Hey guys
Great discussion…to me it’s really interesting to learn how Wyndhams story is so foundational to much of the apocalyptic stuff that is so popular today.
I have vague memories of the British movie classic and am going to try and find it on streaming services. Also I am definitely going to be reading this book.
I am always interested in reading the earliest versions of a story trope.
Thanks

Nevertheless, their true origin still remains obscure. My own belief, for what that is worth, is that they were the outcome of a series of ingenious biological meddlings — and very likely accidental, at that. Had they been evolved anywhere but in the region they were, we should doubtless have had a well-documented ancestry for them. As it was, no authoritative statement was ever published by those who must have been best qualified to know. The reason for this lay, no doubt, in the curious political conditions then prevailing.

As Mr. Tulip pointed out, this is a good description for the origins of Covid-19 almost 70 years later. Bio-meddlings Vs. natural accident. Curious political conditions in both China and the US.

The fundamental difference between fact and fiction is such:

Wyndham provides the reader with the opportunity for both subjective and objective information as to origin. Is it lab leak or is it a natural occurrence.
The kicker is this mysterious green meteor shower, the assumed cause of blindness throughout the masses.
The only coincidence that we’ve seen with sars-cov2 is simply the location of the lab and the location of the initial breakout.
It seems to me that…if one was to study a gain of function. Why would anyone link/study a virus that had till then had no connection to humans. Thing is… there was a connection. Guano miners had developed illnesses while working deep within their mines.
The samples from their blood showed the infection was caused by unknown virus that they encountered during their work.
In the meantime there were simultaneous infections of a similar virus occurring in other areas in and around Wuhan.
There was a natural gain of function which is predictable and consistent with what we have observed.
What killed millions a mere year or so ago is now less important than the box office gross of Barbie the movie.

We fear the lab leak theory because science fiction has conditioned us to fear the lab.

The parallels feel real but yet…reality tells us something quite different.

I’m wondering if we are experiencing the same/similar processes as were experienced by others some 1800 hundred years ago when the myth of the Jesus was formulated?

Thinking further…Robert describes the triffids as a Frankenstein type creature.
Didn’t Mary Shelly create one of the most iconic fears of laboratory leak?

Triffids are by and large… a GMO…
Modified to be able to literally pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and move towards a more advantageous environment. With the further advancement of being able to blind an aggressor who may just be trying to pull a weed from their garden.
A weed that in mass may garner a profit but perhaps not so in a small enhancement patch.

GMO’s… Another laboratory experiment…Are they good or evil.

There is a premise…?:
The alleviation of both a food shortage and an energy shortage. Two problems that were very prevalent during the decade following World War Two. The time frame of this story.
So far the author hasn’t touched on the subject of irradiation…those pesky labs.

Taylor wrote: ↑Sun Aug 27, 2023 6:10 pm Triffids are by and large… a GMO…
Modified to be able to literally pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and move towards a more advantageous environment. With the further advancement of being able to blind an aggressor who may just be trying to pull a weed from their garden.
A weed that in mass may garner a profit but perhaps not so in a small enhancement patch.

I’ve just quoted myself with bold highlights

I should’ve written rootstraps!

Taylor wrote: ↑Sun Aug 27, 2023 6:11 pm GMO’s… Another laboratory experiment…Are they good or evil.

Good question. GMOs have enabled vast increases in agricultural productivity. Risks include supporting monoculture cropping that could collapse from disease, chemical dependence that has unintended side effects on weeds and insects, and political corruption that means regulation is based more on profitability than sustainability.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has a good discussion paper supporting GMOs at https://www.fao.org/policy-support/tool ... c/1477336/

I suspect The Day of the Triffids contributed to conspiracy fears about GMOs. This is discussed at https://theconversation.com/why-we-wont ... t-gm-54442

Wyndham’s astounding level of cynicism about the degraded mentality of popular culture appears in his account of the first media reports of walking triffids: “And now, folks, get a load of what our cameraman found in Ecuador. Vegetables on vacation! You've only seen this kind of thing after a party, but down in sunny Ecuador they see it any time-and no hangover to follow! Monster plants on the march! Say, now, that's given me a big idea! Maybe if we can educate our potatoes right we can fix it so they'll walk right into the pot. How'd that be, Momma?"

The level of stupidity in this commentary is rather like the recent climate change movie Don’t Look Up with its blank inability to comprehend a major public issue. The absence of any genuine curiosity or fear or seriousness about this bizarre new discovery seems to reflect a very low level of scientific understanding. I wonder how well Wyndham has captured the mentality of trash culture here?