4 ms·

Keep in mind that GMO is not just about replacing pesticides, but also about adding other benefits to plants - like in the case of golden rice, or the weeds tha

by kolinko 13y ago

Keep in mind that GMO is not just about replacing pesticides, but also about adding other benefits to plants - like in the case of golden rice, or the weeds that glow in the dark.

coldtea 13y ago
Still, even those are performed by "amateur magicians" that don't know and have no way of knowing the long term effects of such additions to the ecosystem -- they just know that short term, they benefit commerce, ie. more money faster. Nature, animal and insect life, is far too chaotic a process involving too many interactions, for them to know what long term effects "weeds that glow in the dark" will have (Let's adopt GMOs! It's from the guys that brought us Thalidomide!). So they mostly experiment in real life, with government regulatory bodies that are easily bought or swayed. (And no, the "overpopulation that needs to be fed" defense that's often used is mostly BS. For one, they could not care less: they patent their work to death and charge a premium for the seeds to poor third world farmers -- as drug companies do with AIDS drugs etc. Second, the main use of those techniques it to make food for the first world, sold to the same people that always had food, have higher profit margins). As for the reason a lot of people in the tech etc community are pro-GMOs, I think it's two-fold: For one, they react to some rather poor arguments from the anti-GMO crowd, that, as any large crowd, also contains ignorant people, neo-hippies, etc. So they throw the baby (caution and scepticism) with the bathwater (ignorant claims). Second, they confuse engineering (including GMO engineering) with science, and think that by defending any random money-grabbing work of engineering they are defending "science" against the ignorant masses. They make an ego conpensating psychological mechanism out of science, like religious people do with religion.
- sampo 13y ago
  > Let's adopt GMOs! It's from the guys that brought us Thalidomide! That it a somewhat cheap shot. Yes, science makes mistakes. But I don't think switching over to the anti-vaccine, homeopathy-supporting type of crowd results in less mistakes.
  - api 13y ago
    I agree with the last point. Even if GMO foods are overhyped and not all they're cracked up to be, many of their opponents are fanatics not worth listening to either.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Surely not. I like science. What I don't like is hastily done applied technology that pretends to be science, but instead of knowledge it caters to money interests and the need for a quick buck. And the people that go "Oh, science was used in the process of creating this, we must defend it" (hint: science was also used in creating cigarettes and high fructose corn syrup). Science is about learning. Those kind of endeavours, like Monstanto, is about locking-down and selling -- and let the future generations sort any bad outcomes out. They can (and do) sidestep scientific rigor, objections, methodological issues, and the need for long term impact studies (and of course, all the ethical and societal issus arising from a company patending seeds themselves) to the maximum extend that regulatory bodies allow them.
- api 13y ago
  > Let's adopt GMOs! It's from the guys that brought us Thalidomide! This is IMHO a really major reason for opposition to GMOs: people do not trust the "establishment" in general anymore. I actually hear someone say once: "if it comes from a big company, it's about fucking you over or taking your money." People have a sense that they are serfs and that overtop of them are a bunch of feudal lords rubbing their hands together and cackling about new ways to impoverish, poison, or otherwise stick a boot in their face. This perception has many bases, but ultimately I think it's an emotional reaction to the contemptuous treatment that the public receives by way of the political class and the PR industry. When you talk "down" to people and treat them like idiots, it foments contempt. This contempt is expressed through distrust and suspicion. And there are certainly people who fit the "cackling feudal monster" stereotype. I don't believe they are in the majority, but there are enough of them to create a bad impression. Keep in mind that human beings give excessive weight to negative examples. If you walk through a neighborhood and someone mugs you, you will forever consign it to a status as a "bad neighborhood" even though 99.99% of the neighborhood's residents would never do that. The same goes for elite deviance. A single Bernie Madoff creates the same perceptive effect as an entire ruling class made up of Bernie Madoffs.
  - sampo 13y ago
    "if it comes from a big company, it's about fucking you over or taking your money." Also e.g. social networks and cell phones come from big companies, but for some reason no one is suggesting to ban the technology that they are based on.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Well, if they patended "talking to your friends" like such big companies patend "seeds for growing vegetables", people would very much suggest it.

by kolinko 13y ago

Keep in mind that GMO is not just about replacing pesticides, but also about adding other benefits to plants - like in the case of golden rice, or the weeds that glow in the dark.

coldtea 13y ago

Still, even those are performed by "amateur magicians" that don't know and have no way of knowing the long term effects of such additions to the ecosystem -- they just know that short term, they benefit commerce, ie. more money faster. Nature, animal and insect life, is far too chaotic a process involving too many interactions, for them to know what long term effects "weeds that glow in the dark" will have (Let's adopt GMOs! It's from the guys that brought us Thalidomide!). So they mostly experiment in real life, with government regulatory bodies that are easily bought or swayed. (And no, the "overpopulation that needs to be fed" defense that's often used is mostly BS. For one, they could not care less: they patent their work to death and charge a premium for the seeds to poor third world farmers -- as drug companies do with AIDS drugs etc. Second, the main use of those techniques it to make food for the first world, sold to the same people that always had food, have higher profit margins). As for the reason a lot of people in the tech etc community are pro-GMOs, I think it's two-fold: For one, they react to some rather poor arguments from the anti-GMO crowd, that, as any large crowd, also contains ignorant people, neo-hippies, etc. So they throw the baby (caution and scepticism) with the bathwater (ignorant claims). Second, they confuse engineering (including GMO engineering) with science, and think that by defending any random money-grabbing work of engineering they are defending "science" against the ignorant masses. They make an ego conpensating psychological mechanism out of science, like religious people do with religion.

sampo 13y ago
> Let's adopt GMOs! It's from the guys that brought us Thalidomide! That it a somewhat cheap shot. Yes, science makes mistakes. But I don't think switching over to the anti-vaccine, homeopathy-supporting type of crowd results in less mistakes.
- api 13y ago
  I agree with the last point. Even if GMO foods are overhyped and not all they're cracked up to be, many of their opponents are fanatics not worth listening to either.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Surely not. I like science. What I don't like is hastily done applied technology that pretends to be science, but instead of knowledge it caters to money interests and the need for a quick buck. And the people that go "Oh, science was used in the process of creating this, we must defend it" (hint: science was also used in creating cigarettes and high fructose corn syrup). Science is about learning. Those kind of endeavours, like Monstanto, is about locking-down and selling -- and let the future generations sort any bad outcomes out. They can (and do) sidestep scientific rigor, objections, methodological issues, and the need for long term impact studies (and of course, all the ethical and societal issus arising from a company patending seeds themselves) to the maximum extend that regulatory bodies allow them.
api 13y ago
> Let's adopt GMOs! It's from the guys that brought us Thalidomide! This is IMHO a really major reason for opposition to GMOs: people do not trust the "establishment" in general anymore. I actually hear someone say once: "if it comes from a big company, it's about fucking you over or taking your money." People have a sense that they are serfs and that overtop of them are a bunch of feudal lords rubbing their hands together and cackling about new ways to impoverish, poison, or otherwise stick a boot in their face. This perception has many bases, but ultimately I think it's an emotional reaction to the contemptuous treatment that the public receives by way of the political class and the PR industry. When you talk "down" to people and treat them like idiots, it foments contempt. This contempt is expressed through distrust and suspicion. And there are certainly people who fit the "cackling feudal monster" stereotype. I don't believe they are in the majority, but there are enough of them to create a bad impression. Keep in mind that human beings give excessive weight to negative examples. If you walk through a neighborhood and someone mugs you, you will forever consign it to a status as a "bad neighborhood" even though 99.99% of the neighborhood's residents would never do that. The same goes for elite deviance. A single Bernie Madoff creates the same perceptive effect as an entire ruling class made up of Bernie Madoffs.
- sampo 13y ago
  "if it comes from a big company, it's about fucking you over or taking your money." Also e.g. social networks and cell phones come from big companies, but for some reason no one is suggesting to ban the technology that they are based on.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Well, if they patended "talking to your friends" like such big companies patend "seeds for growing vegetables", people would very much suggest it.