Comments on: How Google is like bananas

By: Jan_Steinman

Jan_Steinman — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 23:24:42 +0000

“same species of banana”

The Cavindish is actually a clone, which means all commercial banana plants have exactly the same DNA.

This is MUCH MORE SERIOUS than a monoculture of a specific cultivar, which is by definition a sexually produced variety of a plant.

With hybrids, at least, a particular weakness in one individual does not necessarily involve the entire population. With clones, it does.

By: Sad_Oligarch

Sad_Oligarch — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:48:11 +0000

Felix,

As usual, Krugman was way ahead of both you and The New Yorker:

http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/archive s/15

By: johnhhaskell

johnhhaskell — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:06:20 +0000

@ RICD – what part of Indira Gandhi’s dictatorial rule do you not consider “democratically aligned”?

As for LBJ’s ability to create droughts in India, one wonders why he didn’t use those same magical powers on North Vietnam; the US might have won the war.

By: ricd33

ricd33 — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:46:50 +0000

The description of the notoriously unaligned and Soviet leaning India as a US “ally” in the late 60s and 70s makes me doubt The Hungry World’s account of Johnson administration food aid policy.

By: ricd33

ricd33 — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 12:46:46 +0000

The description of the notoriously unaligned and Soviet leaning India as a US “ally” in the late 60s and 70s makes me doubt The Hungry World’s account of Johnson administration food aid policy.

By: TimWorstall

TimWorstall — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 10:18:17 +0000

“In both cases, the fact that the same species of banana is grown and eaten everywhere constitutes a serious tail risk,”

It’s not the same species….worse than that. Cavendishes are all clones, not just members of the same species.

As were Gros Michels.

Commercial bananas are not able to be grown from seed: you cannot plant a banana and see the herb (yes, an herb, not a tree) grow up in the same way that you can an orange or plum. Wild ones can be, but then we don’t eat those because of the large seeds etc.

There’s no real way around this either. In order to get an edible banana we need to shrink the seeds sufficiently that they cannot propagate that way. We have to take a cutting and replant, meaning that we end up growing acre upon acre of clones: just what a parasite likes.