47 ms·

'social network' attacking pesticide critics shuts down after investigation

67 points by rguiscard 2y ago

gnabgib 2y ago
Related The US government-funded 'private social network' attacking pesticide critics (46 points, 4 months ago, 5 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41715728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41715728
openrisk 2y ago
Remarkable story and a glimpse at how nasty vested interests can become as the world starts to second guess the sustainability of an entire century's worth of "growth" at all costs. Its not black and white, without pesticides we'll probably all perish from malnutrition within a year or two, but the pressure to contain the collateral damage to environment and people will not go away.
- jemmyw 2y ago
  > without pesticides we'll probably all perish from malnutrition within a year or two I'm unsure if that is true or not. Certainly it would reduce yields initially but some high yield farming in the US has already moved away from pesticides. It seems that we could probably engineer out of pesticide use if we wanted to by combination of more gmo crops and changing the crops grown somewhat.
  - goda90 2y ago
    Robotics might hold promise for ditching pesticides too. There's already laser weed killing machines. Could we target specific insects with smaller robots that can move under and between plants? There's also just trying to use nature to help use. Beneficial fungus can be fostered to out compete harmful ones. Chickens can be unleashed in the fields at the right times to reduce the insect load. Maybe we could genetically modify sterile predator insects to hunt down the pests and then die off since they can't reproduce themselves.
    - snypher 2y ago
      Honestly this is being tried but we can't even classify emerging new pests (for lack of science funding and staffing). Many engineers have a keyboard view of how the agriculture industry works and only when they are boots on ground do they realize the actual problems faced by farmers. This is not an attack on engineers, but for every person with a weed laser idea, there's very few willing to implement it.
  - openrisk 2y ago
    In the longer term various alternatives are conceivable if people put their minds to it. Politically, economically, technically this is very much like the energy transition: There is immense current dependency that cant be just switched off (and vested interests will resist for as long as possible, using every possible means), but there is sequence of low hanging fruit which in time can be expanded. The trick imho is to always apply the highest amount of pressure that wont burst the kettle.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
  >without pesticides we'll probably all perish from malnutrition within a year or two, I have my doubts on this. The same is true for the supposed magic of nitrogen fertilizers.
leoh 2y ago
Worth watching “Michael Clayton”
dougb5 2y ago
> part of an effort that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars The "in part" here is doing a lot of work. I can't tell how big the part is from the detail provided in the article: > v-Fluence, which also had the former agrochemical firm Monsanto as a client, secured some funding from the US government as part of a contract with a third party. Public spending records show the US Agency for International Development (USAid) contracted with a separate non-governmental organization that manages a government initiative to promote GM crops in African and Asian countries. > That organization, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), then paid v-Fluence a little more than $400,000 from roughly 2013 through 2019 for services that included counteracting critics of “modern agriculture approaches” in Africa and Asia. If we count second-degree links like this, I bet we'd find that most organizations (including for-profit companies) are "funded in part by US tax dollars."
- somenameforme 2y ago
  The problem you run into is that this is done intentionally. For instance Hanlon's Razor, Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity., is simply completely invalid when it comes to large organizations, because they always consciously ensure some degree of plausible deniability to actions that are intentionally and maliciously done. USAID has funded a lot of awful things that the government has no business being involved in, but they do it through various sub organizations in order to effectively 'launder' the funding. Jay Byrne is the guy who founded v-Fluence. He's not only a former Monsanto director but also worked at "various high-level legislative and public affairs positions at USAID". [1] And then USAID goes on to fund his little doxing site against Monsanto critics. [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-funded-social-network-attacking-pesticide-critics https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-f...
  - dougb5 2y ago
    My complaint is with the article. They haven't done the reporting needed to tell me how much US taxpayers actually spent on this. They are happy to leave readers with the impression that we funded all of it. This is how we get distortions like "USAID funds Politico!" spread by bad-faith actors. The other questions they could have answered: How much did USAID spend on IFPRI? Was the grant from USAID to IFPRI expressly designated for v-Fluence, or was it for other programs as well?
ekianjo 2y ago
As usual the Guardian reporting is sub-par: > One client of more than 20 years is Syngenta, a Chinese government enterprise-owned company currently being sued by thousands of people in the US and Canada who allege they developed the incurable brain disease Parkinson’s from using Syngenta’s paraquat weed killers Syngenta exists since 2000 and has NOT been owned by a Chinese organization from 2000 to 2017. So making it sound like China has been sponsoring them for more than 20 years is not good journalism. Syngenta HQ is based in Switzerland, too.
im3w1l 2y ago
I had a lot of trouble parsing that title. There was a 'social network'. It attacked pesticide critics. Now the s.n. is shutting down.
- MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
  Below the headline of the actual article is this: > v-Fluence halts operations after widespread backlash over private portal profiling environmental health advocates After reading it five or six times, I parse it as (v-Fluence halts operations (after (widespread backlash (over (private portal (profiling (environmental health advocates))))))) i.e. v-Fluence is halting their operations. This is after there was widespread backlash. The widespread backlash was about a private portal. The private portal was for profiling certain people. Those certain people were environmental health advocates.

67 points by rguiscard 2y ago

Related The US government-funded 'private social network' attacking pesticide critics (46 points, 4 months ago, 5 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41715728 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41715728

openrisk 2y ago

Remarkable story and a glimpse at how nasty vested interests can become as the world starts to second guess the sustainability of an entire century's worth of "growth" at all costs. Its not black and white, without pesticides we'll probably all perish from malnutrition within a year or two, but the pressure to contain the collateral damage to environment and people will not go away.

jemmyw 2y ago
> without pesticides we'll probably all perish from malnutrition within a year or two I'm unsure if that is true or not. Certainly it would reduce yields initially but some high yield farming in the US has already moved away from pesticides. It seems that we could probably engineer out of pesticide use if we wanted to by combination of more gmo crops and changing the crops grown somewhat.
- goda90 2y ago
  Robotics might hold promise for ditching pesticides too. There's already laser weed killing machines. Could we target specific insects with smaller robots that can move under and between plants? There's also just trying to use nature to help use. Beneficial fungus can be fostered to out compete harmful ones. Chickens can be unleashed in the fields at the right times to reduce the insect load. Maybe we could genetically modify sterile predator insects to hunt down the pests and then die off since they can't reproduce themselves.
  - snypher 2y ago
    Honestly this is being tried but we can't even classify emerging new pests (for lack of science funding and staffing). Many engineers have a keyboard view of how the agriculture industry works and only when they are boots on ground do they realize the actual problems faced by farmers. This is not an attack on engineers, but for every person with a weed laser idea, there's very few willing to implement it.
- openrisk 2y ago
  In the longer term various alternatives are conceivable if people put their minds to it. Politically, economically, technically this is very much like the energy transition: There is immense current dependency that cant be just switched off (and vested interests will resist for as long as possible, using every possible means), but there is sequence of low hanging fruit which in time can be expanded. The trick imho is to always apply the highest amount of pressure that wont burst the kettle.
dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
>without pesticides we'll probably all perish from malnutrition within a year or two, I have my doubts on this. The same is true for the supposed magic of nitrogen fertilizers.

leoh 2y ago

Worth watching “Michael Clayton”

dougb5 2y ago

> part of an effort that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars The "in part" here is doing a lot of work. I can't tell how big the part is from the detail provided in the article: > v-Fluence, which also had the former agrochemical firm Monsanto as a client, secured some funding from the US government as part of a contract with a third party. Public spending records show the US Agency for International Development (USAid) contracted with a separate non-governmental organization that manages a government initiative to promote GM crops in African and Asian countries. > That organization, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), then paid v-Fluence a little more than $400,000 from roughly 2013 through 2019 for services that included counteracting critics of “modern agriculture approaches” in Africa and Asia. If we count second-degree links like this, I bet we'd find that most organizations (including for-profit companies) are "funded in part by US tax dollars."

somenameforme 2y ago
The problem you run into is that this is done intentionally. For instance Hanlon's Razor, Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity., is simply completely invalid when it comes to large organizations, because they always consciously ensure some degree of plausible deniability to actions that are intentionally and maliciously done. USAID has funded a lot of awful things that the government has no business being involved in, but they do it through various sub organizations in order to effectively 'launder' the funding. Jay Byrne is the guy who founded v-Fluence. He's not only a former Monsanto director but also worked at "various high-level legislative and public affairs positions at USAID". [1] And then USAID goes on to fund his little doxing site against Monsanto critics. [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-funded-social-network-attacking-pesticide-critics https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-f...
- dougb5 2y ago
  My complaint is with the article. They haven't done the reporting needed to tell me how much US taxpayers actually spent on this. They are happy to leave readers with the impression that we funded all of it. This is how we get distortions like "USAID funds Politico!" spread by bad-faith actors. The other questions they could have answered: How much did USAID spend on IFPRI? Was the grant from USAID to IFPRI expressly designated for v-Fluence, or was it for other programs as well?

ekianjo 2y ago

As usual the Guardian reporting is sub-par: > One client of more than 20 years is Syngenta, a Chinese government enterprise-owned company currently being sued by thousands of people in the US and Canada who allege they developed the incurable brain disease Parkinson’s from using Syngenta’s paraquat weed killers Syngenta exists since 2000 and has NOT been owned by a Chinese organization from 2000 to 2017. So making it sound like China has been sponsoring them for more than 20 years is not good journalism. Syngenta HQ is based in Switzerland, too.

im3w1l 2y ago

I had a lot of trouble parsing that title. There was a 'social network'. It attacked pesticide critics. Now the s.n. is shutting down.

MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
Below the headline of the actual article is this: > v-Fluence halts operations after widespread backlash over private portal profiling environmental health advocates After reading it five or six times, I parse it as (v-Fluence halts operations (after (widespread backlash (over (private portal (profiling (environmental health advocates))))))) i.e. v-Fluence is halting their operations. This is after there was widespread backlash. The widespread backlash was about a private portal. The private portal was for profiling certain people. Those certain people were environmental health advocates.