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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

#191

Post by run4yourlives »

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…

Do you realize that your long winded argument is a giant argumentum ad hominem fallacy?

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#192

Post by sespindola »

Unseelie wrote: post #136
dagw wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RIAA isn't even in the same universe. You can certainly debate how many innocent lives Monsanto's,BP,Halliburton and Xe Services have on their concision, but I think it's safe to say that everybody agrees it's greater than zero. I doubt even the most rabid RIAA hater would try to argue that the RIAA had actual blood on their hands. RIAA fucks some bands out of money and use lawsuits to shake down people on dubious le…

Devil's advocate for a moment, but every way that I'm aware of Monsanto letting people die is essentially an economical one: They ruin people's ability to buy or labor for food...which makes the comparison to the RIAA just one of a different scale. If the RIAA were even better at taking money from people, people would starve. Of course, it makes no sense for the RIAA to starve its working musicians, but the ones who…

Except that if the RIAA could/would actually put a musician out of bussiness, that musician could do another line of work to earn enough money to eat.

What Monsanto is doing, basically, is redisigning crops to work on their behalf. Whenever a crop can develop properly due to the proliferation of roundup resistant weeds, you have to buy the newest crop from them again, wether you like it or not.

Also there is the (theoretical) risk that someday they won't be able to keep up with resistance, which could curtail food supply, and won't make a difference wether you can purchase it or not.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#193

Post by galadriel »

run4yourlives wrote: post #61
dionidium wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supporting Ford is supporting the end of our organic transportation industry. I'm kidding, but it is worth remembering that the word "organic" doesn't contain in it some magical counterargument that requires no further elaboration.

Most people would take "organic" in this context to mean "natural", as in if you plant one seed, you can grow a crop, save some of the harvest and replant the seeds for next year, like we've been doing since we started farming. That is what Monsanto wants to stop.

This is amazingly naive to think that we human have practiced anything close to what you state. From advent of agriculture, the practice has been to mix and match various plant species to get the best produce at lowest cost. We have destroyed huge amount of bio-diversity in the process. For example, of hundreds of banana species that existed, there is now only few, and all bananas are essentially clone of each other.

We have far left behind the days when agriculture was "natural", what ever that word means. The only difference that GM food bring to table is that we can now actively modify genes without taking a guess of what to mix with what.

Hating Monsanto might be understandable, but it only shows how patent system is broken, rather than a group of innovator being evil.

Don't like Monsanto, stop using them. Let them die without profit as no one would buy their stuff. But I guess great motive of money is stopping the "small" farmers from doing that.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#194

Post by sitkack »

tptacek wrote: post #170
sitkack wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor do they have morals or ethics. Only profit.

I just read a bunch of your old comments so I could understand who I'm talking to. You're clearly a pretty smart person. And you've been here for a little while now, so you're presumably somewhat invested in the community on HN. With that in mind, help me understand what you hoped to communicate with this comment. Did you feel like you were maybe pointing out something I hadn't considered? Did you expect a comment li…

I was railing against the idea that business is one thing, and that as long as behavior is not illegal that it is ok. I feel like we are infected with a more virulent form of 1905. Ethics exist everywhere for all time, they don't belong in a free speech zone.

The idea that, business is business. Of course it is, that is a tautology. We both did the snarky comment dance.

I am going to outline an analogous skit, imagine you are at a cocktail party with a bunch of friends and this dude is there and he is funny and charming, but his barbs dig too deep he drinks too much wine and he tries to sow the seeds of discontent between you and your girl friend. You exclaim to your friends that his guy is total narcissistic ass and you want him out. Ahhh they tell you, tptacek, that guy isn't a person, he is a business. He doesn't have to follow the same social norms we do.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#195

Post by protomyth »

aMoniker wrote: post #9
famousactress wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing ethically ambiguous about Monsanto. You'd be hard-pressed to name an organization of any ilk that's actively perpetrating more devastating evil.

Halliburton. What do I win?

In ND, Halliburton is pretty well liked.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#196

Post by pg »

oldstrangers wrote: post #165
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…

No, I'm saying fuck Monsanto, and by association, fuck anyone that celebrates doing business with them. This was one of those little cash cows that Cloudant should have kept to themselves. Any PR person probably could've saw this coming. I'm sure there are many evil corporate dealings in the world that would warrant such a "content-free rant"; however, those companies are smart enough not to celebrate their evil doin…

Any PR person probably could've saw this coming.

The reason this comment thread is a worrying sign for HN is that you didn't use to have to think like a PR person here.

Don't you see that you're insulting yourself by saying that you need to have news spun/censored for you in the way PR firms do? I noticed this in the comments about the recent Airbnb and Dropbox controversies too. People did not seem to grasp the irony of complaining that Airbnb and Dropbox were bad at PR.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#197

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#198

Post by tptacek »

mootothemax wrote: post #185
tptacek wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Isn't that because it's sometimes useful to kill everything? I'm no expert, but my understanding of the problem is that if you attempt to kill everything , you'll end up with a few super-resistant [things] (organisms, bacteria etc.) who'll only increase the problem: http://evoled.dbs.umt.edu/lessons/background.htm Going off on a slight tangent, my personal worry is where we'll be after another 10 years of antibac han…

I was being pretty imprecise there; the point is that Roundup is (again, imprecisely) potent and broad-spectrum. You couldn't just spray it over a normal crop; it would kill the crop along with the weeds.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#199

Post by run4yourlives »

pg wrote: post #190
nirvana wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think there are two separate crowds. I think HN's initial population of smart, mostly apolitical nerds has been diluted by the arrival of a lot of new users who are not as smart, and are thus more excited by shallow controversies. Politics happens to be a big source of shallow controversies. But I don't think most people who upvote comments saying "Fuck Monsanto" do it because they have a deep interest in pol…

> I think HN's initial population of smart, mostly apolitical nerds has been diluted by the arrival of a lot of new users who are not as smart, and are thus more excited by shallow controversies.

Or: I disagree with you, therefore you are dumb.

Outstanding.

I up-voted the parent comment. I have been here for years. I consider myself to be a free market supporting, fiscally conservative and independent thinker.

I have major issues with the methods Monsanto uses to conduct itself in the marketplace. In everything from the products they produce, their influence of the legal and regulatory systems, their seeming inability to factor in a basic responsibility to those that consume their products and even the way they distribute the surpluses in their pension funds (i.e. they steal them, when allowed).

I believe they act this way mainly due to a void of ethical behaviour at their highest levels, and because of this, I will look at them, and individuals that fail to recognize these actions as being a problem with a certain level of suspicion.

If you think I am not as smart as you because of this so be it.

Re: Monsanto chooses Cloudant to power its genome analytics

#200

Post by no_no_procrast »

pg wrote: post #190
nirvana wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think there are two separate crowds. I think HN's initial population of smart, mostly apolitical nerds has been diluted by the arrival of a lot of new users who are not as smart, and are thus more excited by shallow controversies. Politics happens to be a big source of shallow controversies. But I don't think most people who upvote comments saying "Fuck Monsanto" do it because they have a deep interest in pol…

> They [upvote] because they're dumb. It's the shape of this sort of idea that excites them, not its content.

The first part is a fundamental attribution error. The second part definitely plays a role, but don't think it's the primary cause. You can probably do the analysis on the votes, but I'd be surprised if the majority of the votes come from young accounts. I think it's much more likely that political topics are popular because the political climate changed so much in the US, especially for young people.

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