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Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

blog.cloudant.com

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Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#141

Post by white_devil »

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…

Oh boo-hoo. You're not exactly an impartial observer here.

Besides, it's one thing for Apple to manufacture a computer that gets bought by a Monsanto employee somewhere, and another for a YC startup to decide to work with Monsanto and help them with whatever pure evil they're up to next.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#142

Post by carbocation »

tptacek wrote: post #41
carbocation wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those aren't really the major problems that people have with Monsanto. We should start by discussing their lawsuits against farmers because Monsanto grain blew onto their fields and move up from there.

To be fair: farmers weren't simply getting sued for having Roundup-ready crops; they were finding their fields populated with Roundup-ready plants, and then using Roundup on the field . There was an element of getting-something-for-nothing on the farmer's side, too.

I agree with your and dionidium's characterizations. My intent wasn't to paint a one-sided anti-Monsanto picture (although I think I ended up doing that, and alas can't edit my original post at this point), but rather to offer an alternative to temphn's characterization of the public's issues with Monsanto.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#143

Post by seven_stones »

shawndrost wrote: post #95
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... .

For another side of Monsanto's story, see Norman Bourlag's speech commemorating Monsanto's committment to rice and wheat breeding[1]. Norman Bourlag's life work was to develop and distribute high-yield crops. He's a Nobel peace prize winner and is often credited with saving over a billion lives. Monsanto is carrying on his work at a scale he always strived for. People in this field is deeply passionate and morally in…

> Norman Bourlag's life work was to develop and distribute high-yield crops.

Borlaug's work was via selective breeding. He helped countries produce unpatented food at massive scale in order to feed a billion people.

These crops also were productive because they were planted in areas that had not yet been subject to intensive farming methods. The major obstacle with modern farming is NOT the crops, but the soil quality, and depletion of topsoil is a major problem which is only exacerbated by more productive crops.

There's no free lunch -- in order to have a more productive crop, i.e. more output, it has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the agricultural inputs.

Monsanto's attempts to control and patent food, were an IP regime put in place to actually enforce that, would simply instigate a food crisis.

You can't have Big Pharma profits without severe controls on availability.

"Feeding the poor" is a complete smokescreen that is fundamentally incompatible with their business model.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#144

Post by 0x12 »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #123
andylei wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the difference is that right now, you or anyone else in the thread can convincingly list a bunch of bad things they have done. so far, there is not a single convincing (and barely any substantive) comments about the bad things monsanto has done. if you disagree, please, let's discuss why monsanto is, as many here claim, "evil"

I don't have time to get into that discussion, but if you google "the most evil company in the world" you'll see they're fighting it out with De Beers and one or two others for the top spot. There's also plenty on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto They're basically 80s/90s Microsoft at its worst, but in agriculture of both the developed and developing world (the latter being particularly heinous).

Monsanto makes Microsoft look pretty good.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#145

Post by thomasgerbe »

nirvana wrote: post #130
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'm not alarmed because there seems to be two very distinct crowds of people who hang out on hacker news. "Startup people", like yourself, who are across the political spectrum, with probably a disproportionate number of libertarians (as compared to the broader population) and the /r/politics crowd which are very anti-capitalist, anti-innovation, pro-taxes, etc. Some threads attract one crowd and the comments go one…

What does not liking a company for it's past transgressions have anything to do with being anti-capitalist/anti-innovation/pro-taxes?

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#146

Post by 0x12 »

irrumator wrote: post #108
kongqiu wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Posilac.

Schmeiser.

Basmati.

And lots and lots of others.

Really, Monsanto is evil, it has been proven way beyond any doubt. In cloudants position I'm not sure I would have taken the money but I would have never ever sent out this press release.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#147

Post by seven_stones »

tptacek wrote: post #41
carbocation wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those aren't really the major problems that people have with Monsanto. We should start by discussing their lawsuits against farmers because Monsanto grain blew onto their fields and move up from there.

To be fair: farmers weren't simply getting sued for having Roundup-ready crops; they were finding their fields populated with Roundup-ready plants, and then using Roundup on the field . There was an element of getting-something-for-nothing on the farmer's side, too.

> and then using Roundup on the field. There was an element of getting-something-for-nothing

Using RoundUp means more herbicide sales for Monsanto.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#148

Post by klochner »

nirvana wrote: post #130
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'm not alarmed because there seems to be two very distinct crowds of people who hang out on hacker news. "Startup people", like yourself, who are across the political spectrum, with probably a disproportionate number of libertarians (as compared to the broader population) and the /r/politics crowd which are very anti-capitalist, anti-innovation, pro-taxes, etc. Some threads attract one crowd and the comments go one…

Cloudant posted the article which is almost exclusively about the Monsanto partnership.

The ensuing debate logically should be about the partnership rather than the technology.

Flag the article if you don't think it's relevant.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#149

Post by tptacek »

dionidium wrote: post #128
tptacek wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the most famous (only?) case taken to trial, the party accused of breaching Monsanto's IP was in fact using Roundup.

That's more or less true, but irrelevant. From the Wikipedia article linked elsewhere in this conversation: Schmeiser's principal defense at trial was that as he had not applied Roundup herbicide to his canola he had not used the invention. This argument was rejected; the court said that the patent granted for the invention did not specify the use of Roundup as part of the invention, and thus there was no basis for i…

Wait a minute. I just read the Canadian court opinion from which this tiny snippet was extracted. The context you've discarded includes:

* Schmeiser was a former Roundup-ready licensee

* Schmeiser admittedly used Roundup (the herbicide) in numerous circumstances after ceasing to pay licensing fees, which is part of the pattern of circumstances that led Monsanto to sue him

* Schmeiser actually verified, with Roundup, that his "volunteer" Roundup-ready crop was Roundup-ready, and then saved the seeds anyways

* Monsanto had at the time been removing volunteer Roundup-ready canola plants at their own expense from fields where farmers noticed it growing

The context of this specific paragraph also concerns Schmeiser's argument that Monsanto's patent did not apply except in cases where the unauthorized user sprayed crops with Roundup; he wasn't merely trying to exculpate himself, but was also attempting to overturn part of the patent.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#150

Post by cickpass_broken »

viggity wrote: post #117
biznickman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"most hated aspects of the company (genetic manipulation of seeds)" 1. Genetic manipulation of seeds is going to feed the world. And at the rate our population is growing, we're going to need it. 2. They weren't talking about genetic insertions, instead they said "Genome Analysis". Genome analysis helps plant breeders find plants that already have advantageous genes and try to quantify their effect of these genes. 3.…

1. Genetic manipulation by Monsanto has relied on herbicides/pesticides and monocultures. This comes with averse effects and risks. The use of herbicides/pesticides must be reduced. We need pollinators, we need genetic diversity and biodiversity. We must look ahead more than 25 or so years. When it comes to soil fertility and contamination we should be looking ahead 100 years.

2. Is it possible for a group to select and breed their seeds over years, and eventually having a breed that is similar to a patented Monsanto seed?

3. It very well may not be on the most hated.

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