• they/them

plural system in Seattle, WA (b. 1974)
lots of fictives from lots of media, some horses, some dragons, I dunno. the Pnictogen Wing is poorly mapped.

host: Mx. Kris Dreemurr (they/them)

chief messenger and usual front: Mx. Chara or Χαρά (they/them)

other members:
Mx. Frisk, historian (they/them)
Monophylos Fortikos, unicorn (he/him)
Kel the Purple, smol derg (xe/xem)
Pim the Dragon, Kel's sister (she/her)


pnictogen-horses
@pnictogen-horses

my daughter, Alyx Woodward, wishes to be a "people's chemist" if that's possible. it's her quixotic, youthful conviction that chemistry—analytical chemistry in particular—ought to be within reach of the average citizen. and...I think my daughter is correct. I think that chemistry has been made into one of the most remote, obfuscated, confusing branches of physical science.

is there a public need for analytical chemistry? I think that there is, especially in a world where the existing structures of social and political organization are rotted and corroded by capitalism, indeed on the verge of collapse. that's terrifying to me because of how much we rely upon those systems when buying consumer products. how do we know that our foodstuffs aren't contaminated with dangerous germs or chemicals? how do we know that our cups and plates aren't glazed with lead? how do we know that our water is safe to drink and that our soils are safe to grow plants in? as it turns out, the social systems of "the West" are (very likely) that are supposed to assure the people on these issues of public safety are no longer to be trusted. I believe that there's a need for assurance from some other direction...there's a need for low-cost, maximally accessible means for testing our consumer products, including such basic things as municipal tap water, because our governments and corporations no longer quite care about maintaining them.

let me enliven this discourse with an example from our daily life: we are having some problem with our automatic dishwasher. rather suddenly, loads of dishes are emerging with chalky residues on them. we haven't been keeping the best track of how we're doing loads of dishes; there's been a change in the brand of "jet dry" rinse aid that we've been using, but is that enough to explain the suddenly bad dishwashing we've been getting? perhaps there's been some change in the formula of the powdered soap we've been using. how would we know? product labelling is obfuscated and un-informative, and maybe even deceitful. there's value, therefore, in having independent means of testing the composition of consumer products like soaps. but how would you do it, if you wanted? it would be a costly proposition—tracking down some commercial analytical laboratory willing to do analysis on samples, and paying them a substantial amount of money. isn't there a need for basic chemical analysis to be made more democratic? certain tests can be made very simple—"spot tests" that aren't wholly reliable but can be carried out simply, looking for color changes effected by reagents delivered on paper or in a dropper bottle. Alyx thinks that this sort of test ought to be more widely available. I agree with her.

~Mona Drafter of Pnictogen


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