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Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

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Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#101

Post by genwin »

smsm42 wrote: post #97
brent_noorda wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think genwin's point is that we humans behave very stupidly whenever we find an innovation that allows for exponentially more of anything. We behave as if that massive growth will continue forever, and it never does, and usually leads to a crash worse than the solution. So if a new invention allows us to feed all 7 billion of us comfortably, instead of just feeding 7 billion of us comfortably we'll instead create 1…

I do not see factual basis for this claim - how Green revolution led to a crash that is worse than the solution? How modern medicine led to a crash? So far all malthusian prophecies had been reliably wrong. You can claim that sometime in the future it may happen that they still will be true - I can not really disprove that. But you can not say "it never does" - because so far it actually always did.

See how long you can keep borrowing money. Pay off each credit card with a new credit card. You don't need to witness the crash to know that the future is bleak.

There is plenty of factual basis to the claim that we're borrowing against our future to feed the current population.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#102

Post by cantos »

blhack wrote: post #45
sigzero wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought there was pretty much a whole movie (Food Inc) documenting that very thing (i.e. cross contamination). Please don't try and say that the hatred going towards Monsanto isn't deserved because it most assuredly is. http://www.damemagazine.com/2013/04/03/monsanto-six-truths-a...

Link to it. There are lots of movies saying lots of things. I'll make you a documentary implying how ASU eats babies if you want me to. That doesn't make it correct. (ASU because it's across the street from my house)

Here's a transcript

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/food-inc-script...

Several people in the farm industry are interviewed. Their statements are not questioned or further investigated by the filmmakers.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#103

Post by jjm »

smsm42 wrote: post #74
jjm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 For me I just want choice (at the super-market). Choice to not choose GMO, until there is more than enough evidence and discussion around the topic. Maybe you feel there is enough evidence, but I want more. I do not want said firm to 'force' me into eating their product just yet. This is my due diligence on the one life I live.

Why not go full scale and demand choice of not using the fruits of scary science at all? Demand every store to carry the products made of wild plants and hunted down wild animals only, with no products of selection (aka "genetically modified") at all? Why would mega-corporations force you to eat modern wheat, whose yields and chemical composition was completely modified by the corporate puppetmasters and whose produc…

That is extreme.

If there is an alternative organic I buy it.

This is good enough for me and I also buy a lot from my local organic farmer.

I don't have to go to the extremes you mention, at all.

When I walk into a super market I just want choice.

Do I choose 100% non gmo? Most likely not, but I will if I had a choice.

Again, you might want to not associate that extremism with simple rational choice.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#104

Post by smsm42 »

genwin wrote: post #101
smsm42 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not see factual basis for this claim - how Green revolution led to a crash that is worse than the solution? How modern medicine led to a crash? So far all malthusian prophecies had been reliably wrong. You can claim that sometime in the future it may happen that they still will be true - I can not really disprove that. But you can not say "it never does" - because so far it actually always did.

See how long you can keep borrowing money. Pay off each credit card with a new credit card. You don't need to witness the crash to know that the future is bleak. There is plenty of factual basis to the claim that we're borrowing against our future to feed the current population.

To "know" the future is bleak you have to be a prophet, since knowledge of the future is not available to mere humans, only assumptions about what might happen in the future. However, the fact that you claim something always happens and yet it never happened makes the claim a bit doubtful.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#105

Post by genwin »

smsm42 wrote: post #104
genwin wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See how long you can keep borrowing money. Pay off each credit card with a new credit card. You don't need to witness the crash to know that the future is bleak. There is plenty of factual basis to the claim that we're borrowing against our future to feed the current population.

To "know" the future is bleak you have to be a prophet, since knowledge of the future is not available to mere humans, only assumptions about what might happen in the future. However, the fact that you claim something always happens and yet it never happened makes the claim a bit doubtful.

Yes, we can't know that something bad will happen when we jump off a cliff. If during the fall someone claims that something bad always happens at the bottom and yet it hasn't happened, the claim is doubtful.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#106

Post by mpyne »

arebop wrote: post #93
mpyne wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What system of IP protections would be suitable to allow private industry to subsidize the expense of developing genetically-modified foods that are able to be planted over and over again after the first purchase? I suspect it will at least resemble patent protection, which at least does eventually end. It's a very old problem, with parallels with Unix (as I understand it you could duplicate the install media after p…

If genetics and biotech knowledge is a public good, then one alternative to IP would be to let the public i.e. governments fund the development of this knowledge. I agree that buying seeds yearly seems pretty practical to me too, but alternatives are imaginable.

I do agree that both would and should be public goods, but on the other hand I am all too familiar with the inefficiency of government in actually overseeing projects like this, and that's not counting the very large pool of people who oppose government involvement in this kind of thing anyways.

But I wonder why that wouldn't work in Europe... it seems Germany, France, even Hungary and other EU nations could combine to beat Monsanto at their own game... of course, U.S. farmers would then just use those seeds if they ended up being really good and so the EU would have subsidized the U.S.'s development on that. As long as that's acceptable to the EU that could certainly work though.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#107

Post by mpyne »

Anonazon wrote: post #6
marknutter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, though, is that people are incorrectly assuming the opposition to GMO is related to health concerns.

The problem with this statement is it is assuming that there are no health concerns.

To be honest this whole "debate" reminds me more of the popular antivax movement than anything else.

I suppose I can understand Europe's arch-conservatism regarding food products after the thalidomide disaster, but I would certainly prefer to see actual evidence of harm from genetically-modified food, or even a plausible explanation of why a given GM food could cause injury and not just FUD FUD FUD.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#108

Post by nitrogen »

jrkelly wrote: post #41
manmal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unprecedented potential to save billions of lives Potential, yes; but not with massive financial interests behind it. In a world where shiploads of wheat are held back in order to game the wheat market, things need to change before GMOs can cure 3rd world hunger. I've read that GMOs have to be bought anew for every season because the harvested crops can't be used as seeds. Is that actually true?

Buying new seeds every season began with hybrid crops in the 1920s. "Today, hybrid seed production is predominant in agriculture and home gardening, and is one of the main contributing factors to the dramatic rise in agricultural output during the last half of the 20th century. In the US, the commercial market was launched in the 1920s, with the first hybrid maize. All of the hybrid seeds planted by the farmer will b…

But at least you still have the option of accepting the mixed results of replanting hybrid seeds.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#109

Post by nitrogen »

smsm42 wrote: post #67
genwin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. See "The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops" at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genoc...

This article commits journalistic fraud - it attributes the fact that crops failed due to pests (which can happen to any crop, GM or not) solely to the fact that the crops were GM, and making a false impression that suicides were caused not by crop failures but by the fact that the crops were GM. They imply that "after" means "because", and that's the fraud. Of course, even GM crops can not protect from all causes of…

I seem to recall seeing claims that GM cotton was more susceptible to certain pests, especially if you didn't spray it with the pesticide produced by the manufacturer of the seeds.

Re: Monsanto gives up fight for genetically modified plants in Europe

#110

Post by DanBC »

mpyne wrote: post #107
Anonazon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this statement is it is assuming that there are no health concerns.

To be honest this whole "debate" reminds me more of the popular antivax movement than anything else. I suppose I can understand Europe's arch-conservatism regarding food products after the thalidomide disaster, but I would certainly prefer to see actual evidence of harm from genetically-modified food, or even a plausible explanation of why a given GM food could cause injury and not just FUD FUD FUD.

You're correct that a lot of the anti-GMO side are spouting alarmist nonsense.

But that doesn't matter. The reason we're careful about GMO technology is that there is a reasonable mechanism whereby harm may be the result.

We thus require careful testing and good quality science before allowing these technologies.

Unfortunately, politicians are often in the chain of "people granting permission", and many of them are stupid and ignorant and not interested in science.

You ask for a plausible mechanism for harm, but you also mention thalidomide. Thalidomide is a great example of unknown unknowns - we didn't know that chirality was important, and it was only after many birth defects that we found out.

So maybe there's something we don't know with GMOs, and we don't know that we don't know it so we can't reassure ourselves about it. We can do as much as we can to rule out those unknowns, and to reassure ourselves about the knowns.

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