Well, that escalated quickly.

Title is a little misleading. She hasn't finished American Ninja Warrior. She finished the Dallas finals course, and qualified for Mt. Midoriyama, the actual final course of the competition, which no one -- man or woman -- has been able to finish in five seasons of this show.

Not to take away from her accomplishment though. That was an awesome display of athleticism.

I can't believe you guys don't know this song! It has possibly the best first line ever:

"First things first, I'm the realest."

Says the Australian white girl who's made a career out of rapping in an uber-exaggerated dirty south accent.

Yeah, I agree it's not the best put-together video I've seen. The point could definitely have been made in a more effective manner. I don't think it's horrible though.

As for the elevator thing, it's probably not a great idea to re-litigate that topic now. Suffice it to say that I disagree with your assessment of the circumstances. If the "invitation" actually occurred in the way she represented it, it didn't seem particularly polite or respectful.

This is supposed to be addressed to someone who isn't already a skeptic. I doubt your 30 second dismissal would be at all effective in that kind of context. Probably Rebecca's pitch wouldn't be effective either, but at least she's presenting evidence and reasons that have a chance of getting through.

Also, if you think Watson's reaction to the whole elevator incident counts as "freaking out", you haven't seen a good freak-out. She mentioned the incident and advised guys not to behave that way (which is pretty good advice, I think). How does that qualify as freaking out? You want to see a good freak-out, check out the ridiculously over-the-top response her one-minute mention of this incident got.

If that's what they meant, they've done a piss-poor job of conveying their point. They start out by saying "What happens when builders are not themselves. We thought we'd find out." Then they show the builders yelling empowering things. Then they end by saying "You're not you when you're hungry." The implication seems pretty clear: the builders are behaving uncharacteristically because they're hungry.

So here's the message of this ad, as far as I could tell:

Being hungry makes you a better and more respectful human being. But don't worry! Eat a delicious Snickers bar and you'll be back to being an asshole again!

Great speech, and I really like the "equality to suck" point, but I could have really done without the glorification of a serial rapist.

I encourage everyone to read this short article on Golden Rice published in Science and signed by some extremely distinguished scientists:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6152/1320.full

Monsanto does not own Golden Rice. Also many subsistence farmers in third world countries grow rice, because it is a cheap dietary staple. Asking them to switch to producing a totally different crop in order to fight vitamin deficiency is unrealistic.

Because people have misconceptions about GMOs, thanks to the nonsense spouted by many anti-GM advocates. Even though most currently used GMOs have been pretty conclusively shown to be safe, most people are not aware of the research. They will see a label saying "genetically modified" and in their heads it will sound terrible. Giving people information they don't understand and are likely to misinterpret is not always a great idea.

Being worried that your food contains genetically modified products is sort of like being worried that your food contains chemicals. Both worries are fairly common, but neither makes any sense.

Look, I provided a link to a peer-reviewed journal publication showing that Golden Rice is an extremely good source of vitamin A, with one cup providing 50% of the recommended daily amount. I can also provide other citations supporting this claim if you'd like. So, if you have references to actual peer-reviewed scientific research (rather than unfounded claims by anti-GM activists) refuting the efficacy of Golden Rice, let's see them.

As for your claim that the initially free distribution will be rescinded, that seems unlikely. The licenses under which Golden Rice is being distributed explicitly allow farmers to freely save, replant and sell the seeds from their crop for as long as their annual income remains under $10,000. Also, most of the patents relevant to the production of Golden Rice are not internationally valid, so they cannot be used to sue people in third world countries. And all the patents that are internationally valid have been explicitly waived by the patent holders. Is there still some remote possibility that poor farmers will end up getting screwed? I guess. But it seems bizarre to me to just hold up potentially life-saving technology because its possible (though highly unlikely) that it will be used to exploit farmers. Also, I should note that Monstanto does not own Golden Rice. They merely own one of the patents for a process involved in the creation of Golden Rice.

On your third point, Rachel explicitly says "You know that GMO’s actually don’t have higher yields either." It's in the video, at 5:45. Watch it again. So she is claiming quite clearly that they do not produce higher yield, which is false. And it is simply not true that all the research showing higher yield comes from corporations. For instance, see this paper published in Science. The authors do not claim affiliation with any major GM corporation. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There has been volumes of independent research on GMOs.

On your last claim, about monocultures, you are again mistaken. Golden Rice is not a single variety. The International Rice Research Institute (a non-profit, not owned by any major corporation) has created "Golden" versions of hundreds of different rice varieties, so potentially Golden Rice can be as diverse as regular rice. Also, if rice plants are separated by a few feet, then cross-pollination becomes extremely unlikely. Rice is typically self-pollinating. So as long as a small separation is maintained, GM and non-GM crops can be grown in the same location without any significant gene flow between them.

Anyway, gene flow is only a danger if the GM plant has a clear adaptive advantage in its environment (if its pest resistant, e.g.), but that is not the case with Golden Rice, so even with gene flow Golden Rice won't end up dominating non-GM rice evolutionarily.

As much as I disagree with Kevin O'Leary on most things, I'm with him on this. The girl is impressively assured and sharp for her age, but a lot of what she is saying with such confidence is simply false.

For instance, she says that Golden Rice has been shown not to work. Untrue. There is plenty of scientific evidence showing that Golden Rice is a good source of vitamin A (example). Given the huge problems associated with vitamin deficiency in the third world, and the strong scientific support for the efficacy of Golden Rice, the movement against its use is basically like the anti-vaccination movement -- uninformed and dangerous.

Also, Golden Rice is distributed for free to poor farmers (thanks to Ingo Potrykus, its creator), so its not like farmers have to go into debt to pay Monsanto or something in order to use it.

There were other falsehoods in what she said (like her absurd claim that GM crops don't produce higher yields) but this one really stood out for me. Golden Rice seems like a no-brainer: an unambiguously positive scientific development that is being distributed in an ethical manner. Spreading misinformation about it in order to discourage its adoption is unconscionable.

I think its important to have people out there protesting and warning against the excesses of companies like Monsanto, which has an unfortunate stranglehold over most GMO distribution. I just wish the most vocal activists weren't also science-deniers.

Wait, where did he make an argument for marriage equality? As far as I can tell, he made an argument against burning gay people alive. What a brave stance!

EDIT: Whoops, didn't read the video desciption, which addresses the whole marriage equality thing. Mea culpa.

It's your upload, so keep it in the Gay channel if you'd like. But why do you think it's appropriate in that channel, given that Daley doesn't claim to be gay?

Is the "gay" channel generally considered to cover the entire LGBT spectrum? If so, I guess I have no objection to it being there.