Science-Fiction

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As a science fiction nerd, I am a huge fan of stories that use fantastic scenarios to explore human behavior. As a result, I have always loved Black Mirror’s exploration of human relationships with technology. However, I have also had misgivings about technophobic elements of various episodes in the series. A frequent criticism of the show is it promotes a Luddite message.

I think “The Entire History of You,” while being an engrossing  piece of science fiction, is actually unreasonably technophobic in its themes.

At the very end of the episode, Liam removes his Grain to help him deal with separating from his wife, Ffion. The episode ends just when he removes it, so there is no definitive answer for what occurs afterward. However, Liam’s problem is not the technology itself, but the way that it brings out his worst tendencies. Even without the Grain, Liam is an insecure, paranoid, jealous, violent man. Removing the Grain has done nothing but remove a tool for improving his memory. He can still fixate on the past and be haunted by the ghost of his wife without its aid. People do this all the time today, without Grain technology. If anything, the removal will actually worsen his tendencies, since he now has a more unreliable memory that will exaggerate anything he fixates upon.

However, the characters and the editing of the episode itself imply that removing the Grain will truly improve Liam’s life.

The most prominent pro-Grain character in the episode an old friend of Ffion. She’s toad-faced, rude, and intolerant. Her behavior is reminiscent of that of a close-minded, conservative, and pushy family member at an annual reunion. This is clearly intended to be a negative portrayal of pro-Grain individuals.

In addition, the structure of the final scene implies that Liam is freeing himself by removing the Grain. As he is prying it from his head, images of Ffion flash across the screen, implying that he is literally removing them from his thoughts. The episode ends exactly when he completely extracts it. This suggests that his story is completely over now: removing the Grain has ended his trial. If there had been a lingering shot of him viewing himself in the mirror, or another image of Ffion, then I would believe that the episode’s themes were not technophobic. However, it ended then, so I’m inclined to believe that Charlie Brooker intended to convey that removing the Grain provided some sort of relief to Liam.