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api's comment in this thread sums up the rationale behind the public's opposition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5800001 https://news.ycombinator.com/ite
by genwin 13y ago
api's comment in this thread sums up the rationale behind the public's opposition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5800001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5800001
People don't need to become experts on any particular food innovation to have a very good chance of serving their best interests in opposing it. The people have been continuously misled about health risks.
If GMO saves a million children it will next need to save ten million children, and then a hundred million and so on, until it fails and then there will be greater suffering. Culture and religion are the root cause of the problem; it's better addressed from that angle.
- smsm42 13y ago>>> If GMO saves a million children it will next need to save ten million children Are you advocating population control by starving off the poor?
- brent_noorda 13y agoI think genwin's point is that we humans behave very stupidly whenever we find an innovation that allows for exponentially more of anything. We behave as if that massive growth will continue forever, and it never does, and usually leads to a crash worse than the solution. So if a new invention allows us to feed all 7 billion of us comfortably, instead of just feeding 7 billion of us comfortably we'll instead create 10 billion, 20 billion, 100 billion of us, up to whatever point the innovation no longer feeds us all comfortably, and then it crashes, and then instead of a billion people dying off we now have 90 billion people dying off. Where I think genwin is wrong is in blaming culture or religion. Instead I think we're just stupid that way.
- genwin 13y agoYep. > Instead I think we're just stupid that way. That's culture and religion. Both could change to promote smarter sustainability.
- glhaynes 13y agoBut that's not what studying population shows us: when people have economic opportunities, education, and choices, they choose to have fewer children. So much so that we end up with the "problem" of the birth rate dropping below what's needed for replacement. It doesn't appear that population growth will ever reach the point that we'll have a problem producing enough food to feed everyone.
- genwin 13y agoEducation is the key to amending the culture and religion that is the root cause of the problem.
- smsm42 13y agoI do not see factual basis for this claim - how Green revolution led to a crash that is worse than the solution? How modern medicine led to a crash? So far all malthusian prophecies had been reliably wrong. You can claim that sometime in the future it may happen that they still will be true - I can not really disprove that. But you can not say "it never does" - because so far it actually always did.
- genwin 13y agoSee how long you can keep borrowing money. Pay off each credit card with a new credit card. You don't need to witness the crash to know that the future is bleak. There is plenty of factual basis to the claim that we're borrowing against our future to feed the current population.
- smsm42 13y agoTo "know" the future is bleak you have to be a prophet, since knowledge of the future is not available to mere humans, only assumptions about what might happen in the future. However, the fact that you claim something always happens and yet it never happened makes the claim a bit doubtful.
- genwin 13y agoYes, we can't know that something bad will happen when we jump off a cliff. If during the fall someone claims that something bad always happens at the bottom and yet it hasn't happened, the claim is doubtful.
- smsm42 13y agoWe assume this always happens it because we observed many things falling off many cliffs. Though if you had a parachute concealed on you, our assumption about what would happen if you jump off a cliff would be proven wrong. We never observed the thing that were predicted above, despite the claim that it always happens. We didn't even observe the "fall" you claim to be happening right now. No evidence for it exists except for repeated claims of impending doom, usually accompanied by sermons to repent and sacrifice to whatever favorite pseudo-deity the would be prophet happens to believe in. I have nothing against faith, but this particular faith wouldn't be my choice.
- genwin 13y agoNo, I'm advocating not making the problem worse while ignoring its root cause.
- smsm42 13y agoIt's not the choice here. Monsanto can not reform Indian or Chinese society into something else. The choice here is either we have better crops and people do not starve, or we do not have them and people starve. You say "people do not starve" is a bad choice. To me it looks like advocating starving off people as the means for population control.
- genwin 13y agoNo, the choice here is either we have better crops and people starve, or we do not have them and less people starve. brent_noorda explains above.
- smsm42 13y agoIn this scenario "less people" is achieved by starving them off, so you're basically saying "we will starve people off and then there would be less people to starve, so it's actually a good thing". Seems to be like an extremely cynical piece of mental gymnastics.
- genwin 13y agoNobody needs to starve when the root cause is focused on. You're basically saying "we will starve people off in the future, but save less people today, so it's actually a good thing". Of the two of us, I'm the one advocating that less people starve.
- smsm42 13y ago"When the root cause is focused on" is an extremely vague and non-practical phrase. You can always say "since we have people starving, root cause is not fixed, so we should leave them starving and not help them until it is". What is your method for making "less people"? We have population of 7 billion and growing, Green revolution technology can enable us to feed them. If you deny it, then what you propose to do with those people, where they are supposed to go?