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> many collapsing apiaries show no trace of neonicotinoids. And 'many' (notice the weasel word) car crashes are caused by drivers that show no trace of inebria

> many collapsing apiaries show no trace of neonicotinoids. And 'many' (notice the weasel word) car crashes are caused by drivers that show no trace of inebriation. More to the point: "Most academic and governmental bodies agree that neonicotinoids have had a negative influence on bee populations.": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid As for GMOs, they may well be safe (for consumption, let's ignore any invasive-species like effects, or toxicity to insects, or the potentially catastrophic combination of both...), but is our incentive structure ready for them? So far corporations are limited in how much they can tinker with food, but once they have the ability, what are we more likely to get - vitamin-enhanced rice, or vegetables that are as healthy and addictive as Twinkies? And what will the effect on food sovereignty be, when the only way to compete is with GMOs, control of which is concentrated in at most a handful of global companies? As for the common "well how is GMO different from selective breeding done since antiquity?" objection, it's different in one very important way - in the evolutionary Red Queen's race, it's much faster, and non-engineered life cannot keep up.

ChrisLomont 6y ago
>when the only way to compete is with GMOs Already the case, and in the US many crops like corn are 92+% GMO, as selected by farmers during planting season. We can undo it, and we can also go back to a fraction of the current yield per acre and to people paying significantly more of their budget on food. We can price the poor even more out of getting enough food by making it all costlier. Food was around 25% of household spending in 1930 in the US. It's now around 7%. Corn yields were about 25 bushels/ac from as far back as we have data (1800's) till about 1940 when we started applying modern science, and is now around 160 bu/ac [1], an astounding ~7 fold difference. Most crops saw similar gains. This has massive realworld implications on food. A significant part of that is due to GMOs [2] (note the study also demonstrates reduction in toxins since we can engineer more carefully for pesticides desired). Thankfully mankind has used tech to increase yields drastically, lowering cost, and thus freeing lots of money for other things like housing, medicine, entertainment, and social programs. >are we more likely to get - vitamin-enhanced rice, or vegetables that are as healthy and addictive as Twinkies? Once we reach that level of design, why would we not engineer all sorts of beneficial items in? Even now there's published evidence that GMOs are healthier for people than alternatives since it allows us to tailor which pesticides and how much we need to reach yields sufficient to feed the planet. >on food sovereignty be This has been one of the goofiest non-arguments ever. People keep claiming somehow no one will able to grow food - there's so many non-GMO places to get any seeds you like, and even many GMOs are off patent protection and fully able to be used as anyone likes. The most you can worry about is not having the latest 20 or so years of seeds. So for free all farmers and people are getting more seed options, not fewer. >it's much faster, and non-engineered life cannot keep up. There is no law of physics that cannot mutate things slowly or quickly, so this assumption that there is some magical limiting rate of evolution is also not science based. Things can wildly mutate in one generation, it's been seen, and things mutate when there's selection pressure. It's the case, for example in viruses, that they mutate faster to keep up with things we do to them. And the point is to beat things out that destroy crops, like rusts, disease, water shortages, etc. As global warming increases, there will be significant needs for more drought resistant crops, and GMO is delivering on that in a manner that no selective breeding can do quick enough. GMOs will likely save billions of lives in the coming decades. [1] https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/YieldTrends.html https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/YieldTren... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21284-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21284-2
- rbecker 6y ago
  Most of your counterarguments either barely make sense, or don't even address the arguments I made. But I'll try to clarify and spell things out for you. > Once we reach that level of design, why would we not engineer all sorts of beneficial items in? Why would we not engineer all sorts of beneficial items into Twinkies? Why wouldn't we maximize visibility of healthy food in supermarkets, instead of junk food? Because it reduces profit. PR efforts such as golden rice will give way to profit maximization as soon as there's wide acceptance of GMOs. This is what already happens with other food that corporations are able to totally engineer, but you think they'll suddenly find their conscience and do what's best for the consumer once it's GMOs they're engineering, not cookies? > So for free all farmers and people are getting more seed options, not fewer. They get more seed options just like they have the option of hand tilling the soil instead of using tractors - they'll go bankrupt unless they plant the most optimal seed. Even if the gain is only 5% or less, profit margins are so thin that can make or break a farm. This is only "goofy" if you completely ignore economics. > There is no law of physics that cannot mutate things slowly or quickly, so this assumption that there is some magical limiting rate of evolution is also not science based. [..] GMO is delivering on that in a manner that no selective breeding can do quick enough. Those sentences contradict each-other.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    By your reasoning every product we produce would converge to a single super Twinkie of maximal profit, and we’d make nothing nutritious. Since this is clearly obviously false, being a straw man, there is no reason we’d not also engineer many varieties of food. You also keep repeating that somehow seed control is going to make things expensive, despite decades of it doing the exact opposite, hence vastly lower consumer expenditures. So, once you stop avoiding actual economics as demonstrated econometrically, your arguments fall apart. > Those sentences contradict each-other. No, they don’t. You think extremely black and white, missing important nuance. Certainly selective breeding could randomly in one generation create anything, but the odds are too low to make it practical, thus GMO, by increasing the odds, improves the expected outcome, which is what we care about. And certainly mutation could make our changes irrelevant in one generation, but we hope that it doesn’t. There’s no one size fits all rate of evolution that supports your simplistic claim that one has to outpace the other. We only engineer in the hopes that it doesn’t. If you really want everything explained this carefully so you don’t inject extreme positions I’ll do it. There’s no reason to continue if you’re more interested in repeating the same claims regardless of evidence. If you want to continue please cite some decent evidence to back your claims.

ChrisLomont 6y ago

>when the only way to compete is with GMOs Already the case, and in the US many crops like corn are 92+% GMO, as selected by farmers during planting season. We can undo it, and we can also go back to a fraction of the current yield per acre and to people paying significantly more of their budget on food. We can price the poor even more out of getting enough food by making it all costlier. Food was around 25% of household spending in 1930 in the US. It's now around 7%. Corn yields were about 25 bushels/ac from as far back as we have data (1800's) till about 1940 when we started applying modern science, and is now around 160 bu/ac [1], an astounding ~7 fold difference. Most crops saw similar gains. This has massive realworld implications on food. A significant part of that is due to GMOs [2] (note the study also demonstrates reduction in toxins since we can engineer more carefully for pesticides desired). Thankfully mankind has used tech to increase yields drastically, lowering cost, and thus freeing lots of money for other things like housing, medicine, entertainment, and social programs. >are we more likely to get - vitamin-enhanced rice, or vegetables that are as healthy and addictive as Twinkies? Once we reach that level of design, why would we not engineer all sorts of beneficial items in? Even now there's published evidence that GMOs are healthier for people than alternatives since it allows us to tailor which pesticides and how much we need to reach yields sufficient to feed the planet. >on food sovereignty be This has been one of the goofiest non-arguments ever. People keep claiming somehow no one will able to grow food - there's so many non-GMO places to get any seeds you like, and even many GMOs are off patent protection and fully able to be used as anyone likes. The most you can worry about is not having the latest 20 or so years of seeds. So for free all farmers and people are getting more seed options, not fewer. >it's much faster, and non-engineered life cannot keep up. There is no law of physics that cannot mutate things slowly or quickly, so this assumption that there is some magical limiting rate of evolution is also not science based. Things can wildly mutate in one generation, it's been seen, and things mutate when there's selection pressure. It's the case, for example in viruses, that they mutate faster to keep up with things we do to them. And the point is to beat things out that destroy crops, like rusts, disease, water shortages, etc. As global warming increases, there will be significant needs for more drought resistant crops, and GMO is delivering on that in a manner that no selective breeding can do quick enough. GMOs will likely save billions of lives in the coming decades. [1] https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/YieldTrends.html https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/YieldTren... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21284-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21284-2

rbecker 6y ago
Most of your counterarguments either barely make sense, or don't even address the arguments I made. But I'll try to clarify and spell things out for you. > Once we reach that level of design, why would we not engineer all sorts of beneficial items in? Why would we not engineer all sorts of beneficial items into Twinkies? Why wouldn't we maximize visibility of healthy food in supermarkets, instead of junk food? Because it reduces profit. PR efforts such as golden rice will give way to profit maximization as soon as there's wide acceptance of GMOs. This is what already happens with other food that corporations are able to totally engineer, but you think they'll suddenly find their conscience and do what's best for the consumer once it's GMOs they're engineering, not cookies? > So for free all farmers and people are getting more seed options, not fewer. They get more seed options just like they have the option of hand tilling the soil instead of using tractors - they'll go bankrupt unless they plant the most optimal seed. Even if the gain is only 5% or less, profit margins are so thin that can make or break a farm. This is only "goofy" if you completely ignore economics. > There is no law of physics that cannot mutate things slowly or quickly, so this assumption that there is some magical limiting rate of evolution is also not science based. [..] GMO is delivering on that in a manner that no selective breeding can do quick enough. Those sentences contradict each-other.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  By your reasoning every product we produce would converge to a single super Twinkie of maximal profit, and we’d make nothing nutritious. Since this is clearly obviously false, being a straw man, there is no reason we’d not also engineer many varieties of food. You also keep repeating that somehow seed control is going to make things expensive, despite decades of it doing the exact opposite, hence vastly lower consumer expenditures. So, once you stop avoiding actual economics as demonstrated econometrically, your arguments fall apart. > Those sentences contradict each-other. No, they don’t. You think extremely black and white, missing important nuance. Certainly selective breeding could randomly in one generation create anything, but the odds are too low to make it practical, thus GMO, by increasing the odds, improves the expected outcome, which is what we care about. And certainly mutation could make our changes irrelevant in one generation, but we hope that it doesn’t. There’s no one size fits all rate of evolution that supports your simplistic claim that one has to outpace the other. We only engineer in the hopes that it doesn’t. If you really want everything explained this carefully so you don’t inject extreme positions I’ll do it. There’s no reason to continue if you’re more interested in repeating the same claims regardless of evidence. If you want to continue please cite some decent evidence to back your claims.