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Rejecting GMOs hinders human progress and keeps the poor hungry

theupwing.com

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Re: Rejecting GMOs hinders human progress and keeps the poor hungry

#41

Post by johnea »

As with almost all things, it's not really to have it, or not. It's a matter of how much, and in what way.

The overwhelming majority of GMO crops are modified to allow the increased use of "round up" type pesticides. More pesticides = not good.

Examples of other modifications include "golden rice".

It is sad that all of this gets rolled into one thing, since it's not. And I was not in favor of the Greenpeace campaigning to prohibit golden rice propgation.

But using this greenpeace mistake as an argument for all GMO crops is also a mistake.

The really sad thing is that the human primate is so bound to binary logic that actual good decisions are almost impossible to reach...

Re: Rejecting GMOs hinders human progress and keeps the poor hungry

#42

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #40
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely anecdotal but still legit question: why the organic version of a product is usually more tasty?

This is a purely anecdotal response so I don't think anyone should draw big conclusions from my answer. In my experience, the farms and outlets that adhere to organic labeling tend to care more about the quality of the product. Obviously in theory, being organic is orthogonal to being tasty. But if you're going for "air-chilled, organic, free range chicken breast" you're probably just shopping for a tastier product t…

Thank you, I suspected something along those lines because the reality in the mind of the consumer organic = tastier product, so in a certain way companies aiming for organic are aiming to appear "tastier"

Re: Rejecting GMOs hinders human progress and keeps the poor hungry

#43

Post by michelsedgh »

mandmandam wrote: post #12
michelsedgh wrote: post #10

This is whats wrong with articles. You can never know the motive behind them. There’s no way this article is actually written organically and the big corps aren’t paying them to write this. There should be some regulation stopping this. Basically any company with money can now spread their own propoganda.

Agreed. This particular piece is hot garbage, and the entire operation has many hallmarks of astroturf.

It’s not just this, you search about anything on google, any subjects there’s hundreds like this. You search if eggs are good you get hundreds saying how they’re great for you and if search if eggs are bad you get another hundred. It’s becoming impossible to be able to sort from good and bad articles. Even the research behind them many times can be paid by the corps. This is not good. There has to be a mechanism that changes this.

Re: Rejecting GMOs hinders human progress and keeps the poor hungry

#44

Post by Turing_Machine »

raptorraver wrote: post #26
danpalmer wrote: post #4

Rejection of GMOs and rejection of large corporations controlling food sources, are different issues that are completely tied up in each other. Most of the problems with GMOs are problems with the patenting of crops, suing farmers for ridiculous reasons. The rest of the problems are people screaming "but the chemicals!" with no real scientific basis. We definitely need more GMO crops to feed the planet. We most likel…

We already produce way more food than is needed to feed the all the people in the world. It's not about the amount of production but how we distribute the food and what are the intensives when doing that. Giving more power to ag-corporations haven't worked past 30 years and I have no reason to believe it will in the future.

> Giving more power to ag-corporations haven't worked past 30 years

On the contrary. World hunger has declined dramatically ever since the dawn of the industrial revolution, due almost entirely to large-scale mechanized agriculture and modern plant breeding.

It did take a jump in the last few years, but that was due to the pandemic, not a failure of agriculture.

Pretty much the only thing that can produce famine nowadays is war or a completely fucked-up government (sometimes war and a completely fucked-up government). Again, that's not the fault of modern agriculture.

We aren't going to go back to a world where guys with shovels and buckets of manure produce all the food. For one, they couldn't possibly produce enough food for the current population. For another, the "guy with shovel and bucket of manure" model was dependent on the guys being some type of unfree labor (serfs or outright slaves).

I like living in a world where 90% of the human race isn't digging turnips by hand, with an overseer standing nearby with a whip.

Re: Rejecting GMOs hinders human progress and keeps the poor hungry

#45

Post by Turing_Machine »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #39
danpalmer wrote: post #4

Rejection of GMOs and rejection of large corporations controlling food sources, are different issues that are completely tied up in each other. Most of the problems with GMOs are problems with the patenting of crops, suing farmers for ridiculous reasons. The rest of the problems are people screaming "but the chemicals!" with no real scientific basis. We definitely need more GMO crops to feed the planet. We most likel…

Completely anecdotal but still legit question: why the organic version of a product is usually more tasty?

Typically because they're varieties that need a lot of hand-babying, which the higher prices of organic foods can support. The cheap stuff consists of varieties bred for productivity and shipping ruggedness.

That's fine if you're privileged enough to afford the organic stuff. Not so much if you're a poor person in need of raw calories.

Re: Rejecting GMOs hinders human progress and keeps the poor hungry

#46

Post by Kuinox »

moi2388 wrote: post #38
Kuinox wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you have against GMO like the golden rice ? None of what you listed applies to it, yet your statements harms GMO like golden rice.

Yes, general statements never (almost never? :p) deal with all edge cases. Did you know they don’t need a patent on the crop? They can file patents on variations of the genes in question, meaning even other variations can be protected under patent laws. I guess it would be more honest to say I think there are other, more pressing matters in agriculture than GMOs, and that I have serious problems with patents on basic…

Crops patents is not specific to GMO. Calling the golden rice an edge case is showing you are unaware of all the GMO used to solve locals problems, that is a net benefit for the human and reduce the agriculture impact.
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