Quorum sensing definition of quorum sensing by Medical ...

quorum sensing meaning

quorum sensing meaning - win

Extreme Consumption/Production of Biofilms is the reason “COVID” was made into a pandemic. Biofilms=COVID-19!!Wake up!!! Consumption/Production of Biofilms worldwide must IMMEDIATELY be discontinued!

With the current EXTREME consumer consumptions of bioflims, especially in the USA and China— who is also the largest producer and polluter in the world and no one really cares about the people there, or anywhere else on this Earth for that matter. I see you and hear you all loud and clear! I heard Europe was banning plastic straws of any kind! A step in the right direction and I applaud 👏 but still not enough...
If I hypothetically had the executive decision over any corporation around the world, then I would say, Immediately cease production of biofilms, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and nuclear productions (including Corona discharge aka low temperature plasma, produced as a byproduct through electricity usage...,which I wonder if the radioactive byproduct could be neutralized if the electricity was run through water?), but I realize this is not possible over night for all categories for obvious reasons, so I would say start by banning ALL plastic straws and plastic bottles of ANY kind world wide immediately!!! 🔱⚠️⚜️ Use glass bottles or other safe alternatives that may be available on the market that haven’t gotten the recognition it deserves.
Americans must now produce their own products instead of having them ”Made in China.” This should reduce the carbon due to transportation of products around the world. EVERY country worry about YOU and YOUR people and collectively as Nations we will successfully clean up the mess we have created together!
Failure to comply will result in Military to take control over the general public to help create order through disciplinary action, so humans may begin cleaning. WE DO NOT HAVE TIME TO WAIT UNTIL EVERYONE IS READY! That point will never come, you must be “harsh” about it...even if not everyone understands why this must happen.
I figured everyone would want to know that Staphylococcus aureus (“a Gram-positive, round-shaped bacterium”) is the “ball part” of the corona virus. Now let’s find out what’s responsible for the “spikes” I believe it has something to do with 43895OR—(mutated E. Coli—Staphylococcus aureus also falls under the “E-coli” category...) like I keep saying the microbiodome in the gut of living things control life and diseases itself and needs to be balanced again... (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staphylococcus_aureus)
“A biofilm comprises any syntrophic consortium of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and often also to a surface.
The cells within the biofilm produce the EPS components, which are typically a polymeric conglomeration of extracellular polysaccharides, proteins, lipids and DNA.
Because they have three-dimensional structure and represent a community lifestyle for microorganisms, they have been metaphorically described as "cities for microbes".
Biofilms may form on living or non-living surfaces and can be prevalent in natural, industrial, and hospital settings.
The Biofilms can form on the teeth of most animals as dental plaque, where they may cause tooth decay and gum disease.
A biofilm may also be considered a hydrogel, which is a complex polymer that contains many times its dry weight in water. Biofilms are not just bacterial slime layers but biological systems; the bacteria organize themselves into a coordinated functional community.
Biofilms can attach to a surface such as a tooth, rock, or surface, and may include a single species or a diverse group of microorganisms. The biofilm bacteria can share nutrients and are sheltered from harmful factors in the environment, such as desiccation, antibiotics, and a host body's immune system. A biofilm usually begins to form when a free-swimming bacterium attaches to a surface.
(Soap and water gets rid of them...hence the emphasis on hand-washing to prevent corona!!!)
Biofilms are hypothesised to have arisen during primitive Earth as a defence mechanism for prokaryotes, as the conditions at that time were too harsh for their survival. Biofilms protect prokaryotic cells by providing them with homeostasis, encouraging the development of complex interactions between the cells in the biofilm.
The development of a biofilm may allow for an aggregate cell colony (or colonies) to be increasingly tolerant or resistant to antibiotics.
Cell-cell communication or quorum sensing has been shown to be involved in the formation of biofilm in several bacterial species.
Biofilms have been found to be involved in a wide variety of microbial infections in the body, by one estimate 80% of all infections.
Infectious processes in which biofilms have been implicated include common problems such as bacterial vaginosis, urinary tract infections, catheter infections, middle-ear infections, formation of dental plaque, gingivitis, coating contact lenses, and less common but more lethal processes such as endocarditis, infections in cystic fibrosis, and infections of permanent indwelling devices such as joint prostheses, heart valves, and intervertebral disc.
The species of bacteria from intraoperative cultures did not correspond to the bacteria species in the biofilm on the respective patient's tissue. In other words, the cultures were negative though the bacteria were present.
Research has shown that sub-therapeutic levels of β-lactam antibiotics induce biofilm formation in Staphylococcus aureus.
This sub-therapeutic level of antibiotic may result from the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in agriculture, or during the normal course of antibiotic therapy. The biofilm formation induced by low-level methicillin was inhibited by DNase, suggesting that the sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotic also induce extracellular DNA release.
Moreover, from an evolutionary point of view, the creation of the tragedy of the commons in pathogenic microbes may provide advanced therapeutic ways for chronic infections caused by biofilms via genetically engineered invasive cheaters who can invade wild-types ‘cooperators’ of pathogenic bacteria until cooperator populations go to extinction or overall population ‘cooperators and cheaters ’ go to extinction. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofilm)
“Microbes in Beijing’s Smog Streptococcus pneumoniae, one of the pathogenic microbes found in the Beijing smog.” (http://www.biology-bytes.com/microbes-smog/)
“D06M10/025 Corona discharge or low temperature plasma” I am also highly concerned about the electricity harnessing and usage levels we are currently producing and using as electricity worldwide. Regular electricity (like in power lines) also has a byproduct called corona discharge that naturally occurs when electricity is flowing... Corona Discharge is Isotopic meaning it is radioactive and is also a major contributor to creating this toxic biofilm world and making the living things and the whole environment sick. I would suggest running electricity through water, for now, to neutralize the effects of corona discharge created!!! Hello Elon Musk!!! (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7923388B2/en)
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Jellyfish Unveil More Fluorescent Proteins, Bacteria Make Purple Dye, and other #synbio news

I took a week off, but I'm back! Hope you enjoy the newsletter.

The Crystal Jelly Unveils Its Brightest Protein Yet

Aequorea victoria, the crystal jelly, hovers in the waters off the coast of California. Decades ago, Osamu Shimomura noticed that these jellies emit a faint, green light. So he took pieces from one of them, did some experiments, and found the protein responsible for the glow. That protein—GFP—is now used in thousands of labs to light up the insides of microscopic cells. Shimomura shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for that work, along with Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien, who died in 2016.
Now, it looks like the crystal jelly hasn’t given up all of its secrets just yet.
In a new study, nine previously unstudied proteins, also from Aequorea victoria and a related species, were reported. Several of the new fluorescent proteins have quirky characteristics, too. One of them is “the brightest GFP homolog yet characterized”, while another protein can respond to both UV and blue light. The scientists even found a couple of purple and blue-pigmented chromoproteins. The findings are further evidence that, in the darkness of the oceans, scores of mysteries remain to be discovered. This work was published Nov. 2 in the open-access journal PLoS Biology. Link

Will DNA Replace Grocery Store Barcodes?

A standard barcode—think grocery store rectangle, with black-and-white lines—contains 11 digits. Mixing up those digits in every possible way gives about 100 billion possible combinations. That’s a lot, but it’s not nearly as many combinations as what a barcode made from DNA could provide.
A new study, published in Nature Communications, reports a molecular, DNA tagging system that could become the future of barcodes. The DNA was dehydrated, which made it more stable, and the sequences were read out in just a few seconds with an Oxford Nanopore MinION, a small, portable DNA sequencer. To facilitate that speed, the authors came up with some clever ways to avoid complex, computational analysis of the DNA signals; they were able to read the barcodes directly from the raw sequence data. This study was published Nov. 3 and is open access. Link

Bacteria Produce Tyrian Purple Dye (From Sea Snails!)

As early as 1570 BC, the Phoenicians were dying fabrics with Tyrian purple. To make the dye required a process so intensive as to be nonsensical; as many as 250,000 sea snails (Bolinus brandaris) had to be smashed into goop to make just one ounce of dye. It was a color reserved for royalty, and literally worth more than its weight in gold.
Thank goodness, no more snails need to be smooshed to make Tyrian purple dye. Engineered E. coli bacteria can now make the dye’s predominant chemical, called 6,6'-dibromoindigo. To achieve this, scientists from Seoul National University added several genes to the bacteria; a tryptophan 6-halogenase gene, a tryptophanase gene and a flavin-containing monooxygenase. That’s a mouth garbling sentence, but I promise the result is easier to understand: the cells were able to produce 315 mg of 6,6'-dibromoindigo per liter in flasks, using tryptophan—an animo acid—as the chemical precursor. This work was published Nov. 2 in Nature Chemical Biology. Link

79 Different Cas9 Proteins Were Tested. Some Are Wicked Cool

Cas9 is maybe the most famous protein on earth. It’s like, the Kim Kardashian of the protein world. If there was a magazine for proteins, Cas9 would be on its cover. Oh wait, that already happened.
There’s a lot of different Cas9 proteins, but not all of them have been characterized. In a new study, scientists identified, and tested, 79 different Cas9 orthologs—proteins taken from different species, but that have the same function—and figured out how they recognize and cut DNA. Intriguingly, some of the Cas9 proteins only worked at specific temperatures; Cme2 Cas9, for example, “was only robustly active from ~30 °C to 55 °C suggesting the possibility of temperature-controlled DNA search and modification.” This study was published Nov. 2 in Nature Communications, and is open access. Link

CRISPR Shuts Down Fertilized Eggs

I didn’t know about the birds and the bees until my parents sat me down and told me. But if you’re wondering, a typical pregnancy starts like this: a fertilized egg latches on to the endometrium in the uterus. That activates a flood of genes to turn “on”, including one called leukemia inhibitory factor, or LIF. A new study has figured out a way to cut off fertility—with CRISPR—by targeting LIF and switching it “off”. The reason this is cool is because, well, the CRISPR-Cas9 system is photoactivatable, meaning it can be switched on with an LED.
The scientists, from Keio University in Tokyo, think that their work could prove useful in basic science research that probes the molecular signals underpinning this process. The study was published Nov. 2 in the journal PNAS, and is open access. Link

🧫 Rapid-Fire Highlights

More research & reviews worth your time

#SynBio in the News

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Vaccines On Demand, with Engineered Cells (+All the synthetic biology research this week)

On-Demand Vaccines for Bacterial Infections: A new study, published in Science Advances, describes a method to produce conjugate vaccines—which are used to prevent some of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable deaths, according to the World Health Organization—using ground up, freeze-dried bacteria. E. coli bacteria were first engineered to produce an antigen for a pathogenic microbe of choice. Then, the researchers ripped open the cells and added in a piece of DNA encoding a carrier protein, which attaches to those antigens and helps display them to the immune system. The team turned the whole mixture into a powder that could be transported and stored at room temperature. Then, to make a dose of vaccine, they just add water. The freeze-dried tube produces the vaccine, on demand, in about one hour. As a proof of concept, the researchers manufactured vaccines that protected mice against a disease-causing bacteria, Francisella tularensis. The work was authored by researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Why It Matters: Most vaccines need to be stored at cold temperatures. This makes it difficult to transport them to parts of the world without a temperature-controlled supply chain. This study could help make vaccines accessible to a greater number of people. The technique is also very general; it can be used to make just about any conjugate vaccine that is on the market today. Conjugate vaccines are already used to prevent a lot of childhood diseases, including multiple types of bacterial meningitis, which killed an estimated 300,000 people in 2016. That’s according to a 2018 study30387-9/fulltext) in The Lancet Neurology.
Cas13a Treats SARS-CoV-2 and Flu: DNA targeting CRISPR enzymes, including Cas9 and Cas12a, can manipulate genomes with ease. But there are also CRISPR proteins that target RNA, including the Cas13 ‘family.’ Since influenza and SARS-CoV-2 are both RNA-based viruses, Cas13 can be used to target, and chop up, their genetic material. For a new study, published in Nature Biotechnology, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, in Atlanta, used Cas13a to cut specific regions of the influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. They first searched for guide RNAs that could cut these viruses in a cell culture model. Then, they packaged up an mRNA sequence encoding Cas13a, together with its ‘guides,’ and delivered them into mouse airways with a nebulizer (a device that converts liquid into a fine mist). In the mice, “Cas13a degraded influenza RNA in lung tissue efficiently when delivered after infection, whereas in hamsters, Cas13a delivery reduced SARS-CoV-2 replication and reduced symptoms.”
Why It Matters: Vaccines are great for fending off diseases. But knocking out a respiratory infection—after it has already happened—is much more challenging. This study shows that a CRISPR-based system can be programmed to target viruses, and can be easily delivered into airways with a nebulizer. This approach could likely be used to target other types of respiratory infections in the future.
Glucose Sensor Upgrade: For a new study, published in Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Toronto merged engineered cells with a standard glucose meter, expanding the number of molecules that can be measured with these common devices. Glucose test strips are typically coated with an enzyme, called glucose oxidase, that senses sugar and converts that signal into electricity. The researchers built a genetic circuit that can sense a wider array of molecules—like an antigen from a pathogenic microbe—and produce a commensurate amount of sugar. Standard glucose test strips can then be used to measure the concentration of those ‘sensed’ molecules in about an hour. The genetic circuit + glucose sensor combo was used to measure small molecules and synthetic RNAs, including “RNA sequences for typhoid, paratyphoid A and B, and related drug resistance genes” at attomolar concentrations.
Why It Matters: The ongoing pandemic has highlighted the need for scalable, rapid testing. By leveraging a household technology—glucose sensors—to detect a wider range of molecules, perhaps this study could be an entryway for synthetic biology; a way to get engineered cells into the hands of more people.
Open the Genetic Floodgates: There are many ways to “turn on” a single gene, but few options to do the same for many genes at once. The Cas12a protein, though, is uniquely suited to this purpose. For a new preprint, which was posted to bioRxiv and has not been peer-reviewed, researchers at the University of Edinburgh used a Cas12a protein from the bacterium, Francisella novicida, to activate six genetic targets at once. They encoded six crRNAs—nucleotide sequences that direct Cas12a to a genetic target—in a single piece of DNA, and swapped around their order to study how their position impacts the efficiency of gene editing. They found that the crRNA in the last position was produced in the lowest amount.
Why It Matters: Researchers have been activating specific genes in cells for decades. But only recently—in the last few years—has ‘multiplexed’ activation become simple; routine even. This new preprint is important, in my opinion, because of the depth of its experiments. The team played with the order of crRNAs, as I’ve already written, but they also tested the synergism of crRNAs. In other words, can you turn a gene on at even higher levels if you target it with two crRNAs instead of one? (Yes.)
CRISPR Clocks: The Cas9 protein cuts DNA at a steady pace. Cut…cut…cut, like a wobbly metronome. For a new study00014-3), published in Cell, researchers at the Yonsei University College of Medicine, in Seoul, Korea, used this “CRISPR clock” to record the timing of cellular events. They figured out how long it takes Cas9 to cut DNA (every DNA sequence takes a different amount of time to cut) and then sequenced the DNA to figure out the amount of time that had elapsed. The “clocks” were tested in HEK293T, a type of human liver cell, and also in mice. The clocks could be turned “on” by inflammation or heat. In one experiment, the researchers put cells with these clocks into mice, and then injected the animals with fat molecules that cause inflammation. They sequenced the cells, and found that they could determine the elapsed time, from genetic sequencing alone, with a mean error of just 7.6 percent.
Why It Matters: Biological clocks are useful for many reasons. The researchers said that their CRISPR clocks could be used to record when a pre-cancerous cell is turned into a cancer cell, for example. Scientists could expose cells to toxins, for example, and then measure the amount of time that it takes for cancerous growth to begin. The CRISPR clocks could be used to study these effects inside of living cells.
More Studies

Special Issue: 20 Years of the Human Genome

Biosensors

Fundamental Discoveries

Genetic Circuits

Genetic Engineering & Control

Medicine and Diagnostics

Metabolic Engineering

New Technology

Protein Engineering

Systems Biology and Modelling

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A deep look into AirSwap (AST), serious DD

First of all, This is a serious DD, not some Dogecoin shitpost.
I know Airswap (AST) isn’t a real moonshot because it has a $30M marketcap. But just hear me out, it has a lot of potential, which I will explain in this long post! It will probably start of a bit confusing, but it will all make sense in the end.
TL;DR at the bottom for you lazy retards. But I do recommend you read the whole post.
AirSwap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) which was created by Fluidity. It was originally made for large companies to trade OTC and without an orderbook to avoid frontrunning.
In May 2020, Fluidity (the team behind AirSwap) was acquired by ConsenSys[1]. This is a BIG deal. ConsenSys was founded in 2014 by Joseph Lubin. Joseph is also a co-founder of Ethereum. The company has now more than 500 employees. ConsenSys is also the company behind MetaMask, which is the most popular Ethereum wallet and Web3 browser. In August 2020, ConsenSys acquired Quorum from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Which is an enterprise blockchain platform developed by JPMorgan Chase. Additionally, JPMorgan has made an undisclosed strategic investment in ConsenSys[2].
As you see, ConsenSys is a BIG deal.
Now back to AirSwap.
In October 2020, Airswap launched ‘Airswap Improvement Proposals’ (AIPs). Community members can now propose what they want to change. The community can then vote with their AST tokens. There have been around ten votes so far, but AIP 7 is by far the most interesting one. It was unanimously accepted by the community, which says enough if you ask me. It proposes that you can stake your AST and get rewarded with transaction fees and governance. Coming 9th of February.
Also in October 2020, ConsenSys introduced MetaMask Swaps. Which brings the feature to swap tokens directly within MetaMask. MetaMask checks the price of tokens with multiple decentralized exchanges, and gives you the best deal. Here’s the catch, MetaMask asks a 0.875% fee. AirSwap helped MetaMask with creating the contract behind MetaMask Swaps. The funny thing is, Airswap gets more than $2M of volume each day through MetaMask Swaps. And MetaMask Swaps isn’t even available on their mobile app as of yet!
AIP 7 proposes that there will be a pool for stakeholders to receive transaction fees. A co-founder of AirSwap, Don Mosites, said in Discord that the transaction fee from MetaMask will be split. Will it be split evenly or not?
Let’s do the math!
When AirSwap gets 0.25% (they will probably get more). This will go 100% to the stakeholders pool. This means: $2M * 365 days * 0.25% = $1.83M each year will be deposited to the pool. When looking at the earlier AIPs, we saw around 10M AST who voted. Keep in mind that this number will probably be lower. Because AIP 7 proposed that you can only unstake 10% each 7 days. Voting for AIP’s does not require staking as of yet. But let’s go with 10M AST for now. 1.83M / 10M = $0.183. That means for every AST staked, you get $0.183 annually. AST currently trades around $0.22. This is 83% APY! Anybody would easily pay at least $0.60 for these returns. And that’s almost worst case scenario! It will be much higher if:
  1. Less stakeholders than 10M AST.
  2. MetaMask splits the fees with AirSwap or gives them a higher percentage.
  3. Volume gets higher on MetaMask Swaps, meaning more transaction fees.
All of the above is not to unimaginable. The time to unstake takes a few weeks because you can only unstake 10% each 7 days. If I would have to guess, I think the amount staked will be much lower than 10M AST. MetaMask and AirSwap are owned by the same company, ConsenSys. So it won’t be strange if they split the transaction fees evenly amongst the two parties, or hell give AirSwap even more. The volume traded on MetaMask Swaps will no doubt be higher the coming months. Imagine if they release it on their mobile app, I’m sure it will skyrocket.
Lastly, AirSwap is already being traded on Binance. No more sketchy exchanges! You can buy this straight from Binance!
Join the subreddit at AirSwap and definitely join the Discord to talk with fellow ASTronauts about the token!
Please DYOR, I’m just here to have an open discussion. And of course not financial advice. I just really like the stock token
TL;DR: AirSwap has some great fundamentals. With upcoming staking, it will be inevitable for the price to make a huge jump. Otherwise you would have a huge APY! If this got your interest, please read my post, it will cost you 5 minutes max. Your wife’s boyfriend will thank you for it.
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[Serial][UWDFF Alcubierre] Part 73

Beginning | Previous
Premier Valast laid on his side atop his Patriarch's cushion, idly tapping on his datapad as Minister Gorman droned on in the background. Apparently, the Trade Minister was very put out by the disappearance of a worm projector, and had expected to be informed of the transaction with the Amalgans, as if is approval were in some way important to a decision of that magnitude. Were it not for the fact that the Premier was intensely bored, he would have long ago dispensed with Gorman and sent him off to deal with the problems he had been delegated to address.
Valast's perked up when there was a pause in Gorman's litany of complaints. He took the opportunity to pounce. "Trade Minister Gorman, perhaps you think there is a surplus of options available to us. Tell me, do you believe our position would be enhanced by allowed the Evangi and their Human co-conspirators to go free?"
Gorman flapped his ears once, his whiskers twitching as the momentum in the conversations shifted immediately to Valast. Clearly, the Minister had mistook Valast's silence for agreement rather than indifference."N-no, Premier. I am merely trying to provide you with some insight into the ramifications the loss of a worm projector--"
"Gorman," Valast spat out, "I'm the one who told you how to plot the routes in the first place. Do you think I'm not aware of ever aspect of the Combine's logistical situation? Perhaps you believe I should come running to you each and every time I am to make a decision. You long for my pillow, but I do not think you are prepared to sit upon it." Valast sneered, one hind claw idly plucking at the pillow's fine fabric.
"That was not my intention at all, Premier. It's just that...well, they'll starve," Gorman averted his eyes at the last few words, a tremor entering in.
Valast could only look upon him in disgust. The weakness of the male was incredible. Unsurprisingly, but still incredible. As usual, Valast was called upon to set the context, to explain what must be done in order to survive. To remind his lessers of the stakes and the obstacles he faced on a daily basis. "Of course they'll starve, Gorman. That's the galaxy the Evangi have built for us. How they kept us all at their beck and call. They hid behind their Combine Compact, tried to make it all seem civilized, but they always kept their hands at our throats." Valast pulled himself to a perching position, warming to the subject. "Do as we say or die! Follow our rules or get cut off. That's always been their way. That's why they always kept control over the wormkeys, and that's why they stole the encryption key the moment they thought they couldn't keep us under their heel. They want us to come back begging."
Valast hopped off the cushion and jabbed a paw in Gorman's direction. "Well, perhaps you're the begging sort, Gorman, your warren has bowed and scraped its way this far, why should it be any different now? But I have a responsibility to the Combine, one that transcends the petty interests you so quickly succumb to. It is my duty to rid us of these parasites and secure the future of this galaxy. I won't be the one who blinks. I will do what is necessary. If a few outer planets populated by fringe races must be sacrificed for the greater good, then that is a price I am willing to pay and I will make sure the Evangi and their filthy Human pets pay the price for it." Valast waved a paw in the air, "A worm projector is pittance to secure that future."
Gorman bowed deeply, his ears drooping to his sides, "Yes, of course, Premier, I am just informing you--"
"I don't want you to inform me of your problems. I want you tell me of your solutions. I want you to use the power I have granted to you to carry out the responsibilities I have delegated to you. If I want to spend my time in pointless debate, I'll go speak with the Council. You are here to save me time, not waste it."
Gorman eyes flicked up at the mention of the Council, seeing the opportunity to change the conversation. "I heard that you recalled the Council...did they do as you asked?"
"I did not ask them anything. I told them what their responsibilities were and they, after considerable idiocy, made the only decision that would allow them to continue their worthless existence." Valast huffed out. "They played their little games, raising procedural concerns and running about in circles, but the Evangi are out. Expunged. Purged. Removed. Members of the Combine no longer."
Gorman exhaled noisily, a hiss emitting as the wind blew past needle sharp teeth. "Truly? I was uncertain...the session was long."
"Yes, well, as I said, they raised numerous concerns. At first they protested a lack of quorum, seeking refuge behind their fallen colleagues, lost in the flight from Halcyon. I resolved that issue by emergency appointments. Then there was a traitorous effort to seek reconciliation with our former masters, which I was forced to put down by threatening to declare their homeworlds in rebellion and withdraw projector access." Valast rolled his eyes, rolling his paw forward in a circular motion in front of him, "And so one and so forth. Eventually, there was a vote and the Evangi were expunged, and now the Amalgans may execute upon the Evangi Cleanse Contract."
"Are they capable of that? We know very little about the Overse--the traitors."
"They are experts in their craft, I suspect they are better prepared than any other possibility." Valast plopped back down atop his cushion, settling himself and smoothing out the fabric with his paws. "And does it matter? If they are incapable, then I would rather it be them than us."
Gorman nodded his head, "Truly." He glanced toward Valast's datapad, "When are they proceed?"
"Very soon. The delay has been on our side, not theirs. I deemed it unwise to begin the attack without both contracts being in effect. There was also the matter of the transfer of the worm projector and any number of other incidental aspects." Valast gave Gorman a look of cool disdain. "These matters were but a fraction of the items I am called upon to perform at any given moment. All of which I undertake without complaint because it is my duty to do so."
The Trade Minister bowed his head down again, his ears returning to their drooped posture. "It is an inspiring example, Premier. I shall strive to reach it, but recognize you as the superior in all regards."
"Very good. I eagerly await your update on the resolution of the reroutes to the trade network. Protect what you can, and sacrifice what you must. Our allies and the Legacy races must be granted preferential treatment wherever possible. We cannot risk instability with those who direct access to Mus." Many of the Legacy races benefited from keyed vessels with direct access to Mus, part of the direct trade deals the Mus had erected during their rise to prominence in the Combine. He was disinclined to give them reason for aggression. Even a trading vessel, if loaded with malcontents, could cause substantial harm in this fragile situation.
"Yes, Premier. I will see to it immediately."
Valast waved a paw, dismissing Gorman. The Trade Minister bowed, retreated a few paces, bowed again, and then turned and scurried away. Valast waited until the door to his chamber had resealed before turning his attention back to his datapad. He opened up the files detailing the Amalgan's strategic plan. The first phase called for a survey of the Sol system, both to determine the location of Human assets and to ascertain the nature of the restricted zone itself. Following the survey, there would be an initial assault designed to test Human defenses. If the results were promising, the cleanse would commence in earnest. If not, there were a variety of contingency plans based upon what was discovered.
With a few taps, Valast exited the more detailed logistical files and opened the Cleanse Contract Overview, which provided a statement of the terms and a basic assessment of outcome. A warmth kindled in Valast's core as he scanned the overview. The Amalgans were quite confident.
Cleanse Contract Overview - Humanity
Species Classification: War Oriented Neophyte Spacefarer (WONS).
Location: Single Known System - Sol Project.
Technology: Humanity displays a basic grasp of the fundamentals of in-system space travel with rudimentary weapons. Despite their low level of technology, they have exhibited creativity and dangerously erratic application of the tools at their disposal.
Assignment: Total Annihilation
Methods: No restrictions.
Expected Outcome: Success.
Failure Option: None. The Sclinter Amalgans are obligated to continue attacks upon Humanity until successful or until an amendment to the Cleanse Contract is agreed upon. This requires the Sclinter Amalgans to dedicate all available resources until the completion of the contract or the demise of the Sclinter Amalgans.
Payment: One Worm Projector. Paid in advance.
Commencement: Upon reception of payment.
The information the Combine had provided them had given the Amalgans little cause for concern. The Humans were eccentric, both in terms of their use of mass acceleration and their apparent ability to leverage rogue programs -- the Amalgans were also suspicious of the claims of Human's ability to create artificients -- but found them otherwise quite typical of newly interstellar species. They were barbarians with a few insane tactics, nothing more.
Of course there was some chance that the extenuating circumstances would complicate matters, but the Amalgans believed they would be capable of success even in the face of the appearance of the Evangi. It was comforting and oddly discomforting. Valast very much liked the certainty that his enemies would be removed but he was suspicious about the depth of the Amalgan's capabilities. Were he to think on it long, he might very well be unnerved about the Amalgan's treating the Evangi as no more than an "extenuating circumstance."
He elected to not think on it long. The alternatives were unattractive the Sclinter Amalgans had always adhered to their contracts. There was no reason to suspect their motives now. They were a tool of the Combine, and he was now the Combine.
He gave that tool a purpose, and it was soon to be deployed at his behest.
It was simply a matter of time.
A very short amount of time now.
Valast fell back onto his cushion, legs propped up in the air as he wiggled about, fantasizing about the destruction to come. His only regret was not being there to witness the horror on the Humans' faces as it happened.
---
Bo'Bakka'Gah had lost their carriage.
It was a traumatic and momentous event. An event that should never be possible without their express intention. But the carriage had done as it willed, uncaring of Bo'Bakka'Gah's attempts to countermand the separation process.
Once it was complete, the carriage had departed and not returned, leaving their housing orb discarded to the side. Without the carriage, they had lost their ability to interact with the world around them. The carriage was the conduit by which information beyond their housing orb was absorbed and the means by which their will was carried out. Without it, they could see very little. Could understand very little. Could impact very little. All they could sense was the dim light from the world beyond their orb.
This was poor substance to build understanding upon. Without their carriage, the Grast was returned to their natural state. They were once again a species that traded only in light, that perceived the world from that single frame of reference. In their home habitat upon Grast, this frame of reference was not limiting, it was instead the only way to survive. The most successful species were those that could parse a world entirely saturated in hues, that exploded in vibrancy from every direction. The Grast had reached the pinnacle of this ecosystem by bending the light to their will, by harnessing it to their desires. Upon their planet, the Grast were the Light Masters. They were in command. In control.
Halcyon was not Grast. Halcyon was the same as the rest of the galaxy: dark. Devoid of brilliance. A place of hostile, unending emptiness. Many had mourned when Bo'Bakka'Gah's tri-fold mind had formed. There could be no other response than grief when a Path led a Grast into the abyss beyond their homeworld. That the Path was necessary was little solace. The Grast would spend its existence in darkness interacting with species that could never possibly comprehend the joys of the light. It was miserable exile. An impossibly onerous sacrifice.
To walk this Path was to be alone.
But the Three had agreed. This was their Path, and they must follow it. They were a strong tri-fold mind, their lights were pure, bright and compatible. Regardless of the void around them, they should shine forth.
They had the will.
They also had the carriage gifted to them upon their departure.
Their only protection would be in their resilience to survive and the carriage gifted to them upon their departure. The apex of Grast innovation. The vehicle that would enable their journey.
Without it, the Path was lost.
Bo'Bakka'Gah sat in their orb. Alone in the dark.
Bo was growing increasingly erratic, their thoughts coming in flits and flashes. Bo had long looked upon the world beyond their orb with suspicion, had been most sensitive to the dangers that had lurked in the dark. It had been Bo that had understood Valast best, seeing the Premier as a kindred but distasteful counterpart. Valast was a survivor. Bo was as well. Now those suspicions and fears were being realized. They had been captured by a being and incapacitated.
Gah agreed that the present circumstances were intolerable, and considered their treatment unjust and cruel. There was little reason to toy with them as the artificient seemed to be doing. If the artificient wished them dead, then it should carry out that wish. There was little to be gained by placing them in their present situation. If the purpose was torture, then the artificient did not understand the nature of the tri-fold mind. There was no force an external entity could deploy to break them. They could only break themselves. This was a pointless and inefficient exercise.
Bakka continued to ruminate on the information that had been gathered. Bo had been correct to be wary of coming here, but Bakka was not sure their present circumstances were a validation of all of those fears. Similarly, Bakka agreed with Gah's assessment that their current treatment was pointless and cruel. Bakka disagreed that pointless cruelty was the intent of the action. Increasingly, Bakka suspected that their present state, which had persisted for some time, was simply a misunderstanding.
Bakka shared these thoughts. Bo and Gah found them suspect, but prodded Bakka for more. Given that there was little else to do, Bakka was quite happy to oblige. Bakka raised the peculiar responses to the First Contact Protocol, where TRUE had responded not to the questions, but to the underlying code. TRUE had interacted on a program basis, providing answers that maximized outcomes but appeared to be nonsensical. As far as Bo'Bakka'Gah was aware, such a thing had never been done before. Such a thing should not have even been possible.
The same could be said for the carriage. Through means unknown, the artificient had taken control of the machine, co-opting it for its own purposes. Then they had been taken closer to the artificient's core and absorbed into the wall before being separated and discarded without further interaction. Bakka posited that TRUE's interest in them was not actually in them, but in their machine.
When Bakka considered all of the data, the only instances where TRUE interacted with organic species was in response to a stimulus. If a force was exerted upon it, it would respond. Either by reinforcing the wall in Sana's case or by destroying the attacking Peacekeeper ships. In the absence of a force that required a response, it seemed to content to consolidate power locally and ignore everything else.
This explained TRUE's willingness to allow the flight of the ships from Halcyon. This explained TRUE not moving beyond its portion of Halcyon. This explained why TRUE did not pursue the eradication of the Humans once they were placed in the long tunnel and sealed off.
Bo and Gah considered this, and Bo quickly arrived at the question that Bakka had not found a suitable answer for. If all of this were to be accurate and true, then why had TRUE sought to obtain their carriage?
Gah provided an answer. The carriage was novel. It was the only machine of its type in Halcyon and possessed a variety of abilities not present elsewhere. The value of these technologies to an artificient were difficult to understand. The carriage served as an interface between their orb and the environment around them. What benefit was that to an artificient of presumably infinite capabilities?
The Three debated the matter thoroughly. They did not discard the possibility that the actions of the artificient were indeed intentionally cruel, but that viewpoint seemed increasingly less credible given all of the available evidence. Bo suggested that TRUE simply required the raw material, but the interaction suggested otherwise. The carriage was intentionally preserved rather than dismantled. It was co-opted, not destroyed, at least from what they had witnessed.
Time progressed. Without the carriage, it was difficult to determine precisely how long. It was not a brief period as Bo'Bakka'Gah began to experience a decline in mental acuity due to a lack of sustenance. They fed infrequently compared to other species, often eating once for every thirty or forty of the others' meals, but hunger was as debilitating for them as any others. The Three's lights began to grow dim, their movements lethargic. They continued the best they could, turning over the debate in their mind in hopes of finding some answer to the puzzle.
Their efforts yielded little. Additional time just calcified the thought process and turned them in circles. They were unable to solve the riddle of TRUE's actions. It was in the haze of desperation that Bakka re-framed the debate. Perhaps the reasons did not matter. They had no agency even if the reasons did matter. All that mattered was a stimulus that created a response. They had assumed they were incapable of that in their present state, but was that true?
True.
Communicate. How?
Light.
Bo'Bakka'Gah began to pulse red, blue and yellow light. Pouring the last of their energy into the dull flickering amidst the dark of Halcyon.
Bo began to flicker binary addition and substraction.
Gah flicked binary multiplication and division.
Bakka's message more simple.
A single pulse.
A pause.
A single pulse.
A pause.
A single pulse.
One.
One.
One.
True. True. True.
Next.
---------
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submitted by PerilousPlatypus to PerilousPlatypus [link] [comments]

A deep look into AirSwap (AST), a $30M moonshot

First of all, This is a serious DD, not some Dogecoin shitpost.
I know Airswap (AST) isn’t a real moonshot because it has a $30M marketcap. But just hear me out, it has a lot of potential, which I will explain in this long post! It will probably start of a bit confusing, but it will all make sense in the end.
TL;DR at the bottom for you lazy retards. But I do recommend you read the whole post.
AirSwap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) which was created by Fluidity. It was originally made for large companies to trade OTC and without an orderbook to avoid frontrunning.
In May 2020, Fluidity (the team behind AirSwap) was acquired by ConsenSys[1]. This is a BIG deal. ConsenSys was founded in 2014 by Joseph Lubin. Joseph is also a co-founder of Ethereum. The company has now more than 500 employees. ConsenSys is also the company behind MetaMask, which is the most popular Ethereum wallet and Web3 browser. In August 2020, ConsenSys acquired Quorum from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Which is an enterprise blockchain platform developed by JPMorgan Chase. Additionally, JPMorgan has made an undisclosed strategic investment in ConsenSys[2].
As you see, ConsenSys is a BIG deal.
Now back to AirSwap.
In October 2020, Airswap launched ‘Airswap Improvement Proposals’ (AIPs). Community members can now propose what they want to change. The community can then vote with their AST tokens. There have been around ten votes so far, but AIP 7 is by far the most interesting one. It was unanimously accepted by the community, which says enough if you ask me. It proposes that you can stake your AST and get rewarded with transaction fees and governance. Coming 9th of February.
Also in October 2020, ConsenSys introduced MetaMask Swaps. Which brings the feature to swap tokens directly within MetaMask. MetaMask checks the price of tokens with multiple decentralized exchanges, and gives you the best deal. Here’s the catch, MetaMask asks a 0.875% fee. AirSwap helped MetaMask with creating the contract behind MetaMask Swaps. The funny thing is, Airswap gets more than $2M of volume each day through MetaMask Swaps. And MetaMask Swaps isn’t even available on their mobile app as of yet!
AIP 7 proposes that there will be a pool for stakeholders to receive transaction fees. A co-founder of AirSwap, Don Mosites, said in Discord that the transaction fee from MetaMask will be split. Will it be split evenly or not?
Let’s do the math!
When AirSwap gets 0.25% (they will probably get more). This will go 100% to the stakeholders pool. This means: $2M * 365 days * 0.25% = $1.83M each year will be deposited to the pool. When looking at the earlier AIPs, we saw around 10M AST who voted. Keep in mind that this number will probably be lower. Because AIP 7 proposed that you can only unstake 10% each 7 days. Voting for AIP’s does not require staking as of yet. But let’s go with 10M AST for now. 1.83M / 10M = $0.183. That means for every AST staked, you get $0.183 annually. AST currently trades around $0.22. This is 83% APY! Anybody would easily pay at least $0.60 for these returns. And that’s almost worst case scenario! It will be much higher if:
  1. Less stakeholders than 10M AST.
  2. MetaMask splits the fees with AirSwap or gives them a higher percentage.
  3. Volume gets higher on MetaMask Swaps, meaning more transaction fees.
All of the above is not to unimaginable. The time to unstake takes a few weeks because you can only unstake 10% each 7 days. If I would have to guess, I think the amount staked will be much lower than 10M AST. MetaMask and AirSwap are owned by the same company, ConsenSys. So it won’t be strange if they split the transaction fees evenly amongst the two parties, or hell give AirSwap even more. The volume traded on MetaMask Swaps will no doubt be higher the coming months. Imagine if they release it on their mobile app, I’m sure it will skyrocket.
Lastly, AirSwap is already being traded on Binance. No more sketchy exchanges! You can buy this straight from Binance!
Join the subreddit at AirSwap and definitely join the Discord to talk with fellow ASTronauts about the token!
Please DYOR, I’m just here to have an open discussion. And of course not financial advice. I just really like the stock token
TL;DR: AirSwap has some great fundamentals. With upcoming staking, it will be inevitable for the price to make a huge jump. Otherwise you would have a huge APY! If this got your interest, please read my post, it will cost you 5 minutes max. Your wife’s boyfriend will thank you for it.
submitted by Zer0Underdead to CryptoMoonShots [link] [comments]

Plan of a low power, quiet homelab based on high availability. Let me know your thoughts!

I am currently renting a single room, but that does not mean I cannot get started on a small homelab. Currently running OMV on a Pi4 and 2 10TB external drives, but I would like to move to a TrueNAS RaidZ array with ECC memory to keep an eye on data integrity not just relying on my backups.
I quite enjoy this planning phase and I would like to learn high availability technologies that will enable me to safely remove any server in the stack at a time. The lab has to be dead silent and use as little power as possible. Lets start!
Like many of you I love these tiny Levono M920Q machines and have come up with the following diagram:
Network diagram
I plan on virtualizing everything, like TechnoTim does, including pfSense and TrueNAS Core. Proxmox requires 3 nodes to reach a quorum in a cluster, so my plan is to run it on my NAS and 2 Lenovo tinys (NAS it yet to be built too).
First I thought I would have the PfSense VM made higly available like in a CraftComputing video, but there needs to be a sync on a schedule and the failover takes too long. Then I found this video from Lawrence Systems, which made me think I could have the above setup with the second pfSense VM just running on standby, sync being done via a crosslink cable, so the tinys would need at least 3 network interfaces. Oh this is exciting!
The Proxmox cluster would also run a combination of k3s server and worker VMs on each machine where I would balance containers between them so they can be rescheduled if I take a server down.
The thing I am unsure about is storage. I was thinking other VMs could use a fast, shared storage on the NAS as their hard drive, making it a single point of failure. I don't know how to make this storage highly available, maybe there is a way to keep it synced between the tinys and the shared storage.
I am not running any critical workloads, I just want to learn!
If there is a way to run a Proxmox cluster only on 2 machines, with a raspberry pi simulating a vote to reach a quorum, I could eliminate an M920q machine.
Please let me know any tips or resources I can check out! Thank you!
submitted by Owlfortress to homelab [link] [comments]

Faith Crises: Is loss of faith inevitable?

This post is inspired by (but not really a response to) a few posts circulating here and on the faithful reddit about whether or not you can ever "come back" after a faith crisis, and whether loss of faith is unavoidable after seriously confronting the issues. I think it's a fair set of questions. The conventional wisdom among the post-mormon community is that you "can't put the toothpaste back in the bottle" once you've lost belief. However, this framing is often challenged by others (usually believers) who claim they have seen it happen. So what gives?
This is a topic that gets a lot of ink in the Mormon internet community, and I acknowledge the self-indulgence in creating a new thread on it, but I feel like I have some thoughts to contribute. My thoughts on this topic are entirely a result of personal observation in both mormon and postmormon communities. It is not the result of any kind of rigorous analysis, although I think such a thing would be worthwhile to anyone who had the means and the time.

There are multiple types of faith crises

Much of the difference of opinion comes from the fact that when believers and post-mormons disagree on this topic, they are often talking about completely different experiences that they both describe as "faith crises." When you go to /mormon, /exmormon or listen to a MormonStories 10 hour marathon with a recently disaffected member, and someone uses the term "faith crisis," they usually mean a very specific type of faith crisis. So let's talk about them, how they seem to happen, and how immutable they really are.

The "Rebellious Teen" faith crisis

When I was growing up, I wasn't much aware of intellectual exmormons and the issues that bother them, but I was very familiar with the "rebellious teen" faith crisis. This kind of faith crisis tends to have a few qualities:
Do they ever come back? Yes. I couldn't say the exact percentage, but it is rather common to see them come back to activity. They tend to have these characteristics when they do:

The "just kinda drifted away" inactive

I don't call this one a faith crisis since it doesn't really involve any kind of crisis per se. Many people just kind of drift away, often as young adults when they move out of their parents home, and go inactive. Sometimes they were raised Mormon, but never quite took to Mormonism, and once on their own, it just becomes a footnote to their life. Their inactivity is more about lack of momentum than anything else. Many will still maintain their testimony in spite of not practicing at all. They sometimes get lumped into exmormon/postmormon/inactive discussions simply because they're inactive, but the experience is quite different.

The Mini-Faith Crisis

I hope that doesn't sound dismissive, but I call it a mini-faith crisis because it's a miniature version of the kind of faith crisis we're discussing here. These people don't go as far down the rabbit hole and never reach the point of no return (more on that later). Some characteristics:

The "Intellectual Faith Crisis"

When a post-mormon says there's "no going back" or that there's "no believing in Santa Claus again," this is the type of faith crisis they are referring to. A few characteristics:
Do they ever come back? Rarely, and when they do, they don't come back as orthodox believers. Most of the time, when counter-examples are proffered, they are not actually this kind of faith crisis at all, they are one of the other kinds. Here are a few examples from a thread on the faithful subreddit dedicated to this topic:
" I have also seen many return to faith. The thing that these folks often but not always have in common is that they often left the church when they were younger, did not serve missions, were not married in the temple, and after having children, felt like something is missing."
"Born into the church, never really had testimony and left. I wasn't anti-Mormon, but I would certainly not say I had a positive view of the church either."
"I seriously doubted my faith at the tail end of high school. I spent a week away with a group that was really strong in spirit and when I returned home I realize that the spirit was missing from my life. I decided to make several changes, and was immensely blessed for it. "
"I went inactive around my 18th birthday, and was inactive for nearly a decade... Despite going inactive, I never lost faith in Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ."
"I came back after 8 years. I stopped attending after I read some stuff on web sites. Never had my records removed, but I went cold turkey as far as attending and paying tithing. I'm back now, but my testimony is different."
There are a few examples from the thread that might be examples of the "intellectual faith crisis," but there's not enough information in the descriptions to know for sure, for example:
"I had a long faith crisis, I struggled doubt and fear for a long time. It eventually would get to the point where I questioned if Christ and God even existed. As I wandered around my kitchen, I dropped to my knees and uttered a simple prayer asking if God was there and if he was real. The spirit overcame me and I burst into tears, that wasn't the end of the fear and doubt but It was the jumping of point for me to create my unshakable testimony today."
"After joining reddit a bunch of years ago, I was confronted with an onslaught of online militant atheism while also being reminded of some of our more troubling history. I had a faith crisis. It was prolonged. For a time, I fully lost my faith... I experimented on the word. I began to have, over time, so spiritual experiences. And then more."

The Point of No Return

I refer to the point of no return to answer two questions: can you ever come back after experiencing an "intellectual faith crisis?" Does everyone who learns this damaging information have a loss of faith?
I think it's clear that exposure to faith-negative information does not necessarily lead to disaffection. Many apologists have been wading in that pool for decades. And it's not exactly uncommon for longtime apologists to one day turn into critics, so something beyond mere exposure has to explain the phenomenon.
What I've noticed in my conversations with post-Mormons is there is almost always a moment where the doubter seriously concedes to themselves that the church might not be true. I call this the point of no return - not because they can't return to faithful church activity afterwards, but because whether or not they do, their faith will never return to an orthodox, General Conference approved status. They will never again sit in Sunday School and unabashedly proclaim that the Book of Mormon is a historical document and that the LDS church is the only true church on the face of the earth. They will move on to a "nuanced faith," which can take a lot of forms, but it simply won't take the form that your Stake President is likely comfortable with. One can argue it's a more "mature" faith, but whether or not that's true, it's also not the kind of faith the church teaches or that is generally safe to share in church. That's why I call it the point of no return. I have seen plenty of examples of people who make their faith work after experiencing an intellectual faith crisis and passing the point of no return - I have yet to see an example of someone returning to full orthodoxy.
Even that path seems to be rare, though. While it's trivial to list examples of people going through an intellectual faith crisis and becoming post-mormons, we frequently field the question of whether or not anyone ever goes back, and Don Bradley is the one example that is always offered. Bradley can be a little coy about what his faith looks like, but even he has acknowledged he has passed the point of no return. In his ama, he stated:
In a sense it's true what ex-Mormons say, that you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But what if the broken fragments of the simple story of Mormon history actually fit together into a larger picture than the one we first had--if missing pieces of that puzzle can be provided that, when fit together, show that the actual picture was far more vast than we'd ever thought?
So, mere exposure to information is not necessarily the point of no return. It can be, for many people, in that the exposure is enough to convince them to seriously re-evaluate the church's truth claims. But for many of us, we sat with these issues for a long time before admitting we weren't sure if the church was true. Often something else has to happen in your life just to allow yourself to admit the possibility. Many apologists seem to go their whole lives dealing in the same information, but never seriously allowing for that possibility. In one recent thread on the faithful forum, the contributors brag about how the information has never caused them any serious reconsideration.
It's worth noting that many people go through multiple different types of faith crisis. I can think of people I know who went through both a rebellious teen crisis and then eventually a full on intellectual faith crisis. I think perhaps most of us go through miniature faith crises at some point in our lives. But the intellectual faith crisis is usually the final one, not an intermediate one.

Why does it matter?

I'm not sure it does, but it seems to generate a lot of interest from believers and post-mormons alike. On the post-mormon side, I think there's a yearning for validation that their decision was the rational one, and the only one they reasonably could have made. On the believing side, I sense some disquietude and insecurity about the phenomenon, and a desire to reassure themselves that it's not a serious or permanent problem. It's difficult to put a number on it, since the few statistics I do know merely track activity in the church rather than what kind of faith transition members went through. I doubt the number of people going through this "intellectual apostasy" is significant compared to the number of converts that don't stick, teens that just kind of stop going and grow out of it once they leave home, etc. However, the thing about the intellectual apostasy is that it primarily affects prominent, active members. We are somewhat used to and callous towards the steady march of recent converts and fringy youth out the door, but when Ward Mission Leaders and Elders Quorum Presidents and Relief Society Presidents start leaving and taking their family with them, it causes more alarm and discomfort. While the raw number may not be impressive, their relative importance is much higher to local members, more shocking, and the number seems to be increasing.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
submitted by ImTheMarmotKing to mormon [link] [comments]

A deep look into AirSwap (AST), serious DD

First of all, This is a serious DD, not some Dogecoin shitpost.
I know Airswap (AST) isn’t a real moonshot because it has a $30M marketcap. But just hear me out, it has a lot of potential, which I will explain in this long post! It will probably start of a bit confusing, but it will all make sense in the end.
TL;DR at the bottom for you lazy retards. But I do recommend you read the whole post.
AirSwap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) which was created by Fluidity. It was originally made for large companies to trade OTC and without an orderbook to avoid frontrunning.
In May 2020, Fluidity (the team behind AirSwap) was acquired by ConsenSys[1]. This is a BIG deal. ConsenSys was founded in 2014 by Joseph Lubin. Joseph is also a co-founder of Ethereum. The company has now more than 500 employees. ConsenSys is also the company behind MetaMask, which is the most popular Ethereum wallet and Web3 browser. In August 2020, ConsenSys acquired Quorum from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Which is an enterprise blockchain platform developed by JPMorgan Chase. Additionally, JPMorgan has made an undisclosed strategic investment in ConsenSys[2].
As you see, ConsenSys is a BIG deal.
Now back to AirSwap.
In October 2020, Airswap launched ‘Airswap Improvement Proposals’ (AIPs). Community members can now propose what they want to change. The community can then vote with their AST tokens. There have been around ten votes so far, but AIP 7 is by far the most interesting one. It was unanimously accepted by the community, which says enough if you ask me. It proposes that you can stake your AST and get rewarded with transaction fees and governance. Coming 9th of February.
Also in October 2020, ConsenSys introduced MetaMask Swaps. Which brings the feature to swap tokens directly within MetaMask. MetaMask checks the price of tokens with multiple decentralized exchanges, and gives you the best deal. Here’s the catch, MetaMask asks a 0.875% fee. AirSwap helped MetaMask with creating the contract behind MetaMask Swaps. The funny thing is, Airswap gets more than $2M of volume each day through MetaMask Swaps. And MetaMask Swaps isn’t even available on their mobile app as of yet!
AIP 7 proposes that there will be a pool for stakeholders to receive transaction fees. A co-founder of AirSwap, Don Mosites, said in Discord that the transaction fee from MetaMask will be split. Will it be split evenly or not?
Let’s do the math!
When AirSwap gets 0.25% (they will probably get more). This will go 100% to the stakeholders pool. This means: $2M * 365 days * 0.25% = $1.83M each year will be deposited to the pool. When looking at the earlier AIPs, we saw around 10M AST who voted. Keep in mind that this number will probably be lower. Because AIP 7 proposed that you can only unstake 10% each 7 days. Voting for AIP’s does not require staking as of yet. But let’s go with 10M AST for now. 1.83M / 10M = $0.183. That means for every AST staked, you get $0.183 annually. AST currently trades around $0.22. This is 83% APY! Anybody would easily pay at least $0.60 for these returns. And that’s almost worst case scenario! It will be much higher if:
  1. Less stakeholders than 10M AST.
  2. MetaMask splits the fees with AirSwap or gives them a higher percentage.
  3. Volume gets higher on MetaMask Swaps, meaning more transaction fees.
All of the above is not to unimaginable. The time to unstake takes a few weeks because you can only unstake 10% each 7 days. If I would have to guess, I think the amount staked will be much lower than 10M AST. MetaMask and AirSwap are owned by the same company, ConsenSys. So it won’t be strange if they split the transaction fees evenly amongst the two parties, or hell give AirSwap even more. The volume traded on MetaMask Swaps will no doubt be higher the coming months. Imagine if they release it on their mobile app, I’m sure it will skyrocket.
Lastly, AirSwap is already being traded on Binance. No more sketchy exchanges! You can buy this straight from Binance!
Join the subreddit at AirSwap and definitely join the Discord to talk with fellow ASTronauts about the token!
Please DYOR, I’m just here to have an open discussion. And of course not financial advice. I just really like the stock token
TL;DR: AirSwap has some great fundamentals. With upcoming staking, it will be inevitable for the price to make a huge jump. Otherwise you would have a huge APY! If this got your interest, please read my post, it will cost you 5 minutes max. Your wife’s boyfriend will thank you for it.
submitted by Zer0Underdead to SatoshiStreetBets [link] [comments]

How I found my way out.

Wall of text. TLDR? All good. How my spirituality changed.
I haven’t truly, deeply tried to access my own spirituality and put my spiritual experience into written word; to bare my soul so to say. I have also always wanted to be liked and can be a bit of a pushover. I don't like to be the guy who holds things up or makes things more difficult or causes a delay. I don’t want to stand out so we take care of a specific need I have. I tend to buckle in an argument or negotiate my way around differences. Because of this tendency to worry about other’s needs before my own it's hard for me to quit something I've started because I don’t want to disappoint anyone or inconvenience them by leaving them in a jam. It's just who I am and what I do. This essay is about the internal struggles of waking up from a lifelong social tradition. You could say it’s about betrayal or treason but the situation is so common and yet so unique I can’t think of the appropriate word to describe it. I changed but the world I was cocooned in did not, let’s say I found things better outside the hive. Some ground rules:
I am not actively against anything except cruelty. If you're hurting someone for enjoyment I am not your friend or ally.
I am happy with who I am, I like me, more so now than ever before.
I believe in God, in Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
I believe that being a vibrant, active, believing adherent of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can get you into heaven as can being a Buddhist, Catholic, Agnostic or Evangelical. God is no respecter of persons and he’s worried about your heart not your wrapper. Think of yourself as bread; God doesn’t worry about what brand of oven you’re baked in as long as he gets to knead the dough. I do not intend to change your mind, heart or habit. I am not trying to pry you from your faith tradition or create disdain or dislike of another.
I was an active, sometimes confused member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am no longer a member. If you are familiar with LDS traditions you should know this: I did not go a two year mission. I have served as Young Men’s President, Elders Quorum President and Counselor in the Bishopric. I have taught adult Sunday School (Gospel Doctrine, all curriculum except OT) and have been in the Sunday School Presidency as well as the High Priests Group Leadership. I am what some evangelicals call a “Temple Mormon” meaning I was endowed and sealed in the Temple. My worth is not defined by those titles, positions or affiliations; they describe what I have done, but not who I am. I am a child of God, he wants me to live with him forever and sent his only son to make sure I can and that alone is enough to let me know my worth. God loves us all and there’s nothing we can do to change that. I have always had trouble with LDS theology and culture that teaches a “conditional worth.” Conditional worth is the idea that “God loves you if you’re (insert behavior here)” which is more clearly stated “God doesn’t love if you (insert behavioaffiliation/cologne here).” I disagree. God loves you regardless of whom or what you are. You’re his child. He loves you even when you smear poop on the walls or don’t tithe, or you cuss, or if you’re a Ford guy or a Chevy guy. In the construction of this essay I realized that unless you’ve been immersed in LDS culture you might not understand that there are “Official” church doctrines and “Social/Cultural” church doctrines. This represents the difference between theory and application. Official doctrine is that sort of thing you can go to www.lds.org and say, “There it is, right there.” Social (or cultural) doctrine is a slipperier beast, these are the doctrines as they are applied in LDS society. One of the greatest examples ever was the idea that Mormons couldn’t drink caffeinated beverages. I believe the root of this is that coffee has caffeine and if you combine a desire to know why you don’t drink coffee with a powerful urge to comply with ecclesiastic law regular folks jumped the shark to ditching all caffeinated products. If you don’t think this is an issue check out: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/state-and-regional/lds- church-clarifies-stance-on-caffeine/article_e4e357d0-ba5d-5a6c-8e78-dd1e791a34b2.html
Often Latter-day Saints don’t know why they do what they do or even clearly understand the doctrines they “believe”. It can be tough to find a common ground with Mormons on what a doctrine really is. Case in point: does the Church discourage interracial marriage? I believe the answer is yes. Maybe. Sorta. They use codewords like Cultural Differences. Look here (with an eye to the “quotation/discussion” section): https://www.lds.org/manual/aaronic-priesthood-manual-3/lesson-31-choosing-an-eternal- companion?lang=eng where it says:
“We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally, and of somewhat the same economic and social and education background (some of those are not an absolute necessity but preferred), and above all, the same religious background, without question”. (“Marriage and Divorce,” in 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year [Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1977], p. 144).
That’s all good advice…I guess. I would have left out the “racial background generally” bit but I’m not writing this stuff. Can you see how people from different generations can cherry pick that to support their own prejudices? In this essay I will try differentiate between “Official” doctrine and “Social/Cultural” doctrine by putting in links like the one above to highlight official doctrine. If you’re reading this and saying, “Fetch, the church isn’t like that!” I’m not going to fight you because members carry personal and regional bias as well as economic and social and education bias. Yes, a broad brush is dangerous, appropriate and tricky to use. My cultural experience may be different than yours. The world isn’t homogenous, every ward is different and unique just like all the rest. In the spirit of honesty I’ll give you a glimpse of how my religious train got derailed. Growing up Mormon I was taught some very clear “facts” about the LDS Church, its beginnings, doctrines and history. Church history was taught to me during Primary (children’s organization), Mutual (Youth group) and Seminary (semi-required daily instruction of all LDS in high school). Those “facts” taught were undoubtedly “true”. In fact, the common way of expressing belief in the church is to start or finish a statement with “I know these things are true”. As I grew older I began to investigate church history and found odd and troubling things. When I mentioned them to folks at church I was assured they were lies told by outsiders who were trying to destroy the work of God. The recommended course of action was stop looking around and no more questions.
Fast forward thirty years and every single one of those “lies” I first asked about is now taught as official church history. That is a little freaky if you know what I mean. Part of this is due to the internet and the ability for any person, anywhere to access a complete church history that hasn’t been spun to help it or hurt it—the academic historical version is available. One of the ways the church is taught is that it is “all or nothing”. It’s either all true or all false. In missionary work this line of reasoning is simple: If you pray and receive a witness that the Book of Mormon is true then Joseph Smith is as prophet and the church and all teachings are as well. Unfortunately the backside of this is a single verifiable fact can create a situation where belief is a house of cards and can fall with one card removed. For example I have been taught all my life to test the church on one axiom: if Joseph Smith (founder) is a prophet then everything is true—you have to believe it all. The unspoken converse being if he isn’t a prophet then by default it’s all false. Latter-day Saints have always been accused of worshiping Joseph Smith, which they don’t, at least not in the religious sense of the word. There is a cult of personality that surrounds Joseph that feeds his “all or nothing” status and creates an environment in which he can bear no blemish.
Given the famous LDS catch phrase: “Joseph Smith has done more for the salvation of mankind save Jesus Christ himself” is there any wonder that his image must remain pure? Due to his position Joseph’s character is in an untenable place because he needs to be perfect to support the weight of the church. Joseph wasn’t perfect. He was an intricate and unique person who was incredibly interesting, charismatic and apparently a very nice guy. That said, Joseph had his quirks and was entirely human complete with all the associated faults. One piece of history antagonists seize on is the matter of “The First Vision” where God first appeared to Joseph. There are widely varying accounts of this event given by Joseph himself. The Church now acknowledges this (https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision- accounts?lang=eng) due to the availability of those accounts. Opponents use these variances to debunk Joseph but I think it plays again to the problem of his humanity. He might not have remembered it well and, although this can be offensive to Latter-day Saints, doesn’t every story get just a little better with each telling? We tailor to our audience or realize that we need to extend the second act in order to make a bigger splash with our punch line.
I have no problem with changing accounts of the First Vision, I’m a storyteller too. I get adjusting the script. What did me in was polyandry. Joseph married other men’s wives. Some call these “spiritual marriages” but the evidence is clear they were wives in every sense of the word. Most Latter-day Saints don’t even know Joseph was a polygamist. He was. If you’re LDS and thinking I’m lying, look it up! There’s a Family Search record:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.2.1/SP6X-Q65 (remember Joseph died in 1844, this is one of 33 or so brides).
I didn’t know Joseph was a polygamist. My father had taught me that Joseph had posthumously been sealed to several women and that was misrepresented by anti-mormon factions to discredit Joseph. As mentioned the dates on Joseph’s own LDS church record prove that point false. My heart was further broken when I learned that some men willingly gave their spouses to Joseph and others were coerced with threats to their family’s eternal salvation, still others were sent on missions and their wives married Joseph while their husbands were away. God would not do that, ask that, nor would he approve it. In conversation once a wonderful, knowledgeable gentleman for whom I have the greatest respect put forward the idea that “This may have been a test, like Abraham and Isaac.” To which I immediately replied, “Where was the ram in the bramble?” The idea that the Lord could require me to give my wife to another is more than I can bear. The idea of Joseph demanding sexual access to another man’s wife or daughter is, to me, proof positive that, in this at least, Joseph himself was clearly not following the Lord’s instruction.
The fact that men willingly gave their wives up completes a circle of evil I do not want to be a part of. I cannot fathom a God who would in any way encourage such a thing. The very foundations of my belief structure crumbled. How could this be? I cannot express you in words the feeling that tore into my soul. I was crushed, repulsed and angry both at the lies and by the truths. Part of me tried to hold tight to the immaculate Joseph or integrate a fallen Joseph into my system of belief. But if Joseph is a fallen prophet the question then becomes when did that happen and is everything before his fall still true and can post-fall doctrines be true? Compounding my problem is the fact that the church is constantly evolving in doctrine and scripture. Church doctrine has gone from Book of Mormon peoples being the “primary ancestors” of Native Americans to their being “small and isolated populations”. https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of- mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng
Millions of people are now a few, all of those ruins in Mesoamerica suddenly are not Nephite or Lamanite but just plain old ruins and the context of the Book of Mormon is utterly devastated. In some ways worse, the translation of the book is no longer word for word but done by Joseph using a “peepstone” while burying his head in his hat. It was “inspired translation” and he never actually “read” from the plates, they sat on a table covered in a linen cloth. This is now LDS doctrine. As a kid I was taught it was a word for word translation done with the Urim and Thumin. No more, “inspired translation” is the term used. While not “automatic writing” it does seem a tad like “channeling”. Look at the church’s official website:
https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of- mormon-translation
these were “horrible lies” but are now accepted, confirmed truths. It was, to put it lightly, a serious mind hump when all the “lies” turned out to be true and truth now flowed the other way. God’s truth, as taught by his chosen and anointed, changed. All those folks who lied about things just to hurt the church were in fact telling the truth it turns out. Even the actual text of the Book of Mormonwas changed to reflect a less racist God and then, Brigham Young went under the bus as “The Racist” and all racist doctrines were laid on him.
https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood
Placing the “Racist” mantle on Brigham really messes with the ‘If the Prophet were to lead the church astray he would be removed from his position’ as the President of the Church. The backside of being removed if you stray places the Prophet in a unique position of infallibility. For more see:
https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-the-living-prophets-student-manual/chapter-2-the- living-prophet-the-president-of-the-church?lang=eng
Latter-day Saints don’t like to admit it but our lives are much easier with an infallible prophet and a factual faith. That’s how we “know”. We believe as we believe that George Washington crossed the Delaware. You could say that with the destruction of the “facts” that held up my belief my personal religious gravity was broken, the world simply dropped away and I was anchorless and floating on the winds of confusion.
This essay is my attempt to explain how I deal with distancing myself from a rigorous religious tradition that claims absolute truth and is led by an infallible leader. I’ve found in my wanderings about the internet that there are a fair amount of really angry, bitter ex-Mormons as well as ex-Catholics, ex- vangelicals and every other “ex“-flavor folk. Religion often asks for such a complete immersion that leaving can be very painful and a bit like trying to extract yourself from a tar pit; you will lose some skin and take some tar with you. Some feel like they’ve been taken advantage of and lied to and that makes for some strong feelings. I am not one of those. I understand anger at being lied to, I get the frustration of investing years of effort and trust into a system that can’t withstand rigorous inspection. I get it.
I have empathy. But my anger faded quickly, I didn’t indulge it, or feed it, or nurse it to keep it alive. I got over it and I got over it fairly quickly, that’s not to say there aren’t emotional echoes out there. Often in these sorts of situations anger can be a choice. I choose to be like Christ. On the third day he didn’t rise and say, “Where’s that Roman dude with the hammer?” Jesus let it go without a fight. I also did not lose the entirety of my faith. I am still a Jesus guy. I believe in a benevolent, active and loving God. Perhaps that helps, perhps not. All I have to offer is some simple rules that help me with my everyday life. I choose not to be paranoid. I choose not to indulge my desire to wreak vengeance on innocent bystanders or destroy their faith. I choose to live and let live. If any of the this helps you I’m happy; if it doesn’t then I’m sorry I could not be of more service. Either way we have the ability to choose what to do with our emotions. I choose to push to the positive and always assume good intent, from both organizations and people.
It is what Jesus wants me to do.
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Congress 101: House Rules, the House Floor, and the Parties

Introduction

This is part two of a series explaining Congress from the inside. You can read part one here. I talked about House leadership in my last post, but Congress' job is to legislate and listing out the duties of the folks in charge of that job isn't going to clear too many things up. So let's talk about legislating.

The House Rules Committee

The one leadership position I didn't explain in the last post was the Rules Committee Chair, mostly because that position doesn't make much sense without understanding what the Rules Committee does.
The big job of this Committee is to control the process of considering bills on the House Floor. Before I get into that, I have to say that every Committee in Congress has a particular "jurisdiction." For example: the House Armed Services Committee has the jurisdiction to review legislation in the House involving ongoing military operations, and a whole laundry list of other things.
The Rules Committee's jurisdiction has two categories: original jurisdiction matters and special orders. Original jurisdiction matters are easy to understand: legislation has to go through review by the Rules Committee if it involves changing the standing rules of the House (like how you can't wear a hat on the floor, real thing btw), or if it changes a measure that contains special rules (like the common example of trade promotion authority). These are interesting topics but they aren't the reason this Committee and its Chair are so important, because they aren't the only reason a piece of legislation would end up in front of the Rules Committee.
Special orders, aka "special rules" or just "rules," provide terms and conditions of debate on a measure or matter that's moving through the House. The Rules Committee writes these special rules, and the House votes on them. For the most part these things explain what kind of amendments can be made to a bill and for how long, but honestly a special rule could be fucking anything, man. The Rules Committee can write a self-executing amendment that can rewrite any part of a bill (including EVERY part of a bill), and if a simple majority (50%+1) of the people in the House say "ok, sure, I'll vote Yea," then boom that's real now. The Rules Committee can write a self-executing amendment that just says "This bill passes," and the House says "why not? Yea," and wow that bill just passed the House all of a sudden.
Don't believe me? Listen to them themselves, last paragraph on this page.
This is what the Committee spends most of its time doing, again usually in the form of green-lighting amendments to bills, and the whole thing is stacked as hell in the majority's favor: the thing's made up of 9 members from the majority party, and only 4 from the minority party.

Da Rules

Remember how last time I talked about how at the start of every new Congress the House passes a Rules Package, and how nobody reads the whole thing?
I'll say it again if you're too lazy to read the old post but this thing is like 700 pages and it has language in it from 200 years ago. Why? It's mostly copy-paste.
Whenever the Leadership is preparing the Rules Package they just take all the rules of the Congress they're currently in, then maybe they change some things that annoyed them or they add a new rule to fill in a gap somewhere and hey, look at that, Rules Package. One thing that upcoming House leadership does spend a lot of time on is setting up a series of tools that suit the legislative agendas they'll have for the next two years, usually in the form of providing avenues for the Rules Committee to write those overpowered special orders from the last section.
With these tools the Rules Committee can make the following types of Special Rules to apply to bills that are brought up on the House Floor: open, modified open, structured and closed. Here's what they all are:
Open Rule If a bill is being governed by an open rule, it means that anybody can add any amendment at any time to it as long as they follow all the reestablished Rules of the House (from that document written at the beginning of a Congress). Basically there's no extra rules that Representatives have to play by. Rare to see this type of legislating in place, you'll see it with super specific hyper-focused bills and with the 12 approps bills but not much else.
Modified Open Rule Basically the same as an open rule except without the "any time" aspect. Amendments have to be pre-printed in the Congressional Record before they can be considered. This opens lots of strategies for House Leadership to control a piece of legislation as it moves on the floor. For example, if the minority party adds an amendment that might be super popular but might tank some other part of the bill, House Leadership could pull language from that amendment, have somebody from the majority party propose only the good parts, vote on that new amendment first, just to nullify support for the original amendment.
Structured Rule These are pretty common, basically all amendments to a bill from the floor have to go through the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee then takes all the amendments they approve of and list them out on the published rule for the bill in question. You gotta remember the Rules Committee is pretty stacked in favor of the majority, and only a simple majority needs to vote "Yea" on a rule for it to be adopted. Say it with me kids: the House is partisan and majoritarian.
Closed Rule No floor amendments. If the bill is gonna change, that change has to come from either the Committee review process, or from the Rules Committee.

The Floor

In like every other context, being on the floor isn't something to brag about. Here? This is the big time.
It's the Majority Leader's domain down here, and like I said before Steny Hoyer deciddes when the House is in session, what the hourly schedule will be, and most importantly what legislation the House is even going to consider on the Floor.
There are five legislative procedures that Steny can use to pick which bills come to the House Floor: unanimous consent, suspension of the rules, special rules (which I just talked about), privileged business, and a discharge petition.
Unanimous consent is when the majority and minority parties both agree to bring up a piece of legislation and they both agree on the parameters of consideration (the debate time, the amendments, etc.). No surprise but this thing has to be unanimous, if even one member objects then all that work goes in the garbage.
Suspension of the rules is kind of similar to unanimous consent. House rules only let this kind of thing happen on specific legislative days (Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays) and that bills considered under a rule suspension have 40 minutes of debate time (20 for each party) with no amendments allowed. If a bill wants to pass like this, they need two-thirds of those present and voting to approve it (290/435).
Special rules procedures are the most common way things get to the House Floor, and we talked about those already.
Privileged business procedure means that the bill in question is special and it needs to be the focus of conversation ASAP. Usually this procedure is in place for the General appropriations bills (and Continuing Resolutions), Budget Resolutions, the adoption of special rules from the Rules Committee, and resolutions involving Membestaff conduct from the Ethics Committee.
The last way a bill could end up down here isn't actually Steny Hoyer's decision at all, anybody can make it happen: filing a discharge petition. These discharge petitions are a way to force legislation out of committee and onto the floor, they're filed with the House Clerk and if 218 Members of the House sign one of these things then the legislation has to come down to the Floor and be debated in accordance to rules set within the petition itself. Usually these things stick around with the Clerk for a while and they slowly gain votes, so when the number gets close to 218 the Majority Leader might bring the legislation to the Floor himself just to make sure the bill is debated under favorable rules and not the rules laid out in the petition.

The Committee of the Whole

Sometimes the House isn't the House at all. Fucking weird right?
The Committee of the Whole House is not the House of Representatives. It's a Committee, made up of a select group of * checks notes * every Representative in the House. Ok, but it's chaired by ... the Speaker of the House.
Aside from how dumb this thing is, this thing is actually kind of interesting. There are different rules when the Committee of the Whole is meeting that allow for business being conducted on the floor to actually be meaningful. Debate during this thing is supposed to be a discussion of questions and answers instead of the speech parade we see in the regular House, it has no quorum requirements (meaning there isn't a minimum number of people who have to be present for business to start), and votes are rolled into a series (meaning for related items they go debate-debate-vote-vote instead of debate-vote-debate-vote).
This is how they handle Appropriations, and I honestly don't think they use it for anything else.

Caucuses

Both parties in the House have a party caucus that serves as a party conference: the House Democratic Caucus, and the House Republican Conference. Hate the names yet? These are the other two major congregations of people in the House other than the actual Chamber itself and the Committee of the Whole.
These things are, how do I put this nicely, inefficient but necessary. Both of these organizations adopt a series of rules that define what they are and how their members can behave. You can read the Democrats' rules here, and the Republicans' rules here.
Within these rules, these organizations lay out who they are, who their party's leadership is, how they elect them, when the group meets, organizations within the Caucus, how Committee assignments are made, how Committee Chairs are picked, and a bunch of other things.
Shoutout to u/GilmanB for calling me out, but he was right in the last post, the Committee assignment / Chair assignment process isn't an excercise in despotism, the whole Caucus does vote on it. Why would I lie to you? Well I work on Capitol Hill.
These aren't complicated procedures but they are tedious, they can be changed pretty easily, they switch out every Congress and they don't apply evenly to all Members. That being said, these rules are more commonly read than the Chamber rules by people on the Hill (though most of the time you'll only read the rules that apply to your member). You should check them out.

Conclusion

The House is partisan and majoritarian. Next time we'll learn about Committees.
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My opinion on the History of the Word of Wisdom in re its adoption as a commandment

This is just my thinking, based on some input, and there's always more input out there, waiting... So while I don't mind you quoting me to ghawd, let him know that open to amending this, okay?
The WoW bans "all hot drinks". That's it for ghawd's input to JoJu regarding what later became the ban on coffee and black/green tea. And of course, it wasn't a "ban", it was a suggestion... I had always thought that from February 27, 1833 until Sept. 09, 1851, the WoW remained merely a suggestion and a person's standing in the church had no relationship to the person's obedience to Sec. 89. But that appears not to be the case.
"...the Word of Wisdom was nevertheless regularly emphasized in the early years of the Church. In February 1834, the High Council of the Church resolved that: 'No official member in this Church is worthy to hold an office, after having the Word of Wisdom properly taught him, and he, the official member, neglecting to comply with or obey it...
"This statement was later reprinted in the November 1, 1836 issue of the Messenger and Advocate to answer "frequent applications ... for advice respecting official members of this Church relative to their observance of the Word of Wisdom.
In May of 1837, the Messenger and Advocate reaffirmed its previous stand and stressed obedience to all of God's commandments.
"The Quorum of Seventies voted to withdraw fellowship from non-observers (so far as not recognizing them as preachers of the Gospel) in July of 1837, and five months later this same group covenanted to keep the Word of Wisdom." --An Historical Analysis Of The Word Of Wisdom, pgs 27 & 28 https://archive.org/details/AnHistoricalAnalysisOfTheWordOfWisdom/page/n26/mode/1up?q=church+of+jesus+christ+of+latter+day+saints+conference+reports
But it appears that WoW violations, while cited as reasons for disfellowshipping, seem never to have been solely the cause: "In all cases where membership or fellowship was taken away, -- there were other accusations that were directed at the offender. In many cases, the Word of Wisdom violation appeared to have been considered less important than the other infractions. In fact, the evidence strongly suggests that Mormons were not expelled solely for violations of the Word of Wisdom except in the case of extreme drunkenness. --ibid., page 30
Then during September Conference, 1851 (Yeah, September! What’s up with that?), while John Smith, the then church patriarch was giving a talk on the WoW, BY got up and asked the ladies to agree to keep the Wow. The ladies voted in the affirmative. Then BY asked "...all the boys under 90..." to also vote to do the same. The record states that the voting was unanimous. (This is when the church's website it became a Commandment...)
But... "A later acceptance date seems more logical for the following reasons: (1) Brigham Young himself did not strictly live the Word of Wisdom until the early 1860’s. For example, Jules Remy, an English traveler, observed Brigham preparing "a quid of Virginia tobacco" in late September 1855 and in 1862 the Mormon President alluded strongly to the fact that he had recently over-come habits contrary to Word of Wisdom teachings.
"(2) Young said as late as 1861 that he never chose to make observance to the Word of Wisdom a test of Church fellowship.
"(3) The Mormon reformation of 1856-1857 was characterized by sermons advocating a return to a more strict adherence to Christian principles. During this period, a type of inquisitional catechism was formulated to provide an index to a Mormon’s faithfulness. The only question having to do with the Word of Wisdom was an inquiry concerning whether or not an individual had been drunk. The inference is obvious" --ibid, pages 51-53
Now we get to the point that has always been ascendant in my mind for the Big Three WoW items being labeled as the bad guys, Coffee, Tea & alcohol: From the moment of their arrival and settling of the Great Basin Kingdom, what they couldn’t grow had to be imported. And the importation of goods required hard money: gold and silver. The Saints could not use the territorial script with East Coast vendors. Here’s the view of Leonard Arrington:
“Separated as they were from the United States by over 1,500 miles of treeless plains, hounded as they had been by hating mobocrats, it was necessary for the Latter-day Saints to develop and maintain a self-sufficient economy in their Rocky Mountain retreat. Economic independence was a necessary goal of the group and every program of the Church tended toward that end. Economic independence meant developing all the agricultural, mineral, and industrial resources of the community under proper (i.e. church) leadership for the purchase of machinery and equipment needed in building a prosperous commonwealth. There must be no waste of liquid assets on imported consumer’s goods … Saints who used their cash to purchase imported Bull Durham, Battle-Axe plugs, tea, coffee, and similar ‘wasteful’ (because not productive) products were taking an action which was opposed to the economic interest of the territory. In view of this situation, President Young came to be unalterably opposed to the expenditure of money by the Saints on imported tea, coffee, and tobacco. It was consistent with the economics of the time that he should have had no great objection to tobacco chewing if the tobacco was grown locally. It was also consistent that he should have successfully developed a locally produced ‘Mormon’ tea to take the place of the imported article. Something more permanent and productive than tea, coffee, and tobacco was wanted for the building of the Kingdom, in view of the limited funds at the disposal of the Saints.” --Leonard J. Arrington, "An Economic Interpretation of the Word of Wisdom," Brigham Young University Studies Vol. 1 (Winter, 1959), p. 37.
With the coming of the railroad, the opportunities for the Saints to spend even more money for East Coast goods increased. Here’s a part of a BY’ sermon in September of 1861. Please note the lack of a will to enforce the WoW, but to please stop sending money out-of-state!:
“You know that we all profess to believe the Word of Wisdom. There has been a great deal said about it, more in former than in latter years. We, as Latter-day Saints, care but little about tobacco; but as ‘Mormons’ we use a great deal. How much do you suppose goes annually from this Territory, and has for ten or twelve years past, in gold and silver, to supply the people with tobacco? I will say $60,000.
“Brother William H. Hooper, our Delegate in Congress, came here in 1849, and during about the eight years he was selling goods his sales for tobacco alone amounted to over $28,000 a year. At the same time there were other stores that sold their share and drew their share of the money expended yearly, besides what has been brought in by the keg and by the half keg. The traders and passing emigration have sold tons of tobacco, besides what is sold here regularly. I say that $ 60,000 annually is the smallest figure I can estimate the sales at.
"Tobacco can be raised here as well as it can be raised in any other place. It wants attention and care. If we use it, let us raise it here. I recommend for some man to go to raising tobacco. One man, who came here last fall, is going to do so; and if he is diligent, he will raise quite a quantity. I want to see some man go and make a business of raising tobacco and stop sending money out of the Territory for that article.” --Brigham Young, Sermon of September 29, 1861, JD, IX, 35
The record shows that after the 1861 sermon, BY and others ramped up their efforts to get the Saints to agree to observe the WoW. There was increased hectoring from the pulpit and in church publications. But it was apparently for naught:
On October 30, 1870, Brigham Young indicated that tea and coffee sales were increasing among Church members. --Brigham Young, Sermon of October 30, 1870, JD. XIV, 20
In November 1871, Orson Pratt expressed regret that many Mormons remained unfaithful regarding the Word of Wisdom --“Minutes of the Salt Lake School of the Prophets”, November 25, 1871, HDC
Brigham Young, Jr., an Apostle, stated that the majority of Saints disregarded the Word of Wisdom. --Brigham Young, Jr., Sermon of October 8, 1872, JD, XV, 193-195
In October 1873, George A. Smith somewhat cynically remarked that not all of the tobacco sold in co-operative stores was being used to kill sheep ticks. --George A. Smith, Sermon of October 7, 1873, JD, XVI, 238
Back in the early 1860s, in recognition that the Saints were not heeding the WoW, BY had suggested that the St. George area start growing wine grapes. Things went well and tithing, being paid in kind, resulted in the St. George tithing office having 6,000 barrels of wine on hand! --Juanita Brooks, "St. George, Utah— A Community Portrait," Symposium on Mormon Culture held at Utah State University, November 14, 1952, p.4
Here’s one view of how the WoW was doing, as of March 25, 1877: “Do we as a people realize the importance of those precious words? Do we accept them as the word of God unto us? Are they observed by this people as they should be? Could we find fifty Latter-day Saints in the Territory who abstain from tea, coffee, whiskey and tobacco or consider that it is worthwhile to even give it a thought?
“Is it not high time to wake up and open our eyes and look about us. If the Lord had no purpose in giving the Word of Wisdom, why did he take the trouble to give it? And if it is not necessary for us to observe it, what is the use of having it? Do we not know that all stimulants taken into the stomach are unhealthy? We see our little ones swept from our midst, one here two there, and four and five of one family stricken down one after the other with this dreadful diphtheria. Do we realize that there is a cause and also a remedy for these things? Does not common sense tell us that their little bodies are charged with impurities ...?
“I do not address the ladies because I think the remedy lays altogether with them. No. The gentlemen are more culpable, they take for more poison into their systems than the women. I have heard of one or two women who drink whiskey to excess. And it may be that a few old ladies smoke their pipes; but I have seen nothing of the kind for years; and as to chewing tobacco (the worst poison of all) I do not think one lady can be found in our whole community that indulges in the filthy ... practice. Of course, it is not our province to teach the elders their duty, but we can plead and importune with them; but if they will persist in polluting with these filthy poisons, the Lord may find a remedy they think not of.” --Emily Dow Partridge Young, "Diary of Emily Dow Partridge Young, March 25, 1877, pg. 10, copy located in the Special Collections Library, Brigham Young University
Now here’s a weird thing I never knew: In a book titled “I was Called to Dixie”, Andrew Karl Larson reported that John Taylor, BY’s successor, asserted he received a revelation on October 13, 1882, which upgraded Sec. 89 to Commandment status! But no attempt to clue in the Saints was made for about a year. And the specifics of that 10/13/1882 revelation have not been preserved, at least for the commoners’ eyes. --Andrew Karl Larson, “I was Called to Dixie” (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1961), p. 607. Larson’s source citation read: By a revelation through President John Taylor, October 13, 1882. This writer wrote Dr. Larson, desiring more precise information, and soon afterward receive word that the original reference had been lost but most probably was found among papers in the St. George Temple.
Viewed as a ‘Second Reformation’, involving not only the WoW, but Plural Marriage and tithing, its success was likely the result of all the leaderships adherence to the following a new order. On September 28, 1883, Wilford Woodruff, as president of the Quorum of the Twelve, declared:
“I want to say to the First Presidency that we have been together as a quorum since this morning's meeting except for one hour. We have had a free and full talk upon our individual affairs-upon our family matters, upon the word of wisdom, the duties and responsibilities that devolve upon us as Apostles, etc. And we have come to the conclusion that we will more fully observe the word of wisdom, as we have all more or less been negligent upon that point.” --Minutes of the Salt Lake School of the Prophets, September 28, 1883, p. 52.
So observation of the WoW was ramping up in the church! Hearts were buoyed! The WoW was spoken of as being as important as the Celestial Order of Marriage!!
And therein lay the problem, beginning with the 1885 Supreme Court decision that allowed for the prosecution of men who practiced polygamy. Between 1885 and 1893, nothing of note was mentioned regarding observation of the WoW, basically, because most of the leadership was in hiding. They did not dare to schedule meetings that had notice of their attendance.
But things were not yet perfect. At April Conference, 1886, the First Presidency referred to those who officiated or participated in Temple functions, noting that it was "most inconsistent to carry in the smell of whiskey and tobacco.” In 1893 the general membership of the Church was chided for excessive use of tea, coffee, and tobacco.
Things were finally set straight during October Conference, 1894, when Wilford Woodruff declared, “The Word of Wisdom applies to Wilford Woodruff, the President of the Church, and it applies to all the leaders of Israel as well as to the members of the Church; and if there are any of these leading men who cannot refrain from using tobacco or liquor in violation of the Word of Wisdom, let them resign and others take their places. As leaders of Israel, we have no business to indulge in these things. There may be things contrary to the Word of Wisdom that we indulge in, and that we think we cannot live without; if we cannot, let us die.”
During that same conference, a young pup of an Apostle, Heber J. Grant, said to male members, “If you think more of a cup of tea or coffee, or a cigarette, or a chew of tobacco than your Priesthood, to resign your Priesthood.”
But there was still a lack of complete unanimity among the brethren! Here’s the written record of a meeting in May of 1898 regarding enforcement of the WoW:
“The subject of the Word of Wisdom and its strict enforcement was brought up for discussion. Pres, L. Snow having raised the question whether Bishops were justified in refusing to give members of the Church recommends to the Temple because they did not observe the Word of Wisdom. Brother J. H. Smith inquired what was meant by hot drinks. President J. F. Smith said it was defined by Hyrum Smith in the Times and Seasons; also that he (Bro. Smith) had heard President Brigham Young say that at the time the revelation on the Word of Wisdom was given prominent men in the Church were inveterate tobacco users and tea and coffee drinkers and that it was because of those practices that the Word of Wisdom was given.
“President L. Snow read the revelation on the Word of Wisdom and drew special attention to that part which relates to the use of meats, which he considered as that which relates to the use of liquors and hot drinks. He also referred to the revelation which says that he forbids the use of meat is not of God. He went on to state that President Taylor had expressed the view that some of the brethren talked too strongly against the drinking of tea and coffee. Brother Snow said he was convinced that the killing of animals when unnecessary was wrong and sinful, and that it was not right to neglect one part of the Word of Wisdom and be too strenuous in regard to other parts. President Woodruff said he regarded the Word of Wisdom in its entirety as given of the Lord for the Latter-day Saints to observe, but he did not think that Bishops should withhold recommends from persons who did not adhere strictly to it. --Journal History, March 11, 1898, p. 2
Obviously, the standard under which all of us grew up with in the church was not yet set. They were trying, but an outsider has to wonder, why didn’t they, prophets one and all, hit their knees and ask of ghawd, who giveth liberally and upbraidth not…?
People who tried to ‘lawyer’ their way out of compliance urged the point of view that pepper and ginger drinks were what ghawd referred to when he said ‘hot drinks’, not tea and coffee, which are just heated drinks…
And the initial language was examined and used as an excuse, because the first phrase says, “A Word of Wisdom, for the benefit of the council of high priests, assembled in Kirkland…” So only they might be subject to the greetings, which then says, “…not by commandment or constraint…” We’ve all tried to weasel our way out of something based on what we viewed as ‘flexible’ language.
In October 1902, President Joseph F. Smith wrote John Hess, a Stake President at Farmington, Utah, in answer to an inquiry regarding the granting of recommends to Church members who did not observe the Word of Wisdom. President Smith advised Hess to:
“(1) Use his own discretion in most cases,
“(2) Refuse recommends to flagrant violators,
“(3) Work with those having weaknesses,
“(4) Be somewhat liberal with very old men who had contracted the tobacco habit but insist that they refrain from using tobacco those days they are in the temple, and
“(5) Draw the line on drunkenness.”
All of which supports the contention that it’s not a hard and fast law of ghawd, right?
Politically speaking, Mormonism was in the dumpster, even in Utah, in the aftermath of polygamy, and the trifling with rules carried out by Apostles Cowley and Taylor, both of whom were sealed to ‘spare’ wives in 1905 and 1909, respectively, despite the 1890 Declaration and the 1904 Second Manifesto. Yeah, Mormonism as a dumpster fire…
And the leadership knew it. At October Conference, 1908, George F. Richards gave the keynote theme: "I am sorry to say that I do not believe there is another revelation contained in this book, the Doctrine and Covenants or another commandment given of the Lord that is less observed or honored than this Word of Wisdom, and that, too, by members and officers of the Church . . .”
Following the keynote talk, Anthon H. Lund, a member of the First Presidency, declared that General Authorities were now insisting that individuals accepting positions in Wards, Priesthood Quorums, etc., live the Word of Wisdom! Wowsers! BAM! In your faces, losers!
Then Apostle George Albert Smith sort of tempered things in the next talk, when he provided a note of positive encouragement to Saints with Word of Wisdom weaknesses by reporting that in the St. George Stake, (an area formerly plagued with some wine abuse) all members of the Stake Presidency, High Council, and Ward Bishoprics, with two exceptions, were living the Word of Wisdom. - I bet is sucked to be those two!
Adding to the muddy swirl of ‘what the hell is going on’ was the fact that the church, by all the evidence, was against Prohibition! State efforts to make Prohibition a state law were thwarted in 1908 and 1909, which caused confusion. If the Church was against alcohol, why not support Prohibition?
In 1915 the State Legislature tried again and a law was passed. But then Governor Spry, an active member, vetoed it. Later it was claimed by people supposedly in the know that he was ordered to do so by President Joseph F. Smith! Given an opportunity to refute this claim, Joseph F. Smith did not do so. But the word on the street was that Smith was just reluctant to meddle in Gentile affairs. But Prohibition did pass in Utah, in 1917.
Finally, FINALLY!, with the arrival of Heber J. Grant in 1919, the church (Heber) began to emphasize the WoW with constant firmness and fervor. It had become the binding principle all of us grew up with. But as to picking out a date when that switch was flipped is difficult, other than to point to the ascendancy of Heber J. Grant. Of course, there are those who want to maintain it was always binding, such as the church’s website, which identifies September Conference, 1851 as the date it became official. But that’s bullshize as historical events clearly show.
Heber J. Grant was always staunch in his support of the WoW as a gospel principle, but he wasn’t given the support he desired by those under whom he served, even as an Apostle.
In 1894 he wrote the following: “I confess to you, my friends and fellow-laborers in the cause of God, that I have been humiliated beyond expression to go to one of the Stakes of Zion, to stand up and preach to the people and call upon them to obey the Word of Wisdom, and then to sit down to the table of a President of a Stake, after having preached with all the zeal, energy, and power that I possessed, calling upon the people to keep the commandments of God, and to have his wife ask me if I would like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee; I have felt in my heart that it was an insult, considering the words that I had spoken, and I have felt humiliated to think that I had not sufficient power, and enough of the Spirit of God to enable me to utter words that would penetrate the heart of a President of a Stake, that he at least would be willing to carry out the advice which I had given.
“l remember going to a Stake of Zion but a short time ago and preaching with all the energy I possessed and with all the Spirit that God would give me upon the necessity of refraining from the drinking of tea and coffee, and I heard also at that conference a very eloquent appeal to the Latter-day Saints by a man who, I understood, was a president of a quorum of Seventy. But when we came to take our meal, he jokingly said that he could not do without his tea and coffee and he proposed to have it and suffer the consequences.
“I remember going to another Stake of Zion and preaching to the people on the necessity of refraining from tea and coffee and giving some figures upon the wasting of the people's means} and the president of the Stake remarked, after I got through, that he thought the Lord would forgive them if they did drink their coffee, because the water in that stake of Zion was very bad. I did not say anything, but I thought a good deal, and I had to pray to the Lord and to bite’ my tongue to keep from getting up and doing something that I never have done in my life, and that is, to pick out a man and thrash him from the public stand. I felt that God owed me a blessing for not publicly reproving that man, because I wanted to do it so badly.
“Now I had made up my mind before I came to this Conference that I would not open my mouth upon the Word of Wisdom. I have become so discouraged, so disheartened, so humiliated in my feelings, after preaching year after year both by precept and example, to realize that there are Bishops, Bishops’ Counselors, Presidents of Stakes, and Patriarchs among the Church of God whose hearts I have not been able to touch, that I had about made up my mind that I would never again say Word of Wisdom to the Latter-day Saints. I felt that it was like pouring water on a duck, s back.” --Journal of History, October 6,1894
That about wraps it up. We have ONLY Heber J. Grant to thank for making Sec. 89 a commandment. No other leader, prior to him, had a compelling notion that it was ghawd’s law. BY only got involved for economic reasons; he didn’t want the Saints sending money to the East Coast!.
Ghawd never visited a single soul with the realization that it was a Law, until the unique personality of Heber J. Grant made the endeavor a personal crusade.
So, YAY Heber!!
Anyone tells you differently, have them email me. F—k the church’s website explanation. It’s all bullshiz. Even if a ghawd spoke to JoJu back in 1833, that confused son of a bitch (either one, both!) never had another effective word on the subject.
Men: it's all the doings of unadorned male bullshittery. And you can quote me.
(The guy on the SCMC who has my file will be pleased with this effort; I've slacked off lately, but now he can be relevant again! You're welcome, and Merry Christmas!)
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The Hard Way | Pt. 4

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The suns were dead.
They circled each other, locked in a decaying orbit. Both celestial bodies were covered in that semi-organic overgrowth and wreathed in black, glittering smoke. Whatever was left of the Alien’s “Empire” was long, long gone.
The smoke from both suns gathered into a single black stream and trailed off into the stars.
I threw back the last of my whiskey, unable to take my eyes from the screen.
“What do you think all that smoke is?”
“Zhang’s briefings say it’s the matter, reduced to its most basic parts,” Sonya said. Unlike me, she always read the briefings. “When the Plague is finished, it turns everything into that smoke.”
“Any idea why? Where does it all go?”
Sonya was sitting in a leather recliner we had plundered and put aboard the Ship before we left Earth behind. Her legs hung over the armrest, but she wasn’t relaxed. I could tell by the way her feet were bouncing. She was deep in thought.
“If you follow the trail… it points to the center of the Galaxy.”
“Makes you wonder what the hell is at the center of the galaxy?”
We went back to watching the smoke pouring off the two stars. It looked a bit like the tail of a comet, stretching for millions of miles beyond my sight.
“Well, at least it’s quiet now.”
“The Plague, or the Alien?”
“Both.”
As far as we could tell, our Ship had gone unnoticed. We jumped into the system and when we realized the Plague had beaten us here, we prepared to jump out again. But the Plague had not reacted to our presence.
At least, not yet. Which meant, we were dead set on using this time to observe and to learn.
The Alien, on the other hand, had been a raging lunatic since the moment he set eyes on the ruins of his empire. I guess these twin, dead suns were once his home.
To me, the Alien’s screams sounded like three tornadoes all converging right inside the front half of my skull.
Sonya said she could hear it too, but she said it was like someone was having a party three streets down. Perhaps, since she had avoided direct contact with the Alien, she was mostly immune to its voice.
Whatever the case, it had finally screamed itself out.
So the plan was to sit tight. Learn what we could. And then… Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?
“Any word on our next steps?”
“You mean, has the headless rabble agreed on anything?”
“Yep.”
Sonya switched the screen. Now, we could see a crude pavilion that had been erected in the upper levels of the ship. In the background, you could see the city. Billions of people. It’s still hard to believe that this city represented the entirety of humanity.
In the foreground, hundreds of puffed-up personalities were grappling for attention. I recognized a few of them: celebrity CEOs, heads of state, a diplomat or two. They were holding a civilized debate... which is to say everyone was talking, and nobody was listening.
“It would appear that, no, we have not reached a consensus yet.” Sonya’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.
I grabbed another glass, eased back into my office chair, and asked Sonya to switch back to the view of the dead suns.
Several drinks later, I must’ve dozed off, because I remember waking up to Sonya saying two very specific words:
“Oh. Shit.”
I sat up and had to wipe the drool off my chin. Look, when you get to be my age… these things happen.
“What is it?”
“Sir, we’ve got incoming.”
And as soon as she said it, speakers blasted our office. “Defensive stations. Defensive stations. This is not a drill.”
The message repeated over and over. You could hear it out in the streets, where people were scrambling up and down the avenues. A few screams. Doors, slamming shut.
“All hands, prepare to jump.”
“Jump? Jump where?”
On the screen, you could just make out these tiny specks - like a swarm of gnats. The specks were growing larger.
Reality began to shimmer, as our Ship prepared to leave the solar system.
STOP.
The voice in my mind was so sudden, it almost knocked me back into my chair. The shimmering stopped.
IT HAS SPREAD. WE MUST GO FURTHER.
A string of letters and numbers materialized in my mind. The Alien was sending coordinates.
“They better decide quick,” I said.
The specks on the screen were massive now: faceless, undulating bodies that stretched for miles, twisting and snaking through the void… towards us. How could anything made of simple, organic matter be so fast?
Reality began to shimmer again. Lurched. And then, the Plague was gone.
And the stars were unrecognizable.
Even the color of the void between the stars was strange to my eyes.
We left the Milk Way far behind…
This is how we spent the years: traveling from system to system, mining what resources we could before the Plague found us.
The only course of action we could agree on was this: do whatever it takes to survive, right now. If we needed resources, we mined nearby planets and asteroids. If we needed energy, we sat near a star.
The only other life we discovered was microbial, at best. The only sentient lifeforms: the Alien, and us.
Even the Plague seemed to have no thoughts of its own. Only the one, singular goal: seek out matter, devour it, and send it back to… somewhere else.
When I did get around to asking, Doctor Zhang explained it to me:
“I have published over a hundred articles on this. Have you not been keeping up?”
“I’m a slow reader.”
She did not seem in the least surprised by my response. “Fine. One more time. Back on Earth, we trained bacteria to clean up plastic waste. The Plague is something like that: it’s been trained to consume all matter in our universe, sending it all to a central point.”
“By who?”
“The Alien calls it a blessing, given by its God.”
“How?” I asked. “It’s killed everything. It’s going to kill everything. How is this a blessing?”
Zhang shrugged. “It gives them a sense of urgency, to create. To pursue their technology.”
My Greatest Work. That’s what the Alien had called his technology. I will bring it to God, and then I will ascend.
But still, we had never seen this technology. We still didn’t have a clue what the Alien was working on.
“So the Plague is just … a cosmic kick in the ass?”
“If you want to be a reductionist, yes. That sums it up.”
“What happens after that?”
“You mean, what happens when this Plague lifeform consumes all the matter in the entire universe and crushes it into a single, central point from which not even light can escape?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I meant. What happens after that?”
“That’s between the Alien, and it’s God.”
But you couldn’t just ask the Alien things like that. For one, it always viewed your questions with suspicion.
WHY SHOULD I TELL YOU?
After all these years, it still did not trust us. It had stopped calling us “worms,” but it had never stopped thinking of us as insignificant. Lesser.
“Because we want to live.”
SO? THEN GO LIVE. I AM WORKING.
And while it worked, while it locked itself up in that Sarcophagus, doing who knows what, we - all of humanity, aboard our lonely ship - sailed across the stars.
Running from the Hunter.
Comets made of cold flesh and bone hurtled in from the void, seeking us. When they stumbled upon whatever system we were in, the Comets came to life. Spires erupted on every surface, tentacles grasped every star, every planet, and every barren rock.
Where they touched, they grew.
So far, we had gotten lucky. We saw it before it saw us. And so, we jumped. And jumped.
And jumped, until all of Humanity had grown weary. Once, we were galvanized together by the immediate “life and death” of the Human Species. But now, the cracks started to form.
Who was in charge? And what the hell was the plan?
The Alien intended to survive only as long as it needed to, and then we had no doubts that it would abandon us.
We were on our own. And being on our own was… messy.
The gathering place had become an official Quorum. Humanity’s greatest influencers met on that flat pavilion, suspended over the upper skyrises by an incredible network of bridges. When you leaned over the railings, you could look out over all of humanity.
Many of these leaders tried to claim the “throne,” only to find there was no throne to be had. Princes and Presidents, Corporals and CEOs, all shouting - all claiming the same thing: “I know what to do. Only I can save us.”
But, of course, they were as hopeless as the rest of us. The only thing we could do was survive. And when you line up ten thousand politicians and generals and CEOs, they all start to look the same.
Eventually, the old factions melted into a single, headless entity. The older leaders began to abandon their claims and fade into the background of humanity. Many of the younger ones burned out as well.
All the while, the Plague chased us further and further across the stars, leaving a trail of dead systems in our wake.
You think the universe is infinite until you start to start to see, one by one, the lights go out.
Sonya was still with me, but our relationship had changed. While she was growing, I was only growing old.
My back had gotten worse. Some folks are too proud to use a cane, but not me. I like the feel of a cold, carbon-fiber cane. Strong as bone, and light as air.
Sonya and I attended many of the Quorum. She was even starting to give speeches. Instead of war and political machinations, the leaders were shifting to logistics. Slowly, they crafted a new government, one focused solely on human preservation.
But no matter how noble we grew together - no matter how strong we became - every meeting was tinged with that quiet desperation. Space was growing dark, and there was nothing we could do about it.
Until we heard the distress signal.
I don’t think the Alien meant for us to hear it. I think he was content to tinker away in darkness and solitude until the last light went out.
Sonya and I were sitting at the top of the bleachers. The cold metal was biting hard into my ass, and I kept shifting.
Sonya said, “If you don’t stop, I’m going to leave you here.”
And that’s when I heard the sound.
Ping. Ping.
“What is that?” I asked Sonya.
“Are you losing your hearing now? He said he has a solution to the lower-decks habitation problems-”
“No. Quiet. Listen.”
Ping. Ping. Ping...
I looked around the bleachers. There was a cluster of grey-headed intellectuals, chatting about something. Over there, a mother was shushing her kids while she tried to take notes on the debate. But nobody else heard the sound.
PING. PING. PING.
I tried to cup my hands over my ears but that only made it louder. Sonya was rubbing at her ears now, too.
“Oh, you mean that sound?” she said.
“The alien,” I gasped. “Something’s wrong.”
Something was wrong. But not with our Alien.
A sea of scientists blocked the Chamber door, chattering in a hundred different languages. You didn’t have to understand a word to feel that undercurrent: fear.
All the while, that clanging signal crashed through my skull: PING! PING!
Doctor Zhang spotted me. She was standing all the way up, at the Chamber door, and when she pointed at me, dozens of eyes followed her finger.
The crowd parted for me, as I made my way up to the Chamber. I could tell Doctor Zhang was also doing her best to ignore the sound in her head, but it had only grown more urgent over the last twenty minutes.
“What seems to be the problem, Doctor?” I asked innocently.
She was already done with my bullshit.
“Get in here. Now.”
Sonya held the door open for me, but she would not cross into the chamber. I think she made a wise choice, refusing to get caught up in this. Hindsight, and all that.
Inside the chamber, I expected to find something awful. Maybe the sarcophagus had cracked open, and the Alien was gasping on the floor, dying.
But everything looked the same. The sarcophagus, an irregular metallic coffin, hung suspended in the center of the room. It still gleamed and crawled with dancing lights.
And the air in the table was still colder than a witch’s tit. The only difference was in my head:
PING! PING! PING!
The Alien’s voice - a chorus of notes - sprang into my mind. I WISH THAT YOU HAD NOT HEARD IT.
“Me too!” I shouted over the sound that was not a sound at all. “Anyway we can turn it off?”
The PINGing stopped. I sighed with relief, “Thank you! Now, what the hell was that?”
ONE OF MY SIBLINGS CALLS FOR AID.
“They’re alive?” I asked, and Zhang gave me a look like I was the stupidest person on the Ship.
IT IS A TRAP.
We both looked at the sarcophagus, blazing with light. You could almost see the urgency in the dancing symbols scrawling over its surface.
“So,” I said slowly, “You were just going to … ignore it?”
THE LAST TIME I ANSWERED A DISTRESS SIGNAL, I WAS DRAGGED INTO A BATTLE AGAINST THE BLESSED PLAGUE.
I WAS SHOT DOWN, AND MY SHIP WAS INFESTED BY YOU.
“That was different,” I said. “We’re stuck. We’re lost. What if they can help us stop this plague?”
THE LAST TIME I ANSWERED A DISTRESS SIGNAL, I WATCHED THE LARGEST ARMADA MY PEOPLE HAD EVER BUILT TURN TO DUST.
YOU CAN NOT DESTROY IT.
WE WILL NOT GO.
Every fiber of my being rejected the Alien’s words… But what could I say?
How do you change someone’s mind, when they think you are less than worthless?
“Listen to me.” It was Doctor Zhang. Her voice was low, and dangerous. When she took off her glasses, I saw her hands were shaking.
“You listen to me,” she was talking to the Alien. “You stay here, locked up in self-imposed isolation. You hide away from the rest of the universe, hoarding all your information like some kind of rat.”
I MUST PROTECT MYSELF. MY SIBLINGS ARE MY ENEMIES.
“We have done nothing but give. And you do nothing but take. Go on then, keep hiding. You coward.”
YOU DARE INSULT ME, WORM? ON MY SHIP?
“You are the only worm I see. You’re supposed to worship knowledge, but when an opportunity falls in your lap, you are too afraid to take the slightest risk. Your Empire is in ruins. Your people are dead. You have lost everything and now, even your time runs out.”
MY GREATEST WORK IS-
“Is nothing!” she shouted. Both of her hands were balled into fists, and her face was turning red.
“Complete and utter crap! Do you think I don’t know what a failure you are? I’ve seen it a thousand times. Whatever you’re working on in there-” she jabbed a finger at the sarcophagus, “Is not working. And you know it’s not working. But you want to work on it until the last light goes out. Until your stupid, blessed plague destroys everything that I have ever loved.”
I NEED MORE TIME.
“Well guess what? There is no more time. There is only action. We have an opportunity here, and we are not going to squander it.”
She whirled around and jabbed her finger at me.
“You!” she said.
I swear I almost snapped to attention right then and there. I felt like I was back in my basic training days, her fiery drill-sergeant eyes burning a hole in me.
“You,” she said. “Go tell the others to put up a vote.”
“A vote, Ma’am?”
“Well, we’re not fascists, are we? Let’s do this the right way.”
You have to hand it to Zhang. She knew how to make a mission happen. As I left the chamber, I could hear her still yelling at the Alien.
“And you, Alien. If you want to help us, tell us how to stay safe. Otherwise, shut up and stay in your shell while we do the hard work.”
Sonya helped me call the audience to order. The bleachers, the whole gathering hall was full, and spilling over. Everyone had already caught wind of the news. For some reason, it was up to me to explain what they already knew. Camera drones floated over the crowd, their gentle whirring making a steady hum.
A sea of faces, a hundred different colors, all sharing the same expression. All looking at me.
“We have a choice before us,” I said. The lapel microphone picked up my voice and carried it across the gathering. “It may be a trap, but the only way to know is to go there ourselves. The risks are unknown. Even if we prepare, it may cost us everything. Our alternative is to stay our course, and keep searching for another plan.”
But as soon as the words fell from my lips, I knew the answer. There was no other plan. It was like being stranded on a deserted island. When the first piece of driftwood washes ashore, it may not be the right answer, but it is an answer.
The vote was unanimous. We would investigate the distress signal. We would not waste this opportunity for answers.
Of course, it was a mistake...
…a big, beautiful, awful mistake.
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quorum sensing meaning video

Medical vocabulary: What does Quorum Sensing mean Quorum sensing Meaning - YouTube Quorum sensing: Bacteria talks Bonnie Bassler - YouTube Elliot Nicholson - YouTube Quorum Sensing - YouTube Bacterial Quorum Sensing in Plain English - YouTube What is quorum sensing? - YouTube Bonnie Bassler (Princeton) Part 1: Bacterial Communication ... BIOFILM FORMATION - YouTube

Quorum sensing is used by many types of bacteria including Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Campylobacter. ... DS941 makes AI-2 which can repress LsrR protein, meaning the LsrA promoter can be activated. However, the results do not show that there was higher fluorescence in these cells. Due to time constraints it was not possible to investigate further. To gain definitive data on the functions ... Quorum-sensing meaning A phenomenon in which a population of bacteria produces and responds to intercellular chemical signals whose concentration indicates the density of the population. When the density reaches a certain level, genes are expressed that allow for coordinated group behavior, as in bioluminescence or the formation of biofilms. Definition of quorum sensing : a regulatory mechanism of bacteria that involves the release of molecules which when present at threshold concentrations signal the expression of bacterial genes controlling specific group actions (such as the formation of biofilms) Examples of quorum sensing in a Sentence Quorum sensing is the regulation of gene expression in response to fluctuations in cell-population density. Quorum sensing bacteria produce and release chemical signal molecules called autoinducers that increase in concentration as a function of cell density. Quorum sensing, mechanism by which bacteria regulate gene expression in accordance with population density through the use of signal molecules. Quorum sensing allows bacteria populations to communicate and coordinate group behaviour and commonly is used by pathogens (disease-causing organisms) in disease and infection processes Bacillus subtilis is a widespread and diverse bacterium t exhibits a remarkable intraspecific diversity of the ComQXPA quorum-sensing (QS) system. This manifests in the existence of distinct communication groups (pherotypes) that can efficiently communicate within a group, but not between groups. Quorum sensing in bacteria Quorum. It is a Latin word that means a group of members carries out an activity legally. Quorum sensing is a mechanism of cell to cell signaling or density sensing in micro-organisms. Characteristics for quorum sensing quorum sensing a process in which unicellular organisms secrete signal molecules that influence the behaviour of a population of identical organisms, but only when the density (number of cells per unit volume) of that population is above a certain level. Cells sense the concentration of the secreted signal molecule, often a homoserine lactone, which tells them how many other cells are in their environment. When a threshold concentration of the signal molecule is reached, the population ... Biofilm development and quorum sensing (QS) are closely interconnected processes. Biofilm formation is a cooperative group behaviour that involves bacterial populations living embedded in a self-produced extracellular matrix. QS is a cell–cell communication mechanism that synchronizes gene expression in response to population cell density. Intuitively, it would appear that QS might coordinate the switch to a biofilm lifestyle when the population density reaches a threshold level. However ... What does quorum mean? The definition of a quorum is the minimum number of people needed at a meeting to conduct busi...

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Medical vocabulary: What does Quorum Sensing mean

Quorum sensing is how bacteria communicates and decides the behaviors it will express . In this talk, molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler discusses the use of... What does Quorum Sensing mean in English? This video is unavailable. Watch Queue Queue BIOFILM FormationBIOFILM= cool for bacteria, not cool for humans!Microbiology: An Evolving Science 3rd EitionCopyright: WW Norton Quorum Sensing in bacteriach10a03Copyright: Microbiology An Evolving Science 3rd edition The ability of bacteria to sense other bacteria. Filmed by NC State students. I make educational tutorial style videos. My areas of interest are maths, physics, philosophy, medical science and clinical medicine. Many of my videos are produced with quite crude apparatus. I ... https://www.ibiology.org/microbiology/quorum-sensing/Bacteria, primitive single-celled organisms, communicate with chemical languages that allow them to sync... Video shows what quorum sensing means. A proposed method of communication between bacterial cells by the release and sensing of small diffusible signal molecules.. This quorum sensing lecture explains about what is quorum sensing of baceteria? and what is the importance of quorum sensing as a molecular cross talk betwee... Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

quorum sensing meaning

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