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This is a sad result of people's rightful and fully earned suspicion of large corporations and the food industry. How many times have new products been introduc
by jadedhacker 9y ago
This is a sad result of people's rightful and fully earned suspicion of large corporations and the food industry. How many times have new products been introduced, people assured they're safe, and later we find they cause cancer, or men to grow breasts, or children to lose IQ points? The number of these stories that implicate the chemical industry are nearly countless.
Thus, when new techniques are introduced to agriculture, people become immediately suspicious that they are going to be poisoned so that someone can make a few extra bucks. The difference here is that most of the tweaks GMO scientists are making have well understood results as they produce well studied biological components. However, the protestors are not wrong that the same techniques can be used for good or ill. Science suffers as a result of the incentives of our economic system that prioritize profit over health and safety. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the world wide poor over the middle class of the rich world.
If a different system of research and production was instituted that focused on non-profit incentives, I imagine the reaction would be different. The criticism these scientists are facing is not necessarily scientifically grounded, but it is rationally based on a long history of consumers being exploited.
EDIT: A point was made in another comment that malnutrition is not primarily a technological problem these days, it's one of distribution. However, I don't see anything wrong with increasing yields from existing agriculture. Under a non-capitalist system, it would allow us to reclaim part of the environment for nature. Under a capitalist system, it means additional overproduction.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> the same techniques can be used for good or ill One problem is consumers have segmented into two mutually exclusive groups. One likes healthy food and hates GMO. The other cares much less about both health and GMO. Since the first group has self-selected out of the market for GMO, sellers optimize for a health-indifferent population. Side note: is the plural of one GMO two GMO? Two GMOs?
- jadedhacker 9y agoIs that a problem with consumers or a problem with unregulated markets? I'll leave it at that.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> Is that a problem with consumers or a problem with unregulated markets? Consumers are voters, so it's both. The number of voters one can productively engage about thoughtful GMO regulation is basically zero. People are against it or don't care.
- sanxiyn 9y agoIt is a problem with GMO labeling requirement. GMO labeling requirement should be abolished because it is a meaningless distinction and consumers have no right to know such things.
- grzm 9y ago> "GMO labeling requirement should be abolished because it is a meaningless distinction and consumers have no right to know such things." I can understand why someone would argue it's a meaningless distinction. I don't agree with the idea that a consumer has no right to be informed. Let the consumer know, make the case that your product (any product) is safe, and let the consumer decide.
- sanxiyn 9y agoMy stance on GMO labeling is analogous to kosher and halal foods. Consumers can and do demand arbitrarily meaningless standard such as kosher, halal, or GMO-free. I am even in favor of protecting such labels by advertising standard law: i.e. forbidding things to be labeled kosher if it actually is not kosher. But GMO labeling requirement is as ridiculous as kosher labeling requirement.
- mPeriodFRESH 9y agoPlural is the same O = Organisms
- twoodfin 9y agoDo you want to make a case that health and safety have gone down since we adopted our current “economic system”? If so, when was this? AFAIK, health and safety have been trending positively in a significant way for well over a century, with nation-state conflict causing the most significant regressions, not profit-motivated corporations.
- jadedhacker 9y agoHealth and safety typically increase in response to workers advocating for additional health and safety. Those increases were won in spite of the system not because of it. Noam Chomsky makes the following point: Slave societies also exhibited improvements over time. It wasn't an argument for slavery.
- twoodfin 9y agoSure, but comparing the virtual slave state of North Korea with the prosperity of South Korea is a pretty good argument for freedom and against slavery. Do you have some examples of societies that radically increased their overall health and safety without adopting liberal economic policies? Cuba, maybe?
- jadedhacker 9y agoThis is a very reasonable question, but I think this is too off topic from this article to comply with HN's guidelines as it verges on more general questions. The latest issue of Jacobin does compare the Cuban health system to the US health system and to the Dominican Republic if you're interested, but it's print/subscriber only. SK and NK are too complex to be analyzed under these textual constraints.
- manicdee 9y agoThalidomide, asbestos, DDT, commercial fishing, logging, industrial agriculture’s dependence on phosphate, western nations entirely addicted to oil … there are plenty of examples. The overall positive trend is slowing down, with life expectancy in the USA dropping, mostly due to the opioid epidemic. Overall the picture is pretty grim. Long term stability of civilisation is under threat due to fertility rates not falling fast enough to offset longevity. Food production is consuming limited non-renewable resources.