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> Maybe Greenpeace would argue that we’re already endangering the biosphere a bit with selective breeding, and going any faster would dramatically increase the

> Maybe Greenpeace would argue that we’re already endangering the biosphere a bit with selective breeding, and going any faster would dramatically increase the danger. This is an interesting point. The practice of using GMOs, including the broad category of selective breeding, could ultimately lead to much less biodiversity which is, at best, not fully understood by us, but seems to be quite bad for life.

Sharlin 5y ago
Already has led, although I guess the bigger effect is agriculture itself – basically giving those few genetically homogeneous cultivars a vast selective advantage by converting biologically diverse natural land into monocultural fields on a vast scale.
xorcist 5y ago
The Cavendish banana is a common and well known example of this.
scoopertrooper 5y ago
Conversely, it could lead to much greater biodiversity as we control the process.
- theptip 5y ago
  Agreed. In principle we could introduce deliberate biodiversity, and as it becomes cheaper to create new variants, it would become easier to find multiple genotypes that achieve the same desired adaptation. You could even imagine doing so programmatically, perhaps even with explicit inputs describing the known issues that need to be optimized around (e.g. Panama Disease in bananas). Unfortunately I am not optimistic that this is an inevitable outcome, at least not in the short-to-medium term; if you look at the software ecosystem or even just corporate structure in general, you see a strong pressure towards consolidation and monoculture rather than an emphasis on robustness to systemic risks. However I think it's encouraging that advances in GM technology provide us with a potential long-term solution to the problem of monoculture, without asking us to give up the benefits that the market selected for in our current state. Of course we could solve monoculture in our current system by giving up the cultivars that the market prefers, and instead switching to more-localized and less-productive cultivars, but this doesn't seem like a realistic way of feeding 7-8B people.

Sharlin 5y ago

Already has led, although I guess the bigger effect is agriculture itself – basically giving those few genetically homogeneous cultivars a vast selective advantage by converting biologically diverse natural land into monocultural fields on a vast scale.

xorcist 5y ago

The Cavendish banana is a common and well known example of this.

scoopertrooper 5y ago

Conversely, it could lead to much greater biodiversity as we control the process.

theptip 5y ago
Agreed. In principle we could introduce deliberate biodiversity, and as it becomes cheaper to create new variants, it would become easier to find multiple genotypes that achieve the same desired adaptation. You could even imagine doing so programmatically, perhaps even with explicit inputs describing the known issues that need to be optimized around (e.g. Panama Disease in bananas). Unfortunately I am not optimistic that this is an inevitable outcome, at least not in the short-to-medium term; if you look at the software ecosystem or even just corporate structure in general, you see a strong pressure towards consolidation and monoculture rather than an emphasis on robustness to systemic risks. However I think it's encouraging that advances in GM technology provide us with a potential long-term solution to the problem of monoculture, without asking us to give up the benefits that the market selected for in our current state. Of course we could solve monoculture in our current system by giving up the cultivars that the market prefers, and instead switching to more-localized and less-productive cultivars, but this doesn't seem like a realistic way of feeding 7-8B people.