5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion • Hacker News Board

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#121

Post by gurkendoktor » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 3:44 PM UTC

cschmidt wrote: post #93

Create wrote: post #31

"On May 10, the Summer Olympics were inaugurated at the Greek birthplace of the ancient games. A few days before, virtually unnoticed, the government of Vietnam addressed a letter to the International Olympic Committee expressing the "profound concerns of the Government and people of Viet Nam about the decision of IOC to accept the Dow Chemical Company as a global partner sponsoring the Olympic Movement." Dow provide…

What on earth does this have to do with the original post? I don't think propaganda from Noam Chomsky has any place on HN. I don't agree with a single sentence. The original post seemed very biased in an anti-business way, and this is even worse. Dow made Agent Orange at the request of the US military decades ago. Are they supposed to be considered evil because of that? Union Carbide clearly screwed up in a huge way…

I agree that this isn't directly related to the OP, but:

> Dow made Agent Orange at the request of the US military decades ago. Are they supposed to be considered evil because of that?

If you observe how even passing information to the gov't is condemned on HN, this almost seems like a rhethorical question.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#122

Post by elemenohpee » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 3:48 PM UTC

planetguy wrote: post #107

jackalope wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your bulls raid my pasture and attack and rape my cows, I might shoot them and even have a barbecue. There's no reason I can't raise the calves as my own. Who cares what Schmeiser did to the plants GROWING ON HIS OWN LAND? Why must he explain his reasons to anyone for dealing with a predatory invader?

Who cares what Schmeiser did to the plants GROWING ON HIS OWN LAND? Why must he explain his reasons to anyone for dealing with a predatory invader? Analogy: someone accidentally drops a backpack containing DVDs in my front yard. Am I now licensed to make and sell copies of the content on those DVDs? Anyway, your argument is with the Canadian Supreme Court, not with Monsanto.

The difference is that DVDs do not make copies of themselves. Schmeiser simply used the seeds that ended up on his land (as far as I know, I don't know all the details of the case). Wouldn't the analogy then be, should you be able to watch the DVDs that ended up in your front yard?

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#123

Post by lukeschlather » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 3:58 PM UTC

planetguy wrote: post #107

jackalope wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your bulls raid my pasture and attack and rape my cows, I might shoot them and even have a barbecue. There's no reason I can't raise the calves as my own. Who cares what Schmeiser did to the plants GROWING ON HIS OWN LAND? Why must he explain his reasons to anyone for dealing with a predatory invader?

Who cares what Schmeiser did to the plants GROWING ON HIS OWN LAND? Why must he explain his reasons to anyone for dealing with a predatory invader? Analogy: someone accidentally drops a backpack containing DVDs in my front yard. Am I now licensed to make and sell copies of the content on those DVDs? Anyway, your argument is with the Canadian Supreme Court, not with Monsanto.

That's a deliberately flawed analogy. You don't copy the DVDs. The DVDs copy themselves, using your land and resources to do so.

This is more like somebody "accidentally" setting up a DVD pressing factory on your property. You quietly let the factory owner continue pressing DVDs (using your electricity no less) and sell the DVDs yourself when they're ready. It's all on your property, the factory owner is trespassing and I don't see how the factory owner can claim a right to the pressed DVDs. (Don't build automated self-reproducing things that you want to claim patents on, even when they're stealing other people's resources.)

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#124

Post by astrodust » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 3:59 PM UTC

crikli wrote: post #29

The claims made in this article, Food Inc., and other pieces of agitprop are not based in reality. I'm part of a fifth generation farm family. We've been working the same ground for over 100 years (that's sustainability in practice) and I'm here to tell you that nobody is killing themselves. Especially with $6 corn. Monsanto is not the enemy of the family farm. I'll elaborate when I have more time and a device other…

A hundred years is a sliver of time compared to how long agriculture has been going on. People live a hundred years and nobody would argue they're "sustainable" in any sense. You might be doing it right. You might be making a total mess of things but it'll take another fifty years before it collapses. Only time will tell.

How dependent are you on fossil fuels? How well would you fare as a farmer if you had no access to chemical fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, or any sort of gasoline powered equipment?

How much would corn cost if the completely insane policy of diverting large amounts of it to ethanol production?

The people that are killing themselves are largely in India where there is an entirely different market.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#125

Post by mcantelon » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 4:01 PM UTC

crikli wrote: post #29

The claims made in this article, Food Inc., and other pieces of agitprop are not based in reality. I'm part of a fifth generation farm family. We've been working the same ground for over 100 years (that's sustainability in practice) and I'm here to tell you that nobody is killing themselves. Especially with $6 corn. Monsanto is not the enemy of the family farm. I'll elaborate when I have more time and a device other…

>nobody is killing themselves

Nobody in the US you mean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Farmer_suicides

Creating a monopoly on something naturally abundant (seed) is a part of Monsanto's long-term vision and a seed monopoly will make them a powerful political force in the world. The power to manage regional population by controlling seed supply has great military value.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#126

Post by JPKab » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 4:03 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #80

Create wrote: post #31

"On May 10, the Summer Olympics were inaugurated at the Greek birthplace of the ancient games. A few days before, virtually unnoticed, the government of Vietnam addressed a letter to the International Olympic Committee expressing the "profound concerns of the Government and people of Viet Nam about the decision of IOC to accept the Dow Chemical Company as a global partner sponsoring the Olympic Movement." Dow provide…

Wikileaks revealed that Dow hired the U.S. private investigative agency Stratfor to monitor activists seeking compensation This is the kind of inflammatory reporting that creates divisiveness rather than informing people. I don't doubt that Dow hired Stratfor. But isn't that exactly what a responsible corporation ought to do? Knowing that they've got some potential exposure to huge legal losses, they owe it to their…

Krugman's science is economics. Economics is pretty much the pinnacle of politics intersecting with science. His view on the science is that the Keynesian model is correct, and he sees an entire political party which has embraced the Austrian model which most economists disagree with. This is why he writes passionately in support of government spending during times of recession/depression. He argues, correctly in my opinion, that we are in a depression due to a collective debt paydown period, which is actually a healthy activity by itself, but in a collective form can wreak havoc on an economy.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#127

Post by deepGem » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 4:03 PM UTC

One of the farmers around Portland had complained that Monsanto had dispersed a few GM seeds in his farm and later sued him claiming royalties. Of course, he couldn't prove that Monsanto deliberately polluted his field with their seeds and lost the case. If there's a company that I'd like to see burned to the ground, it's Monsanto. Fucking dictators.

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#128

Post by cschmidt » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 4:06 PM UTC

gurkendoktor wrote: post #121

cschmidt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth does this have to do with the original post? I don't think propaganda from Noam Chomsky has any place on HN. I don't agree with a single sentence. The original post seemed very biased in an anti-business way, and this is even worse. Dow made Agent Orange at the request of the US military decades ago. Are they supposed to be considered evil because of that? Union Carbide clearly screwed up in a huge way…

I agree that this isn't directly related to the OP, but: > Dow made Agent Orange at the request of the US military decades ago. Are they supposed to be considered evil because of that? If you observe how even passing information to the gov't is condemned on HN, this almost seems like a rhethorical question.

[Edit: parent said he felt Dow was unethical, and then edited it to the statement above. That's what I was responding to.]

I agree completely that businesses must act in an ethical way. However, I don't feel that Dow was unethical. The wiki pages on this are very one sided, making it appear an open and shut case. Dow disagrees, and I've heard that from toxicologists that I knew and respected personally.

To quote from http://www.dow.com/sustainability/debates/agentorange/

____________________

Agent Orange

The jungles of South Vietnam were ideally suited for providing enemy cover for the guerilla tactics employed by troops battling South Vietnamese, American, and other allied forces during the Vietnam War. To offset ambush attacks and protect allied forces, the U.S. military sought to defoliate combat areas by developing and using the herbicide Agent Orange. U.S. military research developed Agent Orange, and the product was formulated based on exacting military specifications.

Companies supplying Agent Orange to the government included The Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto Company, Hercules Inc., Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Company, Uniroyal Inc., Thompson Chemical and T-H Agriculture and Nutrition Company.

Public concern over Agent Orange has centered not over the product itself, but an unavoidable by-product that was present in only trace levels of one of the product's ingredients. The unavoidable trace by-product was the dioxin compound 2,3,7,8-TCDD.

Dow's Position

As a nation at war, the U.S. government compelled a number of companies to produce Agent Orange under the Defense Production Act. The government specified how it would be produced and controlled its use.

The scientific investigation on Agent Orange has gone on since the Vietnam War and continues today. There have been extensive epidemiological studies of those veterans most exposed to Agent Orange. Today, the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn't show that Agent Orange caused veteran's illnesses.

___________________

You are of course free to disagree with me, and Dow. However, this is such a political topic it boggles my mind we are discussing this on Hacker News. So how do you feel about Mitt Romney's chances, while we're at it?

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#129

Post by randomdata » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #40

crikli wrote: post #29

The claims made in this article, Food Inc., and other pieces of agitprop are not based in reality. I'm part of a fifth generation farm family. We've been working the same ground for over 100 years (that's sustainability in practice) and I'm here to tell you that nobody is killing themselves. Especially with $6 corn. Monsanto is not the enemy of the family farm. I'll elaborate when I have more time and a device other…

Nobody is killing themselves because you're being subsidized by the American taxpayer to grow lots of corn. Monsanto is a nasty corporation, but their nastiness is fueled by government policy that allows them to leverage patents and practices to make a commodity product like corn as profitable to them as pharmaceuticals are to Genentech or AstraZenica. It's great for you now, and results in cheap food prices for the…

The $6 quoted is the current market price (give or take a few cents) for old crop corn, sans subsidies. That is historically high, by a large margin. I think most would consider that to be quite the opposite of cheap.

I will add that as a seventh generation farmer in Canada, where we have no real subsidies, we still grow just as much corn. It is a core part of our crop rotation, and even when it is a money loser, we still pretty much have to grow it at some point – you can get away with not growing it for a rotation or two, but it will catch up with you eventually.

I assume the same is true for Americans in the corn belt. How much of a factor do the subsidies really play in those decisions, or is it just a part of their normal crop rotation (with the added benefit of not having the big losses we often have to deal with here)?

Re: 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion

#130

Post by Zak » Thu, Jun 07, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

jackalope wrote: post #79

skosuri wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is his claim. It doesn't make much sense. Why would he spray his entire crop with roundup? Even if it were true, he still knowingly was getting RoundUp Ready seeds to avoid paying Monsanto. That's somewhat like saying: "I found this copy of adobe photoshop on this used computer.. I copied it and sold it; since i didn't originally purchase it, I'm not responsible." A quote from the Canadian Supreme Court: "Mr. Sc…

If your bulls raid my pasture and attack and rape my cows, I might shoot them and even have a barbecue. There's no reason I can't raise the calves as my own. Who cares what Schmeiser did to the plants GROWING ON HIS OWN LAND? Why must he explain his reasons to anyone for dealing with a predatory invader?

I think a better analogy might be a beneficial computer virus.

Let's say you write a virus that uses patented technology to remove malware, defragment the drives, reorganize the registry and whatever else a Windows machine needs to run well these days. It infects some of my company's computers, and I notice that they're running well. I direct the IT department to wipe all machines that aren't running well, and leave the ones that are alone.

Can you now sue me for royalties?