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I would say so. In a world in which being against corporations is increasingly seen as "passé", defending Monsanto is just the edgiest possible position for som

I would say so. In a world in which being against corporations is increasingly seen as "passé", defending Monsanto is just the edgiest possible position for someone looking to have the hottest take. I'm very pro-GMO, but time and time again I see pro-GMO people taunt and belittle anti-GMO people as mean-spirited tinfoil hatters who have zero reason to doubt Monsanto. It's very "Team Red" vs. "Team Blue", and unproductive.

ethbro 10y ago
The pro/anti GMO has too little science in the debate imho. I take the Nye position: from a "people starving" vs "GMO boosted yields" perspective, I take GMOs. On "Monsanto, etc make too much money", I realize that creating new strains is hard and expensive. But. That's not to say I'll defend all their practices (like this one) or will not admit the anti-GMO crowd has some very valid points.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  My favorite and most effective pro-GMO take is to talk to people about how cheese is made. Many anti-GMO people are concerned with animal welfare and love cheese, and it's important to make them realize that it's thanks to GMO that you can have cheese without slaughtering a calf. https://io9.gizmodo.com/you-can-thank-genetic-engineering-for-your-delicious-ch-1701156684 https://io9.gizmodo.com/you-can-thank-genetic-engineering-fo...
  - camiller 10y ago
    Interesting, I am/was of the understanding that there are also vegetarian rennet's made by extracting enzymes from certain plants; fig, thistle, etc. The place where I buy my cheese making supplies (well, would buy if the first attempt hadn't been such a disaster) has both calf and "vegetarian" rennet available for the home cheese maker.
    - rosser 10y ago
      "Vegetarian cheese". That's cute. Sure, baby cows aren't being (literally) gutted for the lining of their stomachs, but that's hardly the extent of the misery we inflict upon dairy animals. EDIT: not directed at you. Just entertained at the semantic hoops people will set up and then jump through.
  - fdupoo 10y ago
    Sorry dude, don't see the connection. I am a predator. Predators kill prey animals, including (and sometimes especially) the babies. Cheese is delicious. Im anti-GMO and have been killing animals for food since I was 3. GMO and monsanto practices are health issues. The pesticides are a problem in terms of chemical pollution. As for gene editing, it's a question of polluting the gene pool of a life system. Releasing Gene-mod into a complex dynamic self-regulating self-propagating system is like modifying diseases them and releasing them into human society. It may not be a problem, but we can't know if it will be a problem till it's done, and once it's done, it's done. You can't remove or erase your mistakes. We cant know what any particular gene-mod will do in the wild, if it will be harmful or not, but we do know that monsanto and their cronies at the FDA and EPA don't give a flying fuck about systemic consequences of new technologies. We do know that the technology is potentially catastrophic, and there are a lot of disincentives to be responsible baked into the system of those holding the keys to this tech.
    - ethbro 10y ago
      > As for gene editing, it's a question of polluting the gene pool of a life system. You mean like life had been doing since its inception? You can gripe about the speed and power with which we're performing genetic modification (and things like gene drives are powerful), but I can't agree with the "It's something that's never been done before!" angle. We're just doing so intelligently. With incomplete knowledge, but a hell of a lot more intelligently than random mutation.
- spraak 10y ago
  Permaculture is a much more wholesome solution. GMOs become a side detail, and even unimportant. Traditional farming is highly inefficient, even with machinery > Of course if you take two fields and plant each with a monocrop, then the one without pesticides will do worse than the one with, but that isn’t really what organic farming is. > It is true that the old, control-based methods of agriculture are nearing the peak of their productive potential. Further investments in this kind of technology are bringing diminishing marginal returns – witness the proliferation of Roundup-resistant weeds and the “necessity” of new kinds of herbicides to deal with them. http://charleseisenstein.net/permaculture-and-the-myth-of-scarcity/ http://charleseisenstein.net/permaculture-and-the-myth-of-sc...
  - ethbro 10y ago
    There's a relevant quote in-between the two you cited. (And noting that the author is obviously a proponent of permaculture farming, rather than a less biased investigator) > Conventional agriculture doesn’t seek to maximize yield per acre; it seeks to maximize yield per unit of labor. If we had 10% of the population engaged in agriculture rather than the current 1%, we could easily feed the country without petrochemicals or pesticides. Interestingly, it may be that with coming automation we may be better served by reallocating 9% of our population back to agriculture... Also, in a similar vein to permaculture, I found this article fascinating if you haven't come across it yet. https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-the-frontlines-of-the-blue-green-economic-revolution-d5ae171285a3#.k86s8fcpi https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-t...
    - spraak 10y ago
      Thanks for your reply :) I'm enjoying that article so far. Very good quote and point about automation. There's a forum called permies [1] where I've seen posts about such permaculture automation :D [1] https://permies.com/ https://permies.com/
- Applejinx 10y ago
  But people starving is not a crop efficiency problem. It's a political problem, every time. There's absolutely no reason to defend GMOs on the basis of feeding the starving: it's rather disingenuous.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    Do you have any citation? Ceterus paribus, increasing energy:food conversion rate leads to more food. Imho, arguing that politics are resulting in people starving is a bit like saying that gravity is too strong.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > But people starving is not a crop efficiency problem. It's a political problem, every time. Yes, one example of that political problem would be food prices being driven up by creating political barriers to more resource efficient crop technologies.

ethbro 10y ago

The pro/anti GMO has too little science in the debate imho. I take the Nye position: from a "people starving" vs "GMO boosted yields" perspective, I take GMOs. On "Monsanto, etc make too much money", I realize that creating new strains is hard and expensive. But. That's not to say I'll defend all their practices (like this one) or will not admit the anti-GMO crowd has some very valid points.

RodericDay 10y ago
My favorite and most effective pro-GMO take is to talk to people about how cheese is made. Many anti-GMO people are concerned with animal welfare and love cheese, and it's important to make them realize that it's thanks to GMO that you can have cheese without slaughtering a calf. https://io9.gizmodo.com/you-can-thank-genetic-engineering-for-your-delicious-ch-1701156684 https://io9.gizmodo.com/you-can-thank-genetic-engineering-fo...
- camiller 10y ago
  Interesting, I am/was of the understanding that there are also vegetarian rennet's made by extracting enzymes from certain plants; fig, thistle, etc. The place where I buy my cheese making supplies (well, would buy if the first attempt hadn't been such a disaster) has both calf and "vegetarian" rennet available for the home cheese maker.
  - rosser 10y ago
    "Vegetarian cheese". That's cute. Sure, baby cows aren't being (literally) gutted for the lining of their stomachs, but that's hardly the extent of the misery we inflict upon dairy animals. EDIT: not directed at you. Just entertained at the semantic hoops people will set up and then jump through.
- fdupoo 10y ago
  Sorry dude, don't see the connection. I am a predator. Predators kill prey animals, including (and sometimes especially) the babies. Cheese is delicious. Im anti-GMO and have been killing animals for food since I was 3. GMO and monsanto practices are health issues. The pesticides are a problem in terms of chemical pollution. As for gene editing, it's a question of polluting the gene pool of a life system. Releasing Gene-mod into a complex dynamic self-regulating self-propagating system is like modifying diseases them and releasing them into human society. It may not be a problem, but we can't know if it will be a problem till it's done, and once it's done, it's done. You can't remove or erase your mistakes. We cant know what any particular gene-mod will do in the wild, if it will be harmful or not, but we do know that monsanto and their cronies at the FDA and EPA don't give a flying fuck about systemic consequences of new technologies. We do know that the technology is potentially catastrophic, and there are a lot of disincentives to be responsible baked into the system of those holding the keys to this tech.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    > As for gene editing, it's a question of polluting the gene pool of a life system. You mean like life had been doing since its inception? You can gripe about the speed and power with which we're performing genetic modification (and things like gene drives are powerful), but I can't agree with the "It's something that's never been done before!" angle. We're just doing so intelligently. With incomplete knowledge, but a hell of a lot more intelligently than random mutation.
spraak 10y ago
Permaculture is a much more wholesome solution. GMOs become a side detail, and even unimportant. Traditional farming is highly inefficient, even with machinery > Of course if you take two fields and plant each with a monocrop, then the one without pesticides will do worse than the one with, but that isn’t really what organic farming is. > It is true that the old, control-based methods of agriculture are nearing the peak of their productive potential. Further investments in this kind of technology are bringing diminishing marginal returns – witness the proliferation of Roundup-resistant weeds and the “necessity” of new kinds of herbicides to deal with them. http://charleseisenstein.net/permaculture-and-the-myth-of-scarcity/ http://charleseisenstein.net/permaculture-and-the-myth-of-sc...
- ethbro 10y ago
  There's a relevant quote in-between the two you cited. (And noting that the author is obviously a proponent of permaculture farming, rather than a less biased investigator) > Conventional agriculture doesn’t seek to maximize yield per acre; it seeks to maximize yield per unit of labor. If we had 10% of the population engaged in agriculture rather than the current 1%, we could easily feed the country without petrochemicals or pesticides. Interestingly, it may be that with coming automation we may be better served by reallocating 9% of our population back to agriculture... Also, in a similar vein to permaculture, I found this article fascinating if you haven't come across it yet. https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-the-frontlines-of-the-blue-green-economic-revolution-d5ae171285a3#.k86s8fcpi https://medium.com/invironment/an-army-of-ocean-farmers-on-t...
  - spraak 10y ago
    Thanks for your reply :) I'm enjoying that article so far. Very good quote and point about automation. There's a forum called permies [1] where I've seen posts about such permaculture automation :D [1] https://permies.com/ https://permies.com/
Applejinx 10y ago
But people starving is not a crop efficiency problem. It's a political problem, every time. There's absolutely no reason to defend GMOs on the basis of feeding the starving: it's rather disingenuous.
- ethbro 10y ago
  Do you have any citation? Ceterus paribus, increasing energy:food conversion rate leads to more food. Imho, arguing that politics are resulting in people starving is a bit like saying that gravity is too strong.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > But people starving is not a crop efficiency problem. It's a political problem, every time. Yes, one example of that political problem would be food prices being driven up by creating political barriers to more resource efficient crop technologies.