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Atomic Gardening

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Re: Atomic Gardening

#51

Post by theptip »

pfdietz wrote: post #45
wefarrell wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMO plants are modified to make them more difficult to propagate and produce seeds, in order to protect intellectual property. The ecological consequences of those variations being released into the wild is devastating and has adversely affected farmers who do not grow GMOs.

> GMO plants are modified to make them more difficult to propagate and produce seeds Can you name a single commercially available GMO that has this property, aside from being a hybrid (hybrids don't breed true, but that's because they're hybrids, not because they're GMOs)? It is my understanding that there's no real need for any such technology anyway, as legal protection suffices.

I thought this was common knowledge, but I looked for a citation and couldn’t find one.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/dupont-to-pick-up-wher... suggests that roundup-ready soy seeds are viable. So perhaps they rely solely on IP for protection.

Re: Atomic Gardening

#52

Post by DominoTree »

SigmundA wrote: post #33
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in your boat. Gene's are letters in a story. To say "That's a salmon gene! It doesn't belong in my tomato!" is puzzling, like "That letter belongs to another book! Keep it out of this book!" Anyway, good ol' paleo food was whatever nature provided, most of what was happy to kill you. Humans tamed 1000's of plants over 50,000 years changing them beyond recognition so they wouldn't hurt us with alkalis and poisons.…

Since I share at least 60% of the DNA with about anything I eat I don't worry too much about mixing one organism with another genetically bad things can happen mixing close relatives or distant ones and I am not sure one poses a higher risk than the other.

DNA is DNA, be it fragments or full genes, and regardless of the sequence, our bodies are pretty damn good at breaking down DNA we eat without directly incorporating it into our genomes.

Would be pretty interesting if that weren't the case though; quite literally "you are what you eat."

Re: Atomic Gardening

#53

Post by mahogany »

theptip wrote: post #37
mahogany wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It always amuses me to find that people are against GMO foods yet almost everything we eat is GMO depending on how you define it. > Almost every crop and livestock has been genetically modified through selective breeding (domestication). I agree with your broader point that much of what we eat is GMO. But isn't selective breeding a categorically different process of modifying an organism? My understanding is that s…

It’s interesting to read Greenpeace and other environmental groups’ writings to see what they are objecting to. It seems they are primarily concerned about two types of issue; one is why I’d call “safety”: gene transfer/escape into wild species, unintended ecological consequences, human safety of consuming GM plants. Tho other group is around “licensing”: essentially a deep concern about going down a path where plant…

> 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.

Re: Atomic Gardening

#54

Post by pfdietz »

theptip wrote: post #51
pfdietz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GMO plants are modified to make them more difficult to propagate and produce seeds Can you name a single commercially available GMO that has this property, aside from being a hybrid (hybrids don't breed true, but that's because they're hybrids, not because they're GMOs)? It is my understanding that there's no real need for any such technology anyway, as legal protection suffices.

I thought this was common knowledge, but I looked for a citation and couldn’t find one. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/dupont-to-pick-up-wher... suggests that roundup-ready soy seeds are viable. So perhaps they rely solely on IP for protection.

I think if you drill down on many (all?) anti-GMO arguments you will find the evidence for them really isn't there. It's remarkable how the whole ideological edifice is built on nothing.

Re: Atomic Gardening

#55

Post by theptip »

pfdietz wrote: post #46
theptip wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting to read Greenpeace and other environmental groups’ writings to see what they are objecting to. It seems they are primarily concerned about two types of issue; one is why I’d call “safety”: gene transfer/escape into wild species, unintended ecological consequences, human safety of consuming GM plants. Tho other group is around “licensing”: essentially a deep concern about going down a path where plant…

The argument against IP protection for GMOs makes no sense to me at all. If there were ever a technology for which IP protection was appropriate, it's this one. The plants literally manufacture themselves, so if the IP wasn't protected the investment in the creation of the variety could not be recouped. There would be one season of sales then the market would be gone.

I think it’s immensely problematic that a seed can fall in your farm, and you can be sued for illegally growing Monsanto’s IP. More generally I think it’s a bad societal outcome for one company to use IP laws to monopolize the food production economy. I think allowing this will lead to a much less robust society.

I’m all for free markets for most markets, but things get very bad if people don’t have food. So I think there is a good case for the government funding research and open-sourcing the work here, and also potentially restricting eligibility of patents in this area too.

I think your argument is sound in a free-market maximalist / small-government libertarian framework, I’m just less convinced that the current IP framework produces good results in this case.

Re: Atomic Gardening

#57

Post by pfdietz »

theptip wrote: post #55
pfdietz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument against IP protection for GMOs makes no sense to me at all. If there were ever a technology for which IP protection was appropriate, it's this one. The plants literally manufacture themselves, so if the IP wasn't protected the investment in the creation of the variety could not be recouped. There would be one season of sales then the market would be gone.

I think it’s immensely problematic that a seed can fall in your farm, and you can be sued for illegally growing Monsanto’s IP. More generally I think it’s a bad societal outcome for one company to use IP laws to monopolize the food production economy. I think allowing this will lead to a much less robust society. I’m all for free markets for most markets, but things get very bad if people don’t have food. So I think…

That scare scenario has never occurred, and it's legally doubtful that any such lawsuit by someone like Monsanto could succeed. Monsanto itself explicitly said it would never sue anyone for accidental contamination.

What Monsanto DID do was sue someone whose field was contaminated, and who then repeatedly sprayed the field with glyphosate to kill all but the GMO plants, so he could selectively concentrate the interlopers to continue to propagate. It's this last step that got the farmer in trouble.

> but things get very bad if people don’t have food

GMO IP protection does nothing to prevent farmers from continuing to grow previously existing varieties. So this is another scare argument without foundation.

> I think your argument is sound in a free-market maximalist / small-government libertarian framework, I’m just less convinced that the current IP framework produces good results in this case.

I think the anti-IP argument is an underhanded way to try to ban GMOs without actually saying you want to do that.

Re: Atomic Gardening

#58

Post by theptip »

pfdietz wrote: post #57
theptip wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s immensely problematic that a seed can fall in your farm, and you can be sued for illegally growing Monsanto’s IP. More generally I think it’s a bad societal outcome for one company to use IP laws to monopolize the food production economy. I think allowing this will lead to a much less robust society. I’m all for free markets for most markets, but things get very bad if people don’t have food. So I think…

That scare scenario has never occurred, and it's legally doubtful that any such lawsuit by someone like Monsanto could succeed. Monsanto itself explicitly said it would never sue anyone for accidental contamination. What Monsanto DID do was sue someone whose field was contaminated, and who then repeatedly sprayed the field with glyphosate to kill all but the GMO plants, so he could selectively concentrate the interlo…

I don’t think you’re engaging with me in good faith here. I’m making my own case, and clearly; I’m not trying to make an underhanded other point.

I’ll tap out here. Have a nice day.

Re: Atomic Gardening

#59

Post by ashwal »

Asparagirl wrote: post #24

Even today, within what could be called the “fancy houseplant” community of garden enthusiasts, we hear stories about Indonesian farmers purposely and repeatedly putting houseplants through airport X-Ray machines to try to induce variegation in their offspring. There are also plants like the Pink Congo, where growers use ethylene gas and auxin hormones to temporarily create pink foliage: https://www.wired.com/story/p…

Where does the fancy houseplant community hangout on the internet? I’m intrigued

Re: Atomic Gardening

#60

Post by pfdietz »

theptip wrote: post #58
pfdietz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That scare scenario has never occurred, and it's legally doubtful that any such lawsuit by someone like Monsanto could succeed. Monsanto itself explicitly said it would never sue anyone for accidental contamination. What Monsanto DID do was sue someone whose field was contaminated, and who then repeatedly sprayed the field with glyphosate to kill all but the GMO plants, so he could selectively concentrate the interlo…

I don’t think you’re engaging with me in good faith here. I’m making my own case, and clearly; I’m not trying to make an underhanded other point. I’ll tap out here. Have a nice day.

I view the entire anti-GMO position as being not in good faith, so I have little patience when those making the anti-GMO arguments trot out the same well-debunked (or a priori nonsensical) talking points.
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