4 ms·

I have noticed a big negative vibe in the HN Community when anti-GMO talk surfaces. People down vote anybody who talks against GMO foods. Even the most respectf

I have noticed a big negative vibe in the HN Community when anti-GMO talk surfaces. People down vote anybody who talks against GMO foods. Even the most respectful and reasonable posts are rebuked.

noipv4 12y ago
HN is a bunch of linear thinking one-dimensional cyborg community
falcolas 12y ago
Well, GMO represents the future of farming, and this is a generally future looking forum. The old method of GMO, that is intentionally controlling pollination to bring out desirable traits once per plant generation, is too slow to support the growing need for food as our population expands. We can't look to the past for a solution for this (well, we could, but personally I'm against starvation and plagues), so I feel that we have little choice but to look forward.
- pdkl95 12y ago
  While selective breeding has been around basically forever, one of the more recent "old methods" to be used was forcing mutation[1]. This involved liberal use of fun things like ethyl methanesulfonate or dimethyl sulfate. When the "atomic" craze happened, using cobalt-60 as a gamma source became popular. What a lot of "anti-GMO" people seem to be missing is that the modern techniques are far less radical and significantly more controlled. At least now we can track the changes we make, which are limited in scope. Nothing is perfect, but I find small, tracked changes far more reassuring than randomly blasting plants with mutagens until you find something interesting. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding ... wow - that wiki page has an interesting claim about "some" so-called "certified orgainc" growers: "...several organic food and seed companies promote and sell certified organic products that were developed using both chemical and nuclear mutagenesis. Several certified organic brands, whose companies support strict labeling or outright bans on GMO-crops, market their use of branded wheat and other varietal strains which were derived from mutagenic processes without any reference to this genetic manipulation..."
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Because anti-GMO is so often scaremongering. Nobody is terrified that every new app on your phone is skynet. Yet every new GMO food is poison. Its just silly.
- tzs 12y ago
  We do worry, though, that new apps might be sending our personal information and movements to advertisers and governments. My worry with GMO is not that EVERY such food will be poison, or even that SOME such food will be poison. It's simply that GMO is a much more powerful tool for modifying organisms than the current tools like selective breeding. More powerful tools allow for greater good, but also allow for greater harm (deliberate or accidental). Thus, more powerful tools require more wisdom to use than do less powerful tools. A great philosopher once observed, "With great power comes great responsibility". I am simply not convinced that mass market food producers have the wisdom to use the great power of GMO with great responsibility. To put it in phone app terms, when GMO shows up in my groceries or in my fast food drive-through take out bag, I want it to have come from an Apple-style market, not an Android-style market.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > It's simply that GMO is a much more powerful tool for modifying organisms than the current tools like selective breeding. Both inherently and due to levels of regulatory scrutiny (which may not be as much as some people like, but is still more than techniques of inducing genetic changes that are classed as "traditional" breeding) it is a much more controlled tool that other current tools like selective breeding. OTOH, I'm not sure its more powerful (in terms of greater potential for change) than modern "selective breeding" techniques; from talking in to people who do work with both GMO and modern selective breeding techniques, I think that a lot of the public impression along those lines is driven by an outdated, romanticized view about "selective breeding".

I have noticed a big negative vibe in the HN Community when anti-GMO talk surfaces. People down vote anybody who talks against GMO foods. Even the most respectful and reasonable posts are rebuked.

noipv4 12y ago

HN is a bunch of linear thinking one-dimensional cyborg community

falcolas 12y ago

Well, GMO represents the future of farming, and this is a generally future looking forum. The old method of GMO, that is intentionally controlling pollination to bring out desirable traits once per plant generation, is too slow to support the growing need for food as our population expands. We can't look to the past for a solution for this (well, we could, but personally I'm against starvation and plagues), so I feel that we have little choice but to look forward.

pdkl95 12y ago
While selective breeding has been around basically forever, one of the more recent "old methods" to be used was forcing mutation[1]. This involved liberal use of fun things like ethyl methanesulfonate or dimethyl sulfate. When the "atomic" craze happened, using cobalt-60 as a gamma source became popular. What a lot of "anti-GMO" people seem to be missing is that the modern techniques are far less radical and significantly more controlled. At least now we can track the changes we make, which are limited in scope. Nothing is perfect, but I find small, tracked changes far more reassuring than randomly blasting plants with mutagens until you find something interesting. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding ... wow - that wiki page has an interesting claim about "some" so-called "certified orgainc" growers: "...several organic food and seed companies promote and sell certified organic products that were developed using both chemical and nuclear mutagenesis. Several certified organic brands, whose companies support strict labeling or outright bans on GMO-crops, market their use of branded wheat and other varietal strains which were derived from mutagenic processes without any reference to this genetic manipulation..."

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Because anti-GMO is so often scaremongering. Nobody is terrified that every new app on your phone is skynet. Yet every new GMO food is poison. Its just silly.

tzs 12y ago
We do worry, though, that new apps might be sending our personal information and movements to advertisers and governments. My worry with GMO is not that EVERY such food will be poison, or even that SOME such food will be poison. It's simply that GMO is a much more powerful tool for modifying organisms than the current tools like selective breeding. More powerful tools allow for greater good, but also allow for greater harm (deliberate or accidental). Thus, more powerful tools require more wisdom to use than do less powerful tools. A great philosopher once observed, "With great power comes great responsibility". I am simply not convinced that mass market food producers have the wisdom to use the great power of GMO with great responsibility. To put it in phone app terms, when GMO shows up in my groceries or in my fast food drive-through take out bag, I want it to have come from an Apple-style market, not an Android-style market.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > It's simply that GMO is a much more powerful tool for modifying organisms than the current tools like selective breeding. Both inherently and due to levels of regulatory scrutiny (which may not be as much as some people like, but is still more than techniques of inducing genetic changes that are classed as "traditional" breeding) it is a much more controlled tool that other current tools like selective breeding. OTOH, I'm not sure its more powerful (in terms of greater potential for change) than modern "selective breeding" techniques; from talking in to people who do work with both GMO and modern selective breeding techniques, I think that a lot of the public impression along those lines is driven by an outdated, romanticized view about "selective breeding".