The worst that could happen is something like (kudzu)[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu]. See the Invasive Species section.

Your passion for experimentation and cultivation is awesome. I get that you don’t want the government telling you what you can and can’t do. So, instead, what if you look at it as a fellow citizen asking you to please not plant random seeds from China in the ground outside, unattended.

Hence the 'keeping it inside' part. I would not plan outside a vine or something that may interfere with my other plants, until I know what it is.

Still, I fail to see the harm of growing the seed inside to identify the plant. People here have reported receiving cucumbers and strawberries. No one has reported receiving vines or anything else.

I am very surprised by the level of fear and paranoia regarding everything and especially China: we are looking at horse gift in the mouth, then saying it is a bioterrorism plot. Unbelievable!! When I was a kid, that would have been the best mail-order present ever!

Also, regarding kudzu and the like, I fail to see the harm. The environment changes. We may not like that, but that's how life is. Instead of trying to undo changes, maybe we should adapt to them.

Kudzu seems good for livestock, rich in protein and isoflavones. Trying to burn it seems to be due to a distinct lack of imagination and profit motive. It's a free input!!! Find new ways to chop it down to feed it to livestock. Make it into a food supplement.

Anything looks better than just destruction and nostalgia for the time it wasn't here. It's here now. Adapt!

Invasive species are mostly bad for ecosystems. They introduce a lot of unknowns. There is nothing safe for neither humans nor wildlife about possibility introducing invasive species.

Go visit a place with a noxious weed problem (e.g the Bitterroot Valley) for positive confirmation of this.

Or closer to many people here, yellow star thistle (yes, that annoying spiky plant you’ll often see in the California grass).

The hills of California used to be green in the summer. The dead yellow fire hazard grass is called “avena” and is an invasive species.

If I ran things, I’d develop an avena-specific herbicide, and drop it from helicopters every spring.

Replacing it with natives would lower the fire risk substantially, and probably also cool the hills off a bit during the summer.

Personally, I tend to have trouble controlling my mint.

>It's innocent and safe. The government should have no business regulating what people do with seeds.

I feel like that boat has flown, or whatever. It's kind of like saying the government should have no business checking passports or levying an income tax or something.

Modern geeks seem to only care about government control.

But I have read about the old time hackers, who yearned freedom and experimentation. It seemed to have been widespread: I have seen movies from the 1980s, and noticed the same thing: people seem less fearful, more open and ready to experiment.

It may sound silly to you, but I was awestruck by "Bill and Ted excellent adventure"!

Even with all the modern technology we have, I wish I had been born 20 or 30 years earlier, when freedom was still a thing and innocent fun was deemed innocent by default.

You've obviously never seen Little Shop of Horrors. Feed me, Seymour!

Or read The Triffids -- if we're going there!

Asparagus asparagoides

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asparagus_asparagoides

Depends if your name is Jack.

You can't post like this here. Please read the rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

There's no need to be rude or accusatory.