4 ms·

I think were shooting ourselves in the foot. We did the same with antibiotics. Disease gets worse and we make super bugs and are more and more reliant on our de

I think were shooting ourselves in the foot. We did the same with antibiotics. Disease gets worse and we make super bugs and are more and more reliant on our defenses. Eventually GMO will be the same thing. You won't be able to grow nonGMO crops because we have weaponized the crop killers to such a high degree.

kobeya 9y ago
News flash : “nonGMO” crops are already genetically modified from wild plants, just through a more painstaking process of cross breeding and artificial selection over random mutations. This is already happening and would happen anyway.
- herrity4 9y ago
  All genetic modifications aren't created equal. If you can get to it from cross breeding, it's probably not that foreign a trait, but if you to say splice pea DNA with mesquito DNA or something, that result could have consequences consumers would rather not worry about when buying produce. I'm not saying it's a fine dilineation or anything and I'm not anti science, but there are more nuanced regulations in food labeling today than GMO nonGMO.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    With the availability of genetic sequencing you can get from anywhere A -> B in the reachable genetic search space through selective breeding, and still qualify for regulatory purposes as non-GMO. You can get out of that loophole by prohibiting the non-GMO label for anything that was bred based on direct genome sequencing, but that's a game a whack-a-mole as I come up with another scheme. And at the end, what's the point? Regulate what you actually care about in the food, not what process was taken to get there.
sampo 9y ago
> Disease gets worse They don't get worse. The antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" are not actually super in any other way. They just have a resistance to antibiotics. In other ways, they are just normal bugs, not super. Just like vaccinations make people immune to certain diseases, but doesn't give us any other superpowers.
- herrity4 9y ago
  It's not an apples to apples analogy, but if let's say there's a parasite that activates on an enzyme present in tomatoes. You respond by modifying tomatoes to produce less of that enzyme. The result is only parasites capable of reproducing with smaller and smaller quantities of that enzyme present are able to survive which shows huge gains. However, this would prove to be extremely detrimental to tomatoes producing "normal" quantities of said enzyme. It's a hypothetical and a strained one at that, but all I'm saying is there are often long term consequences to short term gains that may not be considered in a prisoners' dillema ecological/economic scenario. I'm not convinced market forces alone would be able to actually fix problems of this nature, but I'm inclined to consumer education over under labeling as a component in the mix.
  - sampo 9y ago
    Parasites don't "activate on an enzyme". That is not how parasitism works. Also, pest insects are not parasites. They're just insects that like to eat tomatoes, just like we do. Eating food is not parasitism.
    - herrity4 9y ago
      Eh, it's a rough example. Plants produce something plant eater (fungal, bacterial, insect) is attracted to and we're modifying the levels. Semantics of the relationship be damned, there can be evolutionary consequences.
      - sampo 9y ago
        Plants produce food: starch and sugars (and a bit of protein). We're not modifying the levels of those. The apple case is about modifying the levels of an enzyme, polyphenol oxidase [1]. But that is not what plant-eaters are interested in. They're interested in the food in an apple, not some enzyme levels. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol_oxidase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol_oxidase
        9y ago
mustacheemperor 9y ago
This is disingenuous. Will cold climates somehow adapt to better kill cold-hardy GMO potatoes? The same mechanics behind antibiotic resistance don't apply universally to what we use GMO for.
- herrity4 9y ago
  Sure, it's not 1:1, and I don't think all GMOs are created equal. I'm just saying chasing profits in the short term might have unintended long term consequences that could be avoided in certain situations.
  - mustacheemperor 9y ago
    Then you should have said that instead of implying an entirely different, unsupportable point.

kobeya 9y ago

News flash : “nonGMO” crops are already genetically modified from wild plants, just through a more painstaking process of cross breeding and artificial selection over random mutations. This is already happening and would happen anyway.

herrity4 9y ago
All genetic modifications aren't created equal. If you can get to it from cross breeding, it's probably not that foreign a trait, but if you to say splice pea DNA with mesquito DNA or something, that result could have consequences consumers would rather not worry about when buying produce. I'm not saying it's a fine dilineation or anything and I'm not anti science, but there are more nuanced regulations in food labeling today than GMO nonGMO.
- kobeya 9y ago
  With the availability of genetic sequencing you can get from anywhere A -> B in the reachable genetic search space through selective breeding, and still qualify for regulatory purposes as non-GMO. You can get out of that loophole by prohibiting the non-GMO label for anything that was bred based on direct genome sequencing, but that's a game a whack-a-mole as I come up with another scheme. And at the end, what's the point? Regulate what you actually care about in the food, not what process was taken to get there.

sampo 9y ago

> Disease gets worse They don't get worse. The antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" are not actually super in any other way. They just have a resistance to antibiotics. In other ways, they are just normal bugs, not super. Just like vaccinations make people immune to certain diseases, but doesn't give us any other superpowers.

herrity4 9y ago
It's not an apples to apples analogy, but if let's say there's a parasite that activates on an enzyme present in tomatoes. You respond by modifying tomatoes to produce less of that enzyme. The result is only parasites capable of reproducing with smaller and smaller quantities of that enzyme present are able to survive which shows huge gains. However, this would prove to be extremely detrimental to tomatoes producing "normal" quantities of said enzyme. It's a hypothetical and a strained one at that, but all I'm saying is there are often long term consequences to short term gains that may not be considered in a prisoners' dillema ecological/economic scenario. I'm not convinced market forces alone would be able to actually fix problems of this nature, but I'm inclined to consumer education over under labeling as a component in the mix.
- sampo 9y ago
  Parasites don't "activate on an enzyme". That is not how parasitism works. Also, pest insects are not parasites. They're just insects that like to eat tomatoes, just like we do. Eating food is not parasitism.
  - herrity4 9y ago
    Eh, it's a rough example. Plants produce something plant eater (fungal, bacterial, insect) is attracted to and we're modifying the levels. Semantics of the relationship be damned, there can be evolutionary consequences.
    - sampo 9y ago
      Plants produce food: starch and sugars (and a bit of protein). We're not modifying the levels of those. The apple case is about modifying the levels of an enzyme, polyphenol oxidase [1]. But that is not what plant-eaters are interested in. They're interested in the food in an apple, not some enzyme levels. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol_oxidase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol_oxidase
      - 9y ago

mustacheemperor 9y ago

This is disingenuous. Will cold climates somehow adapt to better kill cold-hardy GMO potatoes? The same mechanics behind antibiotic resistance don't apply universally to what we use GMO for.

herrity4 9y ago
Sure, it's not 1:1, and I don't think all GMOs are created equal. I'm just saying chasing profits in the short term might have unintended long term consequences that could be avoided in certain situations.
- mustacheemperor 9y ago
  Then you should have said that instead of implying an entirely different, unsupportable point.