Bananas

This musing is intended for a particular audience. I apologize if it does not make sense to you.

2a. My computational innovation is the banana. Bananas are medium-sized, yellow, slightly curved fruits that are primarily intended for nutrition, but have been known to serve as a boomerang-like weapon [1].

2b. I did a Google search for bananas and took the best image I could find and pasted it into a Google Slideshow. Then I added a picture of someone slipping on a banana to indicate some of the risks of bananas. Some simians sometimes subsist on the subject of my slide show (that is, bananas), so I added a few pictures of monkeys and apes. I was having trouble finding some, so I chose the poster from the upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes [2] movie. I know that the banana groves are at risk because they are a monoculture and because of global warning, so I added a picture of a monocle on Donald Trump and a picture of the Eiffel tower with an arrow to the sun and then to a banana grove. I drew the X over the grove to indicate that it was gone.

2c. Bananas are a marvelous fruit with many benefits, but also potential dangers, to individuals and to society as a whole. One beneficial effect is the potassium (K) that they give when eaten, which can be used to help athletes recover from injury and to give them energy when their blood sugar is low after a workout [3]. They are also one of the safer foods to give young children; the bananas may make a mess, but they won’t poke out an eye like an apple stem. However, bananas also present some dangers and can cause harm to humans. For example, some criminals use bananas to make pedestrians slip and, as they pick up the pedestrians helpfully, pick their pocket at the same time [4]. If President Trump happened to slip on a banana peel, he might accidentally push the red button and instigate nuclear disaster, which would damage civilization and cause economic turmoil. But the biggest potential impact of bananas on the world has to do with their use as a foodstuff for simians. Because the US is no longer part of the Paris Accords, we will experience global warming. The rise in temperature will mean that bananas, which are a monoculture, will be even more susceptible to disease [5]. When the banana groves disappear, monkeys and apes will be without their primary foodstuff and will rise up in rebellion, leading to the destruction of human society as we become a literal Planet of the Apes [6]. If that were not enough, America’s demand for bananas has led major growers to institute puppet dictatorships in some countries to ensure that the bananas would continue to be available and the American Government propped up those dictatorships to support these U.S.-based corporations which also make clothing for preppies [7]. It is hard to envision a greater impact on a society than the imposition and sustenance of a dictatorship.

2d. The primary data that bananas use is sunshine. Sunshine is composed of smaller values known as photons. Bananas use a process known as photosynthesis to turn the photons into foodstuffs and building the helpful potassium. Einstein’s famous equation e = mc² describes how the energy in the photons is turned into the matter in the banana. Bananas also turn the photons into hallucinogenic chemicals that are in the banana peel which can then be smoked [8]. Smoking the banana peel is both a security and a privacy risk. While stoned, you might accidentally hand your wallet to a stranger or confess your love for a classmate. The stranger might use the credit cards in your wallet to purchase big-ticket items that then send your family into bankruptcy. Confessing your love for a classmate can lead to embarrassment and being ostracized at school. You may be so embarrassed that lead you to drop out and do nothing more than smoke more banana peels. Bananas also turn photons into the substance I call slippery factor. As I noted earlier, slipping on bananas can lead to someone stealing your wallet and charging things on it. If you care about security and privacy, stay away from bananas!

2e.

[1] Anonymous. 2017. Bananas. Online document available at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/bananas.html. I know that the source is reliable because it’s on a .edu site.

[2] Reeves, M., dir. 2017. War for the Planet of the Apes. Movie.

[3] Anonymous. n.d. Benefits of Eating a Banana for Sports. SF Gate Healthy Eating.
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/benefit-eating-bananasports-2447.html. I know this is reliable because it’s a newspaper.

[4] Ouri, Miss. 1948. A Midwesterners Guide to the Dangers of Visiting New York City. Books are reliable sources.

[5] Ferdman, Roberto A. 2015. Bye, Bye, Bananas. The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/the-worlds-most-popular-banana-could-go-extinct. One of our nation’s leading newspapers. It must be reliable.

[6] Boulle, Pierre. 1963. La Planete des Singes.

[7] Wikipedia. 2017. Banana Republic.

[8] My elder siblings. 2017. Personal communication.

Version 1.0 of 2017-06-12.