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Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

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Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#101

Post by sitkack »

tptacek wrote: post #69
dionidium wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this article is as damning as many of the commenters seem to think. - The section addressing the lawsuits includes a lot of "farmers say this" type statements. It's not very long on facts. It even admits that some farmers simply aren't aware of their obligations in many cases. The only case that was actually litigated that I'm aware of is Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser -- a case in which the farmer a…

Feel free to correct me on this, as I'm likely to be wrong. Loosely, the way Monsanto's GMO crop system works is, their crops are designed to resist a specific herbicide, which Monsanto also sells. Farmers pay a per-acre licensing fee to use the system, meaning they plant the GMO crops and then bomb their fields with the herbicide to kill everything but the crop, which improves yield. The fact pattern in these Monsan…

You can buy and use Roundup w/o using their GMO seeds. Using Roundup isn't a sign of malfeasance. I can go by Roundup at Walmart, http://www.walmart.com/ip/Roundup-Weed-Grass-Killer-Concentr... doesn't mean I committed contract fraud with Monsanto.

1) Their seeds spread contaminating other farmer's fields. Once GMO is out in the wild, nothing can be pristine anymore. I wouldn't be surprised to find Monsanto genetics having made its way into humans in 20 years.

2) By "bombing their fields" with herbicide (biocide, you can't make something that only poisons one class of organism like this) AND genetically modifying the crops to be resistent to the biocide you are creating a perfect storm to quickly develop resistent parasites. Now everyone has to use your system, because there is no other way to have a crop survive due to super-bugs.

This is a direct parallel of the SUV insanity. Vast numbers of people drive SUVs because they don't want to be in a car hit by an SUV.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#102

Post by inconditus »

andylei wrote: post #84
kreek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1! If you want to learn more about this watch Food Inc. available on NetFlix streaming. If you have high blood pressure you may want to skip the part where an Indiana man explains how he was sued by Monsanto for inducing farmers to violate patents by seed cleaning - a practice utilized by farmers for thousands of years.

from what i understand, seed cleaning is part of a process to extract seeds from a harvested crop. monsanto did not sue that man for cleaning seeds, they sued that guy because he marketed his services to farmers using monsanto seeds, claiming that those farmers could extract seeds from their harvest to avoid buying more monsanto seeds. however, when you buy seeds from monsanto, you sign an explicit agreement saying t…

Interestingly, this ties in with the music industry. Just as Monsanto "licenses" their seeds, and puts a prohibitive contract with what they can do with it or not, the music industry, DRM, etc.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#103

Post by cickpass_broken »

inmygarage wrote: post #16

For those looking for some background on Monsanto, take the time to read through this Vanity Fair article from 2008: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto... .

Also, here is a very recent article outlining the issues of seed patents and the case between Monsanto and India, http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1087730/how_i...

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#104

Post by inconditus »

sitkack wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to correct me on this, as I'm likely to be wrong. Loosely, the way Monsanto's GMO crop system works is, their crops are designed to resist a specific herbicide, which Monsanto also sells. Farmers pay a per-acre licensing fee to use the system, meaning they plant the GMO crops and then bomb their fields with the herbicide to kill everything but the crop, which improves yield. The fact pattern in these Monsan…

You can buy and use Roundup w/o using their GMO seeds. Using Roundup isn't a sign of malfeasance. I can go by Roundup at Walmart, http://www.walmart.com/ip/Roundup-Weed-Grass-Killer-Concentr... doesn't mean I committed contract fraud with Monsanto. 1) Their seeds spread contaminating other farmer's fields. Once GMO is out in the wild, nothing can be pristine anymore. I wouldn't be surprised to find Monsanto genetics…

> I wouldn't be surprised to find Monsanto genetics having made its way into humans in 20 years.

I don't know if you were joking, but I couldn't take you seriously after that.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#105

Post by WiseWeasel »

pg wrote: post #70
oldstrangers wrote: post #2

Fuck Monsanto, and by association, fuck Cloudant. "We’ve been working with them for a few weeks now and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the partnership." Thrilled? I guess money is thrilling. "The data & reporting interfaces will be used across Monsanto and should be instrumental in the making of key business decisions." Key business decisions like which small farmer to sue into oblivion? Or what third world nation…

It's an unfortunate sign for HN when the top comment on a thread is such a content-free rant. If the rule is, if x sells something to Monsanto, fuck x, then what you're saying is fuck the entire corporate world, because I'm sure Monsanto buys Apple computers and Chevrolets and Clorox too. It's sort of ridiculous to hold Cloudant to a standard that essentially zero other companies meet. There are frequently inane comm…

You won't see Apple, GM or Clorox touting a partnership with Monsanto, as they are aware of the negative impact it would have on their own brand. I think there is a good lesson in this for other companies.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#106

Post by kongqiu »

irrumator wrote: post #88
kongqiu wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an unfortunate sign for everyone that you (and/or Cloudant) wouldn't anticipate this reaction from going into business with Monsanto. As to the "content-free" claim, sometimes a rant is an appropriate reaction. If some YC company partnered with Al Qaida, would we really need to spell out all the heinous things AQ has done before writing, "F- that!"?!? EDIT: And to your "If the rule is, if x sells something to Mo…

Yes, because Hacker News is for civilized, rational discussion. Not '+1 !'s, not analogies to the Nazi regime, not a litany of profanity to a hard-working young startup, and not more hivemind think from Reddit. The kind of hivemind that downvotes any contrary opinion and upvotes the tasteless, content-free posts you see at the top. We can discourse in more substantial words than "F- that!". Multiple '?!?' becoming mo…

There's a place in civilized, rational discussion for ranting.

Let's say you're out with two friends discussing the war on drugs, with all kinds of rational, civilized debate on the science, politics, economics, sociology, etc. Suddenly, one friend declares, "Ok, I understand the risks and potential rewards, and I've decided to start dealing coke." Sure, you can try to calmly talk them out of it, and/or you could do some "ranting." Both would be appropriate.

"Hivemind" indeed.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#107

Post by tptacek »

sitkack wrote: post #101
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to correct me on this, as I'm likely to be wrong. Loosely, the way Monsanto's GMO crop system works is, their crops are designed to resist a specific herbicide, which Monsanto also sells. Farmers pay a per-acre licensing fee to use the system, meaning they plant the GMO crops and then bomb their fields with the herbicide to kill everything but the crop, which improves yield. The fact pattern in these Monsan…

You can buy and use Roundup w/o using their GMO seeds. Using Roundup isn't a sign of malfeasance. I can go by Roundup at Walmart, http://www.walmart.com/ip/Roundup-Weed-Grass-Killer-Concentr... doesn't mean I committed contract fraud with Monsanto. 1) Their seeds spread contaminating other farmer's fields. Once GMO is out in the wild, nothing can be pristine anymore. I wouldn't be surprised to find Monsanto genetics…

Isn't that because it's sometimes useful to kill everything? How does that apply to a farm field, where you need the ability to kill specific plants?

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#108

Post by irrumator »

kongqiu wrote: post #106
irrumator wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because Hacker News is for civilized, rational discussion. Not '+1 !'s, not analogies to the Nazi regime, not a litany of profanity to a hard-working young startup, and not more hivemind think from Reddit. The kind of hivemind that downvotes any contrary opinion and upvotes the tasteless, content-free posts you see at the top. We can discourse in more substantial words than "F- that!". Multiple '?!?' becoming mo…

There's a place in civilized, rational discussion for ranting. Let's say you're out with two friends discussing the war on drugs, with all kinds of rational, civilized debate on the science, politics, economics, sociology, etc. Suddenly, one friend declares, "Ok, I understand the risks and potential rewards, and I've decided to start dealing coke." Sure, you can try to calmly talk them out of it, and/or you could do…

If we can quit the absurd analogies all over this thread for a minute, can you point me to why Monsanto is so evil in your eyes? Other than a Vanity piece, it seems everyone has come to a preconcluded fact that Monsanto is "evil" somehow.

Cloudant is a business, and this is great for their financials, as well as for furthering the research in their tech stack. From reading it, I'm sure many on Hacker News use similar tools that will benefit from the research done by Cloudant.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#109

Post by biznickman »

biznickman wrote: post #96
pg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an unfortunate sign for HN when the top comment on a thread is such a content-free rant. If the rule is, if x sells something to Monsanto, fuck x, then what you're saying is fuck the entire corporate world, because I'm sure Monsanto buys Apple computers and Chevrolets and Clorox too. It's sort of ridiculous to hold Cloudant to a standard that essentially zero other companies meet. There are frequently inane comm…

I agree that the comment is content-free but honestly what did the company expect when they're boasting about their partnership with one of the world's most hated companies? I'm not exactly alarmed to see this comment at the top because it's ridiculous that the company was dumb enough to issue this press release. We all need to pay our bills but to boast about working with a hated company is just a stupid PR move. Ap…

As a follow-on, Paul, based on your standards, "everybody" accepts money from anybody even if they're evil. This is also a policy that YCombinator apparently supports?? I would have preferred to be voting up a post about "Why Cloudera turned down Monsanto's business" to illustrate the fact that they have ethical standards and believe that those are important in business.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#110

Post by famousactress »

andylei wrote: post #37
hysterix wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some high quality propaganda you are spewing out there. Tell me, since you obviously know so much about the worlds current problem with food. Why is it that food production has gone up, yet the number of starving and hungry individuals throughout the world hasn't changed significantly? The answer is there isn't a food abundance problem, there is a food availability problem. People don't grow crops and just giv…

> Why is it that food production has gone up, yet the number of starving and hungry individuals throughout the world hasn't changed significantly? Care to back that up with evidence? The Global hunger index ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hunger_Index ), indicates that hunger has decreased over the past 20 years. Out of the 30 countries with the most hunger, only 3 have more hunger now than 20 years ago. Every…

I'd be curious to see this laid against population.. The numbers might be affected quite literally by survivorship bias.
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