Revisiting the Seeds
Jul. 22nd, 2021 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutRecently (https://walkitout.dreamwidth.org/1922023.html) I blogged about an Atlantic article about the seed thing from last year.
Summary of the seed thing: During April 2020 +/- some weeks, many locked-down people in the United States went on Amazon and ordered seeds so they could plant a garden. Seeds were sold out in many places; the would-be seed acquirers were relative newbies to buying on Amazon and Not Awesome at recognizing that they were buying from a third party seller who was doing the shipping themselves; and finally, Amazon at that time did not make transparent where, geographically, the third party seller was located (that’s changed since, and I think the pandemic is why, but I don’t have any inside knowledge). The seeds did not show up on their doorsteps until some months had gone by, and they had come directly from China and were intentionally mislabeled as jewelry to evade regulations on shipping seeds internationally. When they arrived, customers had forgotten that they ordered the seeds or, in some cases, the seeds were gifts and it was difficult to figure that out. News coverage and social media discussion of the phenomenon came up with numerous theories for the mystery seed packets (terrorism, brushing scams) but Amazon described it as I have above. The Atlantic piece was written by someone who did not believe the Amazon story and tried to disprove it and … failed.
We’re all caught up now! Yay!
On another platform, a friend posted a picture of campaign swag that included a sealed package of dried cherries. A mutual acquaintance said she would not eat or plant food that arrived from an unknown person in the mail. I say acquaintance, because I have known this person since the late 80s, and this is as far as I’m prepared to go in acknowledging any relationship with this person. I’ve felt pretty bad about how I have felt about this person. I felt things like, does this mean I am anti-particular-identifiable-group until another person from that group cut loose some vitriol about the acquaintance. I felt things like, fellow woman in tech! Must. Support. Each. Other. Until other fellow women in tech cut loose some vitriol about the acquaintance. I could never quite tell _why_ I had such negative feelings about her (<— an unusual problem for me!).
But she also said: she was a victim of the seed thing herself.
Oh. Dear.
Look, we all forget things. We do! The mother of my niece and nephew (convoluted, sorry!) is forgetful and has some pretty significant executive function stuff she has to live with. I love her to pieces! She’s the easiest adult to love that I think I have ever met. And she’s easy to love, because when something wildly random happens or she forgets something or there is an accident, she doesn’t respond with paranoia and suspicion and accusations of bioterror or whatever. She responds with laughter and love and a sense of camaraderie that gets through even to me.
That’s the difference here. Basically, if you order seeds (or a friend sends you seeds) and they arrive confusingly packaged from another country, with the wrong label on them, do you go, hunh, that’s odd, and track back through your purchases and ask all your friends if maybe they sent you seeds — or do you fall into a moral panic.
Summary of the seed thing: During April 2020 +/- some weeks, many locked-down people in the United States went on Amazon and ordered seeds so they could plant a garden. Seeds were sold out in many places; the would-be seed acquirers were relative newbies to buying on Amazon and Not Awesome at recognizing that they were buying from a third party seller who was doing the shipping themselves; and finally, Amazon at that time did not make transparent where, geographically, the third party seller was located (that’s changed since, and I think the pandemic is why, but I don’t have any inside knowledge). The seeds did not show up on their doorsteps until some months had gone by, and they had come directly from China and were intentionally mislabeled as jewelry to evade regulations on shipping seeds internationally. When they arrived, customers had forgotten that they ordered the seeds or, in some cases, the seeds were gifts and it was difficult to figure that out. News coverage and social media discussion of the phenomenon came up with numerous theories for the mystery seed packets (terrorism, brushing scams) but Amazon described it as I have above. The Atlantic piece was written by someone who did not believe the Amazon story and tried to disprove it and … failed.
We’re all caught up now! Yay!
On another platform, a friend posted a picture of campaign swag that included a sealed package of dried cherries. A mutual acquaintance said she would not eat or plant food that arrived from an unknown person in the mail. I say acquaintance, because I have known this person since the late 80s, and this is as far as I’m prepared to go in acknowledging any relationship with this person. I’ve felt pretty bad about how I have felt about this person. I felt things like, does this mean I am anti-particular-identifiable-group until another person from that group cut loose some vitriol about the acquaintance. I felt things like, fellow woman in tech! Must. Support. Each. Other. Until other fellow women in tech cut loose some vitriol about the acquaintance. I could never quite tell _why_ I had such negative feelings about her (<— an unusual problem for me!).
But she also said: she was a victim of the seed thing herself.
Oh. Dear.
Look, we all forget things. We do! The mother of my niece and nephew (convoluted, sorry!) is forgetful and has some pretty significant executive function stuff she has to live with. I love her to pieces! She’s the easiest adult to love that I think I have ever met. And she’s easy to love, because when something wildly random happens or she forgets something or there is an accident, she doesn’t respond with paranoia and suspicion and accusations of bioterror or whatever. She responds with laughter and love and a sense of camaraderie that gets through even to me.
That’s the difference here. Basically, if you order seeds (or a friend sends you seeds) and they arrive confusingly packaged from another country, with the wrong label on them, do you go, hunh, that’s odd, and track back through your purchases and ask all your friends if maybe they sent you seeds — or do you fall into a moral panic.