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GM Crops Create Herbicide-resistant "Superweed"
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article GM crops under test in the UK have cross pollinated to weeds, giving them the same resistance to herbicide as the GM crops. The article also mentions that this has been reported as occurring in Canada, which like the US is well past the test stage and allows widespread use of GM crops. What's worse, in Canada crop rotation has conferred multi-herbicide resistance to some of the weeds!"
Sounds like something from Cheech and Chong!
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
From TFA: "Unlike the researchers I am not surprised by this. If you apply herbicide to plants which is lethal, eventually a resistant survivor will turn up."
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact. I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods -- all I see is rhetoric that makes that assumption.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists. A few decades ago they were crying about how we'd have no food to feed the overpopulated earth (Malthusians). Then they were crying about how the world will freeze from global cooling. Then they were concerned that Florida was be flooded by global warming. Then we would die from mega-viruses created out of medical research. Now we're dying from genetically modified foods that are feeding millions of starving people (who happen to be starving because of the socialist government they live under, not because of lack of opportunities).
I fully support genetically modified foods and the continued promotion of such foods not only to feed the poor, but to offer us a more stable yield and a less expensive standard of living. My other half prefers organic food, and it definitely hits her pocket book (about 400% more expensive). She's no greenie, though, she just prefers natural foods.
The modern scientific community's attitude is a lot like my 8 year old brother at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Guard: If you touch that sarcophagus, I will throw you and your mother out of the museum. Brother: *eyes sarcophagus* Guard: Just step back from the sarcophagus. Don't touch it. I will throw you out. Mother: DONT DO IT. He's serious. Brother: *raises hand* *looks guard in the eye* Brother: *touches sarcophagus* Guard: *escorts my brother and mother out of the museum* True story.
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So.... their car sales and stock values are tanking so now they plan to retailiate against the world by inventing superweeds? ;-p
I feel a little like Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, but for God's sake (literally) let's let evolution/intelligent\ design/or\ whatever do what it has for the past whatever years.
Next we're going to have Herbicide-resistant children...and then how are we going to control population???
Please kill 5 billions of humans and this problem will be solved.
You really think these companies do it to feed the poor ? Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year. Do you think they do it to reduce the usage of chemicals ? Actually, they also produce the chemicals, that you cannot use without agreeing to use their seeds. Their tactics are disgusting, and moreover, these practice are a danger for the environmenet, because it is impossible to prevent dissemination of the resistance genes into other species.
And yes I am a scientist (biologist), and no I am no "greenie" (I am in favour of nuclear power, but next to renewable energy sources). But it is because I am a scientist that I can grab these issues. This has nothing to do with socialism or idealism, there are very rational and scientific reasons to think there are real dangers.
What's not immediately clear from the story is how this happened. They say they found the resistant plant in a field where GM crops were grown. They say they treated the weed with herbicide and it suffered no ill effects. But does that mean the weed got the herbicide-resistant gene from the crops or did it evolve the gene on its own, the same way that bacteria that are exposed to low doses of antibiotics can develop resistance?
I've mostly read about GM crops that are resistant to RoundUp. It seems pretty unlikely that a plant would independently evolve resistance to that herbicide. But what about the glufosinate-ammonium herbicide this plant was immune to? Is it possible that plants could evolve resistance?
Breakfast served all day!
"Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact."
Your assumption requires a survivor. We're talking about tailor-made chemicals designed to kill things.
If there were going to be a survivor, it'd be in the non-GM fields, where farmers would be less willing to use herbicides for fear of damaging the crop. The entire point of these GM food strains is to allow farmers to use herbicides much more than before.
"I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods"
Then you don't understand what "controlled environment" means.
This was predicted years ago. When Monsanto and other firms first started applying for patents for "terminator" genes (plants that will not generate viable seeds for the next years crop) and for plants specifically resistant to the use of "Roundup" many biologists warned of the danger of cross-polinization. Monsanto, et. al., and their political backers scoffed at the suggestion.
It gets far worse. Let's say a GM crop was planted next to your farm. Due to wind, bees, eh, nature the GM plants spread to your field, and soon you're growing GM plants. And then you're sued for stealing the GM crop. For the basics of wacky Monsanto GM chaos see Organic Consumers.
So, if Monsanto, et. al. want to own and control the GM crops - and the GM crops now spread to destructive speices, what do you think the odds are that the firms responsible for creating this mess will have any liability?
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
They'll just whip up a genetically modified herbicide to kill the new superweed. Genetic engineering: is there any problem it cannot solve?
She's no greenie, though, she just prefers natural foods.
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. Don't let any facts get it your way (and it's clear from your post that that is your credo).
Returning to the topic - IIRC GM crops were eventually rejected in the EU a few years ago after a lot of hoo-haa when Monsanto et al tried to railroad them through. However as others have pointed out, wind-borne pollen doesn't tend to respect national boundaries... :(
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Lets assume that we're all smart enought to figure out that GM stands for Genetic Manipulation or Genetically Manipulated
Lets see, what comes immediatly to mind...
- Wow, you mean nature is adapative?
- Wow, insects don't just stay with a single type of plant?
- Wow, genetics works in the wild, not just in the lab?
I could go on and on and on and on, but get the point.
Apparently, in the media driven "new science", different species can interbreed! What a great discovery! I guess that next, we'll see, what? Dog-Men? Millipede-Asparagus? Corn-Sheep?
This is all complete and utter bullshit. There's no such thing as completely different species being able to "cross breed". The weeds have just developed a resistance (through natural selection) to the pesticides from being sprayed with pesticide. That's all there is.
The same thing is happening with fleas and Frontline. Frontline used to work about 99% of the time on fleas. As of this past summer, Frontline now only works about 75% of the time on fleas in our area. Basic natural selection. Nothing to see here. Keep moving, please.
I don't respond to AC's.
Nelson: Ha-ha!
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact.
Not true. A "great crisis" is not necessary for evolution at all. It also happens when hot chicks hang out with guys like me and avoid the likes of you.
You mean this will be better than the breeded Super skunk marihuana?
...the red queen principle at work.
I for one welcome our herbicide-resistant overlords
...they mean of course regular weeds that have an immunity to a single specific brand of pesticide. These weeds aren't any hardier (with the exception of this one resistance), nor do they spread any faster. It's kind of like calling me a "Superman" because I have a specific resistance to one type of influenza virus.
Weeds developing herbacide resistance has been going on as long as evolution, and that's a long time. I'm so sick of these "omgtheskyisfalling" environmentalists, their headline-grabbing falsehoods are taking away from legitamite science. grrr.
"Peace, Love and Apathy"
It reminds me of that episode of Captain Planet where Dr. Blight created the superweed that could only be killed with a giant dose of some sort of herbicide that only Captain Planet could give.
So, what if these "Superweeds" become hostile? Soon they'll be fire resistant, provide their own heat-source in the winter, even root themselves at the local pub for drinks and football.
Even worse, Monsanto has successfully sued farmers in Canada for growing their GM crops, even when the farmer didn't buy the seed illegally, plant the seed, or know the seed was on his property. The GM seed blew there (he lived a few kms down the road from their test farm), and before you can say frivolus lawsuit Monsanto is demanding damages, which they got. In Iraq as well, one of the first things that was passed by the Coalition interim government was a resolution making it mandatory for farmers to buy sterile seeds. In Europe there is talk of this too, although I don't know how far that has gotten.
So althought this was probably natural selection, I am against GM crops because they really haven't been a benefit to the world as far as I can see, and are misused by companies by Monsanto to milk a profit from those people starving in the world, either directly or indirectly by signing deals with the corrupt governments you mention.
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Two different species are geneticaly incompatible to produce a viable offspring. In a rare case two closely related species are capable to creating offspring which is usually not able to reproduce.
Just resistance because of stupid use of herbicides and pesticides is more likely. When using herbicides and pesticides, it is important to keep a healthy population to overgrow the by herbicides affected population. The change is pretty large that the new survivor is maybe strong against the poison, but weak compared to the original plants. This has been studied, and it is shown that by spraying 90% wiht pesticides or herbicides, and leave 10% of the original population untouched, the poison tends to be effective for a longer period (up to 10 years longer on the same pest). The only issue is, is that 10% of the harvest needs to be sacrificed to the pest.
In the end, every pest gets immune.
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Please get a clue.
How did this guy get modded up? Granted I may disagree with him, but really where is the insightful part?
I can't believe this is 'new news' but... OK.
While attending Purdue we had our favorite Monsanto rep out lecturing how he invented/patented certain processes using copper on platinum. Very fascinating from a chemistry and engineering point of view.
While their, several of my fellows ripped into him in regards to some reports that ragweed had crossed with soy to produce an herbicide resistant ragweed. Cross pollination was the cause.
The rep pointed out that all 'leftover' crops are considered weeds, and to just use another herbicide to prevent the spread. Good points.
You really think these companies do it to feed the poor ?
Of course not -- I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart. I have yet to meet a person (even the diehard communists I know) who don't do everything out of self sufficiency and personal profit.
Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
This has nothing to do with socialism or idealism, there are very rational and scientific reasons to think there are real dangers.
I'm not so sure -- I see lower prices for food all over the world. I see people who used to work half their hours to afford food now work a tenth of their labor hours for it. The population is growing, the cost of living in most areas goes up (housing, transportation, heating, and electricity all going up) but food costs stay constant.
Biologist or not, it doesn't mean you're a good one. A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit, not from doing what is good for man. We'll constantly take a few steps forward AND a few steps backward -- I know we have crop products that are harmful. Yet that is the wonder of the free market: we learn from our mistakes even when we don't want to make changes.
triffids? When do we get the triffids?
We've had common-sense people saying for years GM was a bad idea, but they were poo-pooed by the "experts", saying there's nothing to worry about, because the "experts" know what they're doing.
Now it turns out the common sense was right, and the experts were screwed in the head.
With the number of times I've seen this happen, it makes me wonder why anybody in their right mind would claim to be an expert about anything. It pretty much automatically makes me think you don't know what you're talking about.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
FTA:
"Farmers in Canada and Argentina growing GM soya beans have large problems with herbicide-resistant weeds, though these have arisen through natural selection and not gene flow through hybridisation. Experiments in Germany have shown sugar beets genetically modified to resist one herbicide accidentally acquired the genes to resist another - so called "gene stacking", which has also been observed in oilseed rape grown in Canada."
That's really something: even if there isn't gene transfer from related species to confer pesticide resistance, good ole evolution will take care of it.
The article includes neat things too, like superweeds causing trouble on farms (they require dirty, now heavily regulated herbicides to kill) and wildflowers (AKA "pretty weeds") picking up resistance.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
A Singing Plant. A Daring Hero. A Sweet Girl. A Demented Dentist. A nerdish florist finds romance with the help of a giant man-eating plant who demands to be fed.
See? Even nerdish florists get a shot at cross pollination. There is hope yet for us all.
It's not just "greenies", Europeans are wary of GM foods (especially in England, where there have already been too many food and meat scares in the last few decades). GM foods are closely regulared by the EU.
Farmers in China who grow GM crops were shown to use fewer insecticides and are living healthier lives for it, but I'm not sure where you're getting the bit about starving people from, I haven't heard of that happening. As you said, those people aren't starving for lack of food in the world (and I've never heard the "greenie" argument that there is not enough food, only that food distribution is poor -- this is called a humanitarian issue, not an environmentalist one).
It's pretty hard to find non-GM foods here in the US. I haven't noticed any difference for the better in their shelf life, either. In England, I bought all-organic for the same reason as your better half, but it's far too expensive to do that out here (in the States). When I bought the cheaper GM foods, I was surprised at how quickly they rotted, even in the fridge.
You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't: truly organic food (insecticide free) is too expensive and time consuming for us, insecticides make my wife sick (she grew up in a farming community and was thus exposed to too many nasty chemicals), and GM foods are just plain rotten.
Stick to Soylent Greenies.
I'm trying to find the story I heard on NPR about biologists who found GM genes on mountain tops - far away from where the GM crops were planted. Yes, they thought is was impossible, but it's happening.
Perhaps the dateline would have given the submitter a clue: "Monday July 25, 2005".
You mean in the same way that you get charged more for a tin of peas to which salt has NOT been added, right?
So are you a tool of Monsanto, or are you simply a tool?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Not true. A "great crisis" is not necessary for evolution at all. It also happens when hot chicks hang out with guys like me and avoid the likes of you.
If the chicks are hanging out with you, there must be a great crisis causing that.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Do you have a cite for that? I heard that too, but when I checked out the rules, so far as I could see the rules only said 'if you grow GM crops, you have to respect the IP of the company that made the seeds'. Nowhere that I could see did they force you to buy GM crops. And there wasn't a ban on keeping your own seed stock if you hadn't bought it from a company that had modified it in some way.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I'm no fan of Monsanto or ADM -- but I don't blame them for taking advantage of the reckless laws your government put into force.
These megacorporations don't commit crimes, they take advantage of the unlimited power of the central government. In the US we had a Constitution to limit our federal government from being manipulated by the wealthy -- that Constitution was destroyed by the common man, and this allows these big companies to perform these dastardly deeds.
The only way to stop it is to disband the federal government completely and rebuild it with MUCH less power -- you can't fix it through fines and lawsuits, as the problem has nothing to do with greedy corporations: it has to do with greedy politicians with unlimited power -- both democrat and republican.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
Except that Monsanto sues farmers that have been contaminated with the RoundUp Ready crops. This is documented in many media. Moreover, they put pressure on governments of third-world countries to get a monopoly on seeds used in these countries. Farmers don't need to buy it when they have something else to buy.
Biologist or not, it doesn't mean you're a good one.
Sure. The same way, what you write may be complete bullshit. May I ask you what is your expertise about biology and GMO ? And by the way, I wish to be the only scientist to say there is a danger in the attitude of Monsanto. But if you search a little, and look at all the links that have been posted here, you may learn a lot of things.
A glow in the dark monkey? Damn, I wish I would have heard about that before Christmas. Oh well, 349 days to go.
Your assumption requires a survivor. We're talking about tailor-made chemicals designed to kill things.
An assumption like yours is probably what caused the problem. Think of it, assuming the chemical will kill all of something? Killing 100% or at least enough such that the remaining survivors doesn't reproduce? There aren't many times that absolute assumptions work like that.
And by the way, I wish to be the only scientist to say there is a danger in the attitude of Monsanto. But if you search a little, and look at all the links that have been posted here, you may learn a lot of things.
I read the link -- and some sublinks beneath it. All I see is Monsanto taking advantage of the rules you allowed your government to create into law. In a free market, Monsanto would never have gotten this power and control. If you read my previous posts, you'd see I am again patents and IP -- part of the abuse of the little farmer. I'm again subsidies and farming labor regulations -- again part of the abuse of the little farmer. I'm against every government manipulation of the industry (look into the restriction on farming peanuts for scary tactics) that causes the industry to have to use megacorporations that have taken advantage of the law YOU wanted (if you ever voted even once for an elected official, that is).
well said. It always amazes me when people cheerlead companies like monsanto (previous products include good old napalm!) on the basis that they are somehow the good guys. These companies want to make stockholders rich, period. I don't see anything inprinciple wrong with GM food, as long as
1) I can 100% trust the motives of the people carrying out the research and field tests
2) That it is not used as a way of locking poor farmers into a product supplied by a foreign owned mega-corp
3) That some SERIOUS long-term testing is done in the lab so we can be 99.99% sure that releasing GM organisms into the food chain is not going to fuck up the food chain. (We only have 1 ecosystem remember).
4) The industry goes along with public demand to label food as GM, leaving the ultimate deicision in the hands of the public.
If governments came together to form a truly impartial and publicly funded research body to work on GM tech, that would be great, but as it is, its always the big biotech companies with their paid lobbyists and paid-off members of government that wave the flag for it. Would you trust Microsoft to re-engineer the potatoes you eat? Would you trust Sony to do it? Neither would I.
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A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit, not from doing what is good for man.
You're talking to a biologist, not a sociologist. A "good scientist" is someone who applies scientific methods. Sociology is a science, it is not all science.
I find it amazing that you believe there is little or no link between GM crops and this new superweed, but you believe there is a connection between the steady cost of food and GM crops. The latter is more a coincidence than the former.
I think you'd better listen to your other half...
Women mostly treat their body as a temple.
Further, the farmers that wont take the product loose any chance to get good seeds anyway, in Canada farmers next door to test fields were suid while they were the victim of cross polination, the claim was, since your product is similar to ours (does not matter that we were the ones that wrecked your product) you should pay our IP tax.
I think you are a bit short sighted and close yourself from real problems that came from this.
Oh yes, I am not a greeny.
There was a Wired article awhile back, talking about herbicide resistance in the coca plant. The point is, evolution happens all the time. If resistance in an organism can occur, either naturally or by getting genes from another species, it will eventually happen.
Pesticides have revolutionized agriculture, but like antibiotics, must be used with caution. Eventually it won't be as amazing as it once was. Older, more primitive techniques, may eventually come back into favor.
Nice Troll.
Seriously, though, one problem with genetic engineering is it is in the club and stick phase. Sure, you can insert a gene that produces a fungicide. In the original plant, that fungicide would be made in the roots. In the modified host, it is made in every cell.
Man-made and natural chemicals and compounds (DDT, flourocarbons, asbestos) that seem to be wonderful when first used can have serious health, environment, and economic costs decades later. Organisms can be even worse -- they reproduce.
I don't have problems with genetic engineering being researched. We've been doing it for thousands of years -- food crops today have much higher yields and variety due to crop breeding and hybridization. But playing with tools that you don't know how to use properly let alone control is a dangerous path to follow.
There's many other issues to consider. Allergies, for example, are ever more common today. Transgenetic crops can make things even worse. What happens when a peanut gene that improves yield but happens to create an allergin is spliced into, say, a potato? The kid knows to avoid peanuts, but how do you track if you're eating french fries made from a transgenetic potato with peanut allergins?
welcomes our new green, hyper-allergenic overlords with open fronds.
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You mean in the same way that you get charged more for a tin of peas to which salt has NOT been added, right?
I can see it, a tin of food without salt isn't likely to last as long because salt is a natural preservative, and the sales volume of that kind of food doesn't take as good advantage of mass production.
The idea of organic foods is interesting because sometimes it is the trace chemicals that matter. Trace chemicals like PCBs and others stay in our bodies and slowly build up over time. Unacceptable levels of PCBs are still found in fish in the US/Canda Great Lakes region because that's where all the chemicals settled.
Still, I haven't "converted" to organic foods.
That was the first thing that came to mind. Fucking Monsanto, and all the lawsuits they were bringing against land-owners for "IP theft".
There are so many corporations, and their hired law firms, that need to be fucking executed on live television. Monsanto is one of them. Fucking execute the janitor and secretaries, and the guys who fill the vending machines in the breakroom.
Get some deterrance in there. Let Sony BMG and Universal Studios see the stakes of their next eminent domain seizures and "IP theft" accusations.
Whilst herbicides do put pressure on plants/weeds to evolve resistance to herbicides, in practice a total protection against the herbicide is very rare- it's much more common for the plant to evolve so as to be somewhat damaged by the herbicide, but survive; resistance rather than being immune to the herbicide. That's because natural evolution is reasonably slow by human timescales and evolution takes while to find the right combo of genes by blind chance, whereas humans are smart. But in this case the plant is said to be completely immune to the herbicide. That's very probably a manmade problem.
Contrast this with what happened when the USA started spraying drug crops in South America with herbicides. Suddenly, this plant evolved that was resistant to it and it was rapidly selected for by the farmers and spread pretty widely. A botanist got hold of a piece, and analysis showed it was a natural mutation. It was possible to still kill it with the sprays but it took an enormously larger dose.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"GM crops are evil in their intent, namely to tie in farmers to the product, to make money for the large (mostly American) companies that provide these seeds such as Monsanto and others.
The world already can provide enough food for everyone, if it was better distributed.
And as for your comment about socialist governments, grow up. Any corrupt government that is only interested in itself and keeping the status quo is bad, it isn't how conservative or socialist they are, it is how self preserving they are, how little they care for the population instead of themselves.
Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant "superweed", the Guardian can reveal.
The cross-fertilisation between GM oilseed rape, a brassica, and a distantly related plant, charlock, had been discounted as virtually impossible by scientists with the environment department. It was found during a follow up to the government's three-year trials of GM crops which ended two years ago.
A lengthy explanation follows of how the transfer and other mechanisms have worked.
The GM goal was to sell more a specific, and imaginably high profit, week killers instead of a spectrum. It had the potential to lower the overall amount of weed killers needed and be a win for all. If related weeds do have the resistance, the intended weed killer is useless and everone loses.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You know, there's a very simple test for this. Sequence the weed DNA and see if it does possess the roundup ready gene. It might take a while, since unlike animals which die rapidly if the chromosomes are not just right, many species of plants typically have many duplicate sets of chromosones in their cells, which is part of the reason this cross pollination you pooh-pooh is possible. (See http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:Pf3HRcsp82oJ: www.nslc.wustl.edu/courses/Bio343A/2005/wheat.pdf+ plants+multiple+chromosome+sets+corn+hexaploid&hl= en as a slightly broken up source converted from a pdf.)
the continued promotion of such foods not only to feed the poor
The vast majority of GM foods developed today do not produce more food, or even to cause food to be producible where it could otherwise not grow (as far as I can tell, nobody has created corn that can grow in broken asphalt, or rice that can grow in a desert). That vast majority exists to allow farmers to kill weeds easily by making the plants immune to very powerful herbicides, and I fail to see how that correlates to more food grown, unless old-school weed killing required the food plants to be spaced farther out or retarded plant growth causing the crop cycle to lengthen. Most of the remaining minority are novelty foods: purple carrots and square lettuce. I'm sure that someone, somewhere has worked on food crops that could be grown in drought conditions in Ethiopia, but their corporate sponsors discovered that making tomatoes grow in university colors had more income potential than bartering seeds for chicken eggs with poor farmers.
"Your assumption requires a survivor. We're talking about tailor-made chemicals designed to kill things."
We're talking about natural selection, a process which has allowed living things to copy themselves for 3 billion years on planet Earth.
So humans dreamed up a few chemicals designed to kill certain types of plants. Big deal. Plants have been ruthlessly trying to kill each other through chemical warfare for millions of years.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact. I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods -- all I see is rhetoric that makes that assumption.
Really, there are 2 believable hypothesies here. 1. The resistance came directly from cross pollination with GM crops. If true, this is a VERY serious problem. Nearly all arguments for the safety of GM crops somehow hinge on the impossability of this event. The second viable hypothesis is that the unrestrained use of herbicides resulted in rapid evolution of resistance.
It's worth noting that the second hypothesis is a very strong argument against the strategy of planting GM herbicide resistant crops and saturating the field with those herbicides (the entire point of that particular GM rapeseed crop). Although less potentially threatening to our overall wellbeing than the first hypothesis, I would characterize the risk of creating widespread herbicide resistance in weeds to be a serious harm to agriculture.
The thought to ban GM crops is based on two premises. The first is that the damage caused in a future incident could irevocably damage the entire human race's ability to feed itself. The second is that even in a more moderate example where widespread economic damage is caused, the odds that the responsable provider of the seeds will actually end up forced to pay for the damage they caused is nil (that is, they will inevitably manage to maximise profit by externalizing the costs to society).
A good capitalist will insist on somehow assuring that those costs are internalized, perhaps by requiring the GM seed provider to post a rather large bond. However, the leaders of the free world are not as a whole good capitalists, they are, in fact, quite selective in applying it's principles.
As for organic foods, I prefer them myself on the basis of quality. For example, in a side by side comparison, I have found ANY organic 2% milk to be richer and fuller than ANY non-organic whole milk. It would seem that pumping the cows full of antibiotics and hormones to increase milk production results in watered down milk. The only difference is that they are free to add water in the cow and claim the product is unaltered while adding the same extra water after the fact without noting that on the lable (and so alerting the consumer to an inferior product) would be illegal.
I don't buy into everything various environmentalists say either. Like anyone else, they may be wrong. However, I certainly don't buy into the safety claims from GM crop producers either. After all, they have a strong economic incentive to sweep any negative data under the rug (and there is ample evidence of that being done). I'd like to see a lot more open risk/benefit analysis.
As for GM crops feeding the hungry in spite of repressive government, It doesn't really appear to be happening. The same political forces that have routinely prevented starving people from recieving food from conventional crops and/or growing their own conventional crops still apply with GM crops. There's not much chance of engineering a plant with tin-plated dictator resistance. I suspect that a thorough risk/benefit analysis would demonstrate that taking those bad government leaders out back and shooting them would be a lot more effective than GM crops.
You seem to be under the impression that free markets exist. They do not: they have never existed and never will. They are an abstraction, which is not found in nature. In particular, nothing that has happened int his world is due to "free markets".
"Free markets" are a idiological tool, like lots of other things that do not exist.
You clearly live a life of a kind that has been made possible by the very fact that those free markets do not exist.
Like with anything, chemical pest control has its limits. I am currently reading a book about permaculture. Basically permaculture is a way of life, a way of life that premotes working with and/or in harmony with nature to create a sustainable life style that does not damage the planet or its inhabbitants. One of the things it suggests is that crop growers incorporate echosystems into thier cultivation scemes so for example plant root vegetables with flowers and fungi and then plant fruit tree in between. Doing that would increase in lots of insects and bacteria (etc) which help each other by making the leaves dropped by the trees into good soil for the root vegetables and so on, thus giving each other the benefit of what they "consider" as "waste". It also encourages in natural predators like ladybirds against aphids. By encouraging say ladybirds you no longer need to use up so much pesticide and through that the pest is less likely to gain an immunity again that particular defense against it. Also it takes organisms longer to adapt against natural predators than chemical, not to mention that predators also adapt to keep the prey within thier grasp.
Michael-m.co.uk - Home of Michael Mulqueen
Certain species of plant have been able to crossbreed in the past (especially grasses) ...
Wheat (a grass) is a prime example of this. The wheat of today isn't the wheat of 7,000 years ago. It has, in time, been crossbred with various other grasses and taken on some of their qualities.
There are many different varieties of wheat, today, due to those cross-breedings. You can buy seed that will grow in colder climates ("winter wheat")... seed with certain resistences...
[... and here I thought my "Plant Production" class would never see any use]
===
Here's the Wiki, they've got it explained pretty well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
1) Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year.
2)That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
I agree with you, however, Monsanto has been suing farmers who have not planted Monstano's Canola seeds yet the farmer's crops get cross-pollinated from a neighbouring Monsanto Canola field. Farmers call it 'Nature', Monstanto calls it 'Theft'.
A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit
Again, I see your point, but given my point above, is it really a good thing to be pursuing our profits to the point where it harms others? Where's the cooperation in that?
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
When I frist read what Dr. Johnson said, that was my first thought also.
dada21 is not quoting The Article. dada21 is quoting a person quoted within the article (Dr. Jonhson), and should attribute accordingly to avoid confusion. Furthermore, the person dada21 is quoting is clearly not saying what dada21 seems to think he is saying; if you read on, the *same interviewee*, Dr. Jonhson, says:
"There is every reason to suppose that the GM trait could be in the plant's pollen and thus be carried to other charlock in the neighbourhood, spreading the GM genes in that way. This is after all how the cross-fertilisation between the rape and charlock must have occurred in the first place."
So it is very clear that Dr. Jonhson does not mean what the parent seems to think he means.
However, just because Dr. Jonhson says it does not make it true. On examination of the actual facts which are presented (very limited in scope), I believe that it was, in fact, a lateral gene transfer that conferred resistance on the weeds.
I'm a biologist - and I work on a related question specifically (but in bacteria).
There are two possible explanations here, and from what is said in the article, neither can be ruled out.
1) Spontaneous mutation. It is possible that crops growing in this field spontaneously developed resistance (as the parent suggests), due to a mutation in their own genes. This is what the parent seems to think has happened. The likelihood of this occurring depends entirely on the pesticide used.
2) Lateral gene transfer. It is also possible that some genetic material from a GM plant somehow ended up in a relatively distant relative. This sort of thing is somewhere between extremely rare and astonishingly rare (one in a million or one a quadrillion?), we don't know. This is what the article implies happened.
Now, it ought to be fairly easy to tell which occurred. You can use common techniques to detect if the presticide resistant weeds are carrying the pesticide resistance gene from the engineered organisms (you just fish it out via PCR) - if they lack the gene from the engineered organisms, it must have been a spontaneous mutation. Does anyone have a link to the report "on the department's website"? Tentatively, I would have to accept Dr. Johnson's judgement (assuming he knew the result of this fairly simple test).
As to the rest of what the parent says: do not feed the Troll.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I am not a US citizen, it is not MY government, and I never allowed these regulations. And yes, I do vote every election. When you debate, do you always assume that those who have not the same opinion are retards ?
(1) There is nothing "super" about the weeds, they have merely acquired resistance to herbicides. They don't grow faster or crowd out crops more aggressively than their non-resistant cousins. It just as stupid as calling anti-biotic resistant microbes "super" germs. "Super" is a term meant to imply something new and unusually powerful and deadly. Every weed growing in every crop area in the developed world is largely immune to pesticides that entered widespread use over 30 years years ago. Are they "super" weeds as well?
(2) The article presents no evidence that the acquired resistance is in fact the result of cross-pollination and not natural evolution. In fact the artical says that:
"The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically engineered to be resistant to only one."
This strongly suggest that the resistance is naturally acquired. It also doesn't seem that anyone took the elemental step of sequencing the pest-plants to see if they are actually using the same genes as the engineered crop plants. Unless someone can show that weeds contain engineered genes this article is nothing but hysterical supposition.
(3) We have been breeding herbicide resistant crop plants using radiation and mutagenic chemicals for over a century. Where is the evidence that gene transfer has occurred using the older technology? After all, nature doesn't care where the genes came from only whether they benefit the species they jump to. If acquiring herbicide resistance from crop plants was a major problem we would have seen it long ago.
(4) The supposition that crop plants will spread quickly through the wild is garbage gainsaid by centuries if not millennia or practical experience. We force crop plants to divert resources from their own survival in order to produce the plant products we need. As a result, they cannot survive in competition with natural plants that do not have the artificial overhead. If not protected from natural competition they are quickly wiped out.
Opponents of GM crops also neglect to mention that if genes jump across species as fast as they claim then the problem will be economically self-limiting. The GM crops are only used because allow the easy killing of associate pest-plants. If the pest plants acquire resistance rapidly then the GM plants lose all their economic advantage. No one will use them because they will offer no benefits for their increased cost.
Back before my wife was a stay-at-home mom, she helped publish an article demonstrating that two "species" of a certain flower were actually one of the same. Gene flow between the populations was reduced, as their flowering times didn't overlap much, but it was still possible.
There's also "jumping genes", bacteria passing genes around, and forms of horizontal gene transfer.
If people have been using this weed killer for years, it would be a strange co-incidence for the resistance gene to just show up three years after GM but not one or two. Transfer by cross fertilization looks like the most likely method, especially if the find the very same patented genes. Transfer to other people's crops has already happened, much to the dislike of those who wanted nothing to do with GM and considered it polution.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Any chance of tarring and feathering the 'experts' who assured us that cross pollination and the possible creation of superweeds was impossible and running them out of town? The 'experts', not the superweeds...
Faster than a senior citizen.
More powerful than a trip with Jerry Garcia.
Able to beat Grand Turismo in a single round.
Look! Sitting on my couch!
It's an herb. It's mary jane. It's Superweed!
Yes, it's Superweed - strange strain from another DNA who came to my living room with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal plants. Superweed - who can change the course of mighty lives, make people eat Taco Bell with their bare hands, and who, disguised as Purple Haze, a mild flavored hash from 1967's hippie's Summer of Love, fights the never ending battle for Peace, Love and the Ultimate Frag.
Do what I say, cuz I said it.
-Meatwad
"An assumption like yours is probably what caused the problem. Think of it, assuming the chemical will kill all of something? Killing 100% or at least enough such that the remaining survivors doesn't reproduce? There aren't many times that absolute assumptions work like that."
Between the before-market testing the herbicides were put through to make sure the chemical would be competitive and the after-market continual use over the course of decades eliminates any need for me to assume anything; it was designed to kill things, it was tested to ensure it killed things, and it is still used today because it kills things. If it were not extremely effective, it would likely not be used and this entire fiasco would be a non-issue.
And as for potential survivors, we're talking about "herbicide resistant" rather than "herbicide immune" (if you use enough herbicide, even the GM crops would be killed). If an herbicide resistant strain of a weed is going to develop independent of cross-pollenization, it is going to develop in fields where the dosages of herbicide used are survivable for the weed, and perhaps strengthened over time to be strong enough to survive in GM fields where higher dosages are used.
If a herbicide-resistant weed is going to "just happen" to pop up in a GM field, it must also "just happen" to pop up in non-GM fields and we should have seen this weed years ago (especially because of the lower dosages used). Either this is a remarkable coincidence on the verge of being miraculous, or it comes from cross-pollenization.
I'm no fan of Monsanto or ADM -- but I don't blame them for taking advantage of the reckless laws your government put into force.
Yeah...it would be terrible if the U.S. implemented some strange system where people and smaller corporations could be sued into bankruptcy by larger corporations over intellectual property and patent disputes...
The only way to stop it is to disband the federal government completely and rebuild it with MUCH less power -- you can't fix it through fines and lawsuits
I'll give an Amen to that
as the problem has nothing to do with greedy corporations: it has to do with greedy politicians with unlimited power
I disagree - the problem is BOTH greedy corporations AND greedy politicians, but in "my" government (Canada) politicians have much less power than the U.S. system (we got us some new fangled legal papers about politicky men too) but corporations have just as much influence whether they are in Canada, Europe or America.
These megacorporations don't commit crimes, they take advantage of the unlimited power of the central government.
You just...completely...lost me. I like to blame governments, and I like to blame corporations, but never have I confused the two.
To return to the topic of GM foods, I think they should be heavily regulated by the government and used responsibly by corporations to make a reasonable profit doing something productive, helpful and neccesary for the world (you know - fill a niche, not make a profit by creating a solution, then influencing governments to create a problem).
As someone else smarter than me pointed out, it's not about ideals, it's about science. And Gm foods don't really solve a problem, but they do have the potential for abuse and can't be approached as just another patent in Monsanto's portfolio.
NeverEndingBillboard.com
Feed me all night long.....I for one welcome our people eating super weed overlords
Oh well. Never mind.
I for one welcome our new vegetable overlords.
If it was gene transfer, then it was due to the GM crops. OTOH, if it was evolution, the evolution was accelerated by using heavy doses of herbicide that would normally kill the crops. The GM crops allowed higher doses of herbicide which forced the weeds to evolve. There is still plenty of blame to be placed on the GM crops. Would the evolution have happened without the GM crops using lower dosage of herbicide? Not sure. Also not sure that's what the alternative would have been for the farmers. And remember, we're still not decided on which mechanism caused this. They don't say if the GM gene is in the weeds or if they just became resistant without it. It is an important detail, but doesn't change where the blame goes.
Trust no science story from either the Guardian or the Independent. Both always run alarmist screeds, unsupported by the facts. Heck! The headline and lead aren't even supported by the article! Get past the first three paragraphs and it all turns to might/could/possibly.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There was no serious public discussion of GM in the United States. I presume someone paid the politicians, as has happened in so many other areas.
Support campaign finance reform!
McCain has the right idea.
BWAH HA HA! This is hilarious! She's no greenie, yet she spends 400% more on organic?! She must see some value in eating green organic since she is sacrificing something in order to do it. This guy is blinded by ignorance and hard-headedness. Again, hilarious!
Meh.
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact. I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods -- all I see is rhetoric that makes that assumption.
That still does not mean GM crops are harmless. GM crops can and will cross pollenate with non-GM crops of the same species or even other related wild subspecies. They can also cause great harm indirectly. Take for example honey production. A bee does not care whether it is gathering nectar from a GM plant or an non-GM plant. Humans however do care and as a consequence US and Canadian honey producers have great trouble exporting their goods to the EU where they are classified as GM products even though the GM pollution of their honey was inderect and not something the manufacturer wanted. And before you start harping on about the fact that nobody cares about honey exports to the EU keep in mind that it is a larger market than the USA and Canada combined which makes it hard to ignore for any businessman with a modicum of sense. This sort of thing has happened to more people than just a few honey farmers and that includes farmers within the EU it self. There is a number of examples of some idiot planting GM crops on his land with the result that the crops of neighboring farmers failed to qualify for 'Organic' status due GM pollution (aka. cross pollenation with GM crops) which, in the EU, at least radically reduces the value of the crop since organic foods are increasingly sought after by consumers and GM crops avoided.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists
While I deeply dislike the really radical greenies I am getting just as sick of you whining neocons and quite frankly I don't know which faction is worse. According to the right wing we are supposed to believe that pollution and global warming (assuming the day will ever arrive when you people are prepared to admit it can even happen) is not affecting the earth in any way shape or form, that strip mining and oil drilling in nature reserves does no harm to the environment, that due to the unchanging nature of god's devine creation extinction cannot happen and that those WMD's really are there in Iraq... somewhere.... They just haven't been found yet... I mean if the GWB says so they must be there... Right?
My other half prefers organic food, and it definitely hits her pocket book (about 400% more expensive)
While crafting a good and sneaky troll it should be kept in mind that the easiest way to screw it up is hugely exaggerating the obvious. I regularly purchase organic food and while I will admint that it is more expensive than the factory made crud, is certainly not 400% more expensive.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Holy crap, dada21, you are a corporation brainwashed cog! Oh well, all hail the almighty dollar!
Heh.
I am an anti-corporation businessman who believes that corporations are shills for avoiding personal responsibility. Most anarchocapitalists, like me, avoid supporting any corporation's right to exist.
If you consider that the average college graduate in the US is brainwashed into supported Keynesian economic theories, I'm sure you'd realize that I'm not brainwashed -- I study the true effects of economic manipulations, and see the end results.
I do not support the dollar -- I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver. The rest of my currency is tied up in inventory in my businesses (hard assets) and non-appreciating real estate (not the housing market).
"So humans dreamed up a few chemicals designed to kill certain types of plants. Big deal. Plants have been ruthlessly trying to kill each other through chemical warfare for millions of years."
Perhaps, but I think the Twentieth Century alone shows that we are far more efficient at killing things than any natural impetus or process of natural selection. It doesn't take "millions of years" for us to develop more efficient tools of destruction because we don't rely on random encounters.
Humans can fly faster, higher, and often with more finesse than birds. But you're going to declare that birds are "just better" because they've developed their flight through natural selection over tens of millions of years and ours came about only in the past two or three centuries or so?
Of course not -- I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart. I have yet to meet a person (even the diehard communists I know) who don't do everything out of self sufficiency and personal profit.
You need to get out more. And open your eyes. You are living in poverty while surrounded by riches.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
Companies selling GM seeds have a responsibility to ensure that their product does no harm to bystanders. The free market ends where my fields begin. Unless Monstanto et al can guarantee that the modified genes will not get loose and hybridize with wildtype plants in adjacent fields they are introducing harmful genes into the environment for their own benefit.
The Monsanto Terminator gene is the perfect example of this: Terminator-infected plants will hybridize with wildtype plants in adjacent fields, resulting in progressive sterilization of surrouding farms. Monsanto will use this "marketing pportunity" in the "free market" to sell more Terminator-infected seeds to those farmers.
This is evil: doing willful harm to others for personal gain.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
When society actually starts coming up against the IP for these genes a lot.. meaning it is interfering with living, people are just going to start blatently ignoring IP. Everybody will become criminals. Monsanto will have to start prosecuting a lot of people. There will be bloodshed in the streets.
Meh.
If I did not know from experience that "ideas" like these cause the suffering of millions, I'd laugh at you. As I do know, I find you at the very least misguided.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm... superweeeeed.......
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
I think you're right about that - I looked up a few things and it looks like farmers were allowed to keep and reuse any and all seeds pre-war, but now if they buy / use GM seeds they can't save any, although from what I understand most of these seeds would be sterile anyway. So it sounds like farmers are "encouraged" not forced to buy GM seeds. Here is a (horrendously sensationalist/blatantly Anti-U.S.) link at indymedia. For the record, I stand corrected.
NeverEndingBillboard.com
Yeah...it would be terrible if the U.S. implemented some strange system where people and smaller corporations could be sued into bankruptcy by larger corporations over intellectual property and patent disputes...
I am anti-patent and anti-intellectual property. I don't believe you should be able to protect a thought or an opinion, only a specific physical product. Once you sell that specific product, the new owner can disassemble and copy it to their heart's (and pocketbook's) content.
I disagree - the problem is BOTH greedy corporations AND greedy politicians, but in "my" government (Canada) politicians have much less power than the U.S. system (we got us some new fangled legal papers about politicky men too) but corporations have just as much influence whether they are in Canada, Europe or America.
I completely disagree with this. Corporations don't hold ANY control except when they are given specific powers of force by government. Canada has some of the worst anti-freedom laws: these laws are completely manipulated by large groups (unions, corporations, military, etc). Corporations have ZERO influence if the politician has zero power. Congress was meant to meet for just a few weeks a year in the US, now its a permanent job.
You just...completely...lost me. I like to blame governments, and I like to blame corporations, but never have I confused the two.
Corporations became powerful because government was allowed to grow out of control in terms of power to abuse. If you have a strictly limited government, you won't have super powerful corporations -- competition prevents that. The problem is that government is allowed to offer monopoly powers, and the corporations take advantage of that.
To return to the topic of GM foods, I think they should be heavily regulated by the government and used responsibly by corporations to make a reasonable profit doing something productive, helpful and neccesary for the world (you know - fill a niche, not make a profit by creating a solution, then influencing governments to create a problem).
Actually, making a profit is the ONLY way you know you are helping people properly. Profit means you are offering someone a product they want at a price they want, so both parties are gaining something. Government does with it does without a profit -- so one party (the taxpayer usually) is losing out on the trade.
Less regulation = safer, cheaper products. More regulation = monopolistic corporations that can take advantage.
I look at the least regulated industries, and after a short period of rocky product quality (even unsafe) the competitiveness of the market creates the safest cheapest products. This is what consumers want.
Your "legitamite science" stems from listening to too much right-wing propaganda. Try getting your science from real scientists some time.
Meh.
Hello, my name is Pandora, you seem to have opened my box.
Heh
You need to get out more. And open your eyes. You are living in poverty while surrounded by riches.
I travel almost 90 days a year on average -- including visiting almost every continent at least once every 3-4 years. I meet with elite and poor people, every day. Don't tell me what I need to do.
Companies selling GM seeds have a responsibility to ensure that their product does no harm to bystanders.
No, they don't. Manufacturers have ZERO responsibility to do anything more than create a product that their customers are willing to pay for. Customers have the responsibility to investigate what they are buying. Normally we have retailers who stock the product quality/price ratio we want. My grocery story sells a ton of hydrogenated food (the most dangerous food product) -- nearly 60% of the shelves have harmful products. They they're busy every day. They are responsible to offer the customer what they want.
Unless Monstanto et al can guarantee that the modified genes will not get loose and hybridize with wildtype plants in adjacent fields they are introducing harmful genes into the environment for their own benefit.
Are you this obtuse? Monsanto has to sell you what you want -- if you want those guarantees, don't buy a product that doesn't meet them. If enough farmers say no, Monsanto goes under. I guess farmers aren't saying no.
This is evil: doing willful harm to others for personal gain.
This is good: consumers buy products from the grocery stores in massive quantities. Grocery stores by from farmers. Farmers buy seed to meet those needs. Seed manufacturers make new seed varieties.
If you want non-GM foods, there are thousands of grocery stores for you. Go shop there. Problem solved!
Don't create laws to control me. Leave me alone.
I'm no bongo playing, bandana wearing hippy with dreadlocks but Genetically Modified (GM) seeds have caused at least one incredibly unjustified lawsuits here in Canada.
A farmer's field had some Monsanto seed mixed in with the farmer's regular seed (probably from a nearby field, seed in manure fertilizer...whatever). He was sued by Monsanto (I think they have a new name), and they won. I forget the details but I think it was similar to copyright infringement or pirating, because they owned the organism that someohow got into his field.
How they could tell which plants were their's among the millions of others, is creepy.
I fully support genetically modified foods and the continued promotion of such foods not only to feed the poor, but to offer us a more stable yield and a less expensive standard of living.
If you believe all that then I have a bridge to sell you.
You don't get something for nothing. Gene manipulation is not a precise science. In fact, with the difficulties in reproducing results, it's in some cases, hardly a sciene at all. Gene manipulators essentially resemble olden day alchemists more so than the likes of chemists. Not that their work isn't important.
GM crops are still totally unproven as a source of our staple diet. DDT was "logically" the best way to spray crops. You'll excuse me if I don't jump all over GM crops as a panecea to all ills, especially since I was perfectly happy with the regular, unmodified stuff.
May the Maths Be with you!
by a shill for Monsanto.
Meh.
Oversight, by entities unencumbered by conflicts of interest, is critical to ensure that companies and individuals do not trade public health and safety for profits.
If congress and the president were recieving political funding (bribes) from lobbyists supporting the GM companies, then they probably did not provide sufficient oversight.
You do realize that man, through selective breeding, grafting, and other means has been doing GM for centuries before anyone knew what DNA was? Now, we are using more precise means to achieve the same goals of: better yields, less loss due to pests, etc. Also what was the purpose of this statement? (previous products include good old napalm!) Do you mean to tell me you don't do business with BASF or Bayer(previous products include good old Zyklon B!)
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're
overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese
needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous
type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around,
the gorillas simply freeze to death.
I do not support the dollar -- I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver
That is one wierd and whacky school of business you ent to there.
May the Maths Be with you!
Just another thing to grab attention or attract readers. As has been pointed in other comments most weeds can't cross pollinate and certainly corn, beans, and wheat, aren't going to cross with purslane. Any time you spray the same chemical over and over there is a chance one of those plants is going to survive and that is the plant that will distribute the genes. Is it a super plant? Only if we can take what makes it stronger and translate that into plants we need. "Weed" is a loosely used term as weeds in certain parts of the world are collected in others. Don't the Japanese love the Dandelion?
Seriously, how can cross pollination not be expected?
And from that how can traits of the modified crops not be expected to end up appearing throughout the environment?
Just what kind of disaster is a potential disaster here?
But, there's vast amounts of money to be made and no doubt when the shit truly hits, the guys getting rich off this will be able to survive on their own personal hermetically sealed organic farm.
Considering DDT saved millions of lives, and the removal of it has likely killed hundreds of millions, I don't really consider the negative effects of DDT to be worse than not using it.
The environmental groups are no friend of freedom, the poor or those who want to be responsible for their own lives. They are merely political manipulators looking for the utopia socialist world that none of us would willingly accept.
Bring back DDT, save billions of the next few decades.
I am an anti-corporation businessman...Most anarchocapitalists, like me, avoid supporting any corporation's right to exist.
So by your very own rationale, you shouldn't even be able to exist. Smooth one, trollboy.
until this impediment is removed, I shall never take anarcho-capitalism seriously.
Poor farmers? Myth.
I was going to argue against this, but then I realized all the people I knew that used to be poor farmers aren't any more. They all either rent or sold their land to corporate farms.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Canada farmers next door to test fields were suid while they were the victim of cross polination
/etc/sudoers...
Simple solution then. Just edit
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Except in many cases you the consumer are prevented from having the information that would allow you to make that decision:
Link
You're using her as bait, Master!
to types of comments:
1.) the sky is falling, i told you so.
or
2.) Here is a link why this article is junk science. (then with any of a hundred links.) we are all smart people, do we listen to the one with sources, or the one speaking out of their asses?
Great freaking zork. You must be a lawyer: your declaration that nuclear power plants have no responsibility to ensure that they don't release radiation is monstrous prima facie. Your claim that corporations have every right in the world to dump toxic waste in your neighbor's backyard because somebody is willing to pay them to do so is about as indecent as I have ever seen on slashdot.
Actually, you are the dense one. Well, you would be if your head wasn't shoved far enough up your backside that you're sucking tonsil. Monsanto is a cruel and ruthless beast: haven't you been paying attention to the world you claim to be traveling? They have no right to sue farmer B just because farmer A couldn't keep his pollen to himself. None whatsoever.
Until Monsanto's wander pollen drives everybody out of business except for those who pay for their product.
Let me refresh your memory - Manufacturers have ZERO responsibility to do anything more than create a product that their customers are willing to pay for.. I want to pay somebody for a product that does nothing more than create laws to control you. Now sit down, shut up, and accept that whenever this provider appears you have no right to whine about it.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
I do not support the dollar -- I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver
How's that market going for you?
By the way, I would seriously reconsider your truly asenine sheeple position on the economy. In the meantime, you might want to try reading the works of, say, the Nobel Prize in Economics winners of the past 50 years, including John Nash. You also might want to read about William Hamilton's work on altruism (beginning around 1963). At that point, you'll realize that not only is communism the objectively best system, but has a strong biological basis. This is not an ideology, this is not wishful thinking, this is not a social experiment. It's a hard, solid fact, proven by Princeton PhDs in Mathematics AND by the process of natural selection which you seem to hold in such high respect. The only question is whether it can possibly be implemented on a large scale in human institutions without someone taking advantage of the trust that has to be given to make those kinds of changes. But if it can't, it's because of free market winner-take-all looking-out-for-number-one avaricious snots like yourself.
Next time you get into an argument, try not to come across as an absolute idiot. It's generally considered bad form to tell a professional you know more than he does. I think you owe the biologist an apology.
Of course, the real challenge would be sneaking a rootkit into them.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists. A few decades ago they were crying about how we'd have no food to feed the overpopulated earth (Malthusians). Then they were crying about how the world will freeze from global cooling. Then they were concerned that Florida was be flooded by global warming. Then we would die from mega-viruses created out of medical research.
Feel free to ignore all the benefits we've derived from the "greenies", just because you can exaggerate some of their whackiest predictions. (hint: no one ever said, "we'd have no food" or that the "world will freeze", etc)
Now we're dying from genetically modified foods that are feeding millions of starving people (who happen to be starving because of the socialist government they live under, not because of lack of opportunities).
Socialism is not the issue, dictatorship is. Socialism (such as our socialized police force, socialized roads, socialized power-grid) is not inherently evil and is not the reason some African governments have either stolen money intended for their people, or refused food donations for either irrational fears of GM, or very rational fears of becoming beholden, by absurd IP laws, to the company that "donated" the seeds to begin with (think MS donating code to the Linux kernel, only to demand payment after enough time has passed that the MS code cannot be easily excised).
I fully support genetically modified foods
So do I. The "anti-Frankenfood" crowd are, generally, uninformed or irrationally superstitious.
My other half prefers organic food
So do I. As you point out, it's more expensive, but it's often higher quality. This isn't directly due to being organic (as though non-organic food is, well, not organic, lol), but due to what? It's not grown on factory farms? Caring about being organic makes farmers more likely to care about other quality-related factors? I don't know, and from a practical standpoint, it doesn't matter the cause, as long as the food is better.
But like most things of quality, it's a luxury. Banning modern farming practices would be a death-sentence for many millions (perhaps even billions) of people. It's not about being green, or being anti-socialist, it's about being rational. Just because GM food saves lives, doesn't mean you have to eat it if you can afford better (be it "organic" food, or just higher-quality GM produce, or whatever).
She's no greenie, though, she just prefers natural foods.
I hate to break this to you, but that's the general motivation behind most "greenies"--the desire for a higher quality environment. That doesn't mean you have to climb a tree to protest logging, but it does mean things like laws either forcing, or providing incentives, for logging companies to plant trees to replace those that they take from our public lands, setting aside some land to preserve it as a national park, and encouraging (either by force or economic incentive) more environmentally sound logging practices (ie: you don't destroy an entire ecosystem just to save a few dollars per tree), etc.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster has made his presense known unto us! He has touched this weed and conferred upon it this immunity to the unbeliving farmers' poisons so as to punish those who refuse to admit his existance!
All praise the flying spaghetti monster, who though this weed, has touched us all with his Noodly Appendage!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Like anyone with an ounce of sense didn't see this coming. Here we are, we puny humans, with our rudimentary grasp on genetics, modifying plants and animals and the like and releasing them into the open... and not expecting them to cross-breed and cross-pollinate with their unmodified counterparts. You know, it's this kind of crap that makes me think sometimes that being as smart as we are has made us pretty dumb.
This could make for a good movie, though. "DEATH CORN: THE TASSELING." I can see it now, a story about rogue genetically modified corn that overgrows the world, but is resistant to every herbicide, pest, bacteria, virus, and fungus known to afflict our crops. Hey, fact is often stranger than fiction. Maybe the world will in fact one day be destroyed by corn. That'd be fun.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
That's right. They don't need to buy it. You only need to look at the case of Percy Schmeiser to see that a farmer can lose everything by having a few GM seeds blow onto his property. For a farmer that saves a portion of his seeds every year (and had been doing it for many years before the introduction of GM crops), Monsanto has been a death sentence.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Part of the problem is that pollen from the genetically altered foods you want, pollutes the fields growing the foods that most people want.
Another part of the problem is that genetically altered foods are not labeled, since agribusiness giants bought enough legislators to make the law say that while GM crops are different enough from ordinary crops to deserve patents, they are at the same time so similar to ordinary crops that they need not be labeled.
If you want your GM crops, grow them under bio-hazard controls so they don't contaminate real food, and label them so people know what they're getting. Failure to do the first is pollution; failure to do the second is fraud.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year. That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it. Except that these same mega-corps are the ones that provide a lot of the "natural" seed and can exert a lot of control over the seed market, ie, raise prices alternatives to their "flagship" products. Also keep in mind that most farming in the US is no longer done by single farmers, but by mini-corps as well, and the profit motive applies to them. If they can get genetically modified seed plus fertilizer and herbi/pesticides for 20% cheaper than the "natural" alternatives, you think they're willing to drop their profits that much? Especially since farming if such a low-margin business as it is (ok for family farmers, bad for corps). 20% can mean the difference between profit and bankrupcy for many farmers and farming corps. Oh, and that "natural" seed? Most seed on the market now has already been genetically modified so that the resulting crops are good for food, but infertile. This means that the farmers have to return to the seed producers year after year anyway. ....
Yet that is the wonder of the free market: we learn from our mistakes even when we don't want to make changes.
The free market is a straw man. There is no "free market". There is the "cheapest sells" market. And there are two ways to win - control the market (now the biggest shell game out there), or make the cheapest product. Making the cheapest product guts your profit, so most corps now are trying to find ways (via IP laws, lobbying for new laws and deregulation, cartels, etfc) to exert control over the market.
We (first world) throw out more than enough food to feed the world many times over.
GM crops aren't made to improve shelf-life, supposedly they increase yield and lower production costs by being resistant to herbicides. Interestingly, in some cases, there is actually a yield penalty associated with the use of GM crops. There was a study of Roundup Ready canola done in Canada where this was proven. Cost per acre went down, but yield went down almost 8%.
If it's difficult to find a good source of organic fruits and vegetables in your area or you have an interest in growing your own foods, consider a hydroponic garden. Not exactly cheap, read a few books before you start, and start small. Best of all, you can have fresh fruit and veggies year-round if you do a little extra work. You'll also know exactly what pesticides (if any) went into the making of those fruit and veggies.
Here come da fudge!
Are you kidding? New species with new traits can not just randomly occur. What really happened is that our Intelligent Designer decided to create a new superweed....
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Great freaking zork. You must be a lawyer: your declaration that nuclear power plants have no responsibility to ensure that they don't release radiation is monstrous prima facie. Your claim that corporations have every right in the world to dump toxic waste in your neighbor's backyard because somebody is willing to pay them to do so is about as indecent as I have ever seen on slashdot.
No, you just have spent zero time researching my opinions -- while I have spent years researching yours to find them false. I'm an anarchocapitalist and we have a solution about nuclear waste and toxic waste: if it enters my land, it is trespass, and the trespasser violated my property rights. Also, I can protect myself by not living near a toxic waste manufacturer or a nuclear power plant. I can buy enough property to protect myself that way, as well.
Monsanto is a cruel and ruthless beast: haven't you been paying attention to the world you claim to be traveling? They have no right to sue farmer B just because farmer A couldn't keep his pollen to himself.
You're right -- anyone who voting for the government that allowed them to sue in this way is responsible. Monsanto merely took advantage of the law that socialists so admire. I am against these laws 100% -- in my "perfect world" Monsanto was the violator as they trespassed on another person's land.
I want to pay somebody for a product that does nothing more than create laws to control you. Now sit down, shut up, and accept that whenever this provider appears you have no right to whine about it.
I don't believe in laws, as they are the use of force against an unwilling party. Your desire to create laws only ends up controlling you.
I can see that your emotion has taken you over. Once you understand what property rights are, you understand that you are the only one responsible for what you buy, what you ingest and what you allow on your land and in your body. I want that freedom, but as long as you continue to regulate corporations, you will continue to lose rights to them and the government. Complete deregulation will give you MORE choice for safer foods -- not less.
Part of the problem is that pollen from the genetically altered foods you want, pollutes the fields growing the foods that most people want.
Free market solution provided for: pollution is trespass, trespass violates your property rights.
Another part of the problem is that genetically altered foods are not labeled, since agribusiness giants bought enough legislators to make the law say that while GM crops are different enough from ordinary crops to deserve patents, they are at the same time so similar to ordinary crops that they need not be labeled.
Free market solution provided for: tell your grocer you want more labels on foods. Get friends and family to do the same. Grocer will either buy labeled foods or lose your business.
If you want your GM crops, grow them under bio-hazard controls so they don't contaminate real food, and label them so people know what they're getting. Failure to do the first is pollution; failure to do the second is fraud.
Both problems solved by free market solutions -- not the use of force. Regulations created these problems, they didn't solve them.
Imagine that, a business trying to conduct business to make a profit...Unfathomable.
While I will admit that there are many issues we can all pick to pieces with the way these corporations require certain "licensing" or usage requirements; this anti-corporate rhetoric is just another misguided thought process similar to the idea that the drug companies shouldn't be alowed to recoop their costs of development.
If I were a farmer, I'd be suing Monsanto for trashing MY crops with THEIR GM seeds!
Actually over in Germany, you are only allowed to seed plants approved by the Bundessortenamt. You only get plants approved if you can convincingly make the claim that yours is in some way superior to existing ones. Furthermore the process is prohibitively expensive and can take up to three years.
I'm not sure whether there are any plants left that you can grow without paying license fees.
And AFAIK other european countries have similar regulations (and probably the US, too).
your assertions about socialism, starvation, and cross pollination require something more than your ego/reputation to back them up. please provide some references of peer reviewed scientific articles that describe the relation between socialism and starvation. thanks.
Being there, done that.
Check out the four-assed monkey(s) that professor Mefesto created in South Park.
Monsanto has been a death sentence.
No, Monsanto only followed the law that the citizens wanted in place. The government enacted the death sentence based on what the democracy voted for.
Don't blame Monsanto for what democracy caused.
I, for one, welcome our GM herbicide-resistant overlords!
"You only need one event in several million. As soon as it has taken place the new plant has a huge selective advantage. That plant will multiply rapidly. Unlike the researchers I am not surprised by this. If you apply herbicide to plants which is lethal, eventually a resistant survivor will turn up. The glufosinate-ammonium herbicide used in this case put "huge selective pressure likely to cause rapid evolution of resistance".
So is Johnson unsuprised that a) once cross polination has occured it will then spread rapidly, or b) herbicide resistance can develope rapidly without cross polination? The quote is ambiguous although I suspect its the former. Either way its not a good endorsment of the GMO+weedkiller stratergy.
There are four sorts of people in the world: fools, lunatics, idiots and morons. - Umberto Eco, Foucaut's pendulum.
The true store of wealth is oil.
How's that market going for you?
Considering my currency is safe, my land is paid for, I only have to work 10-15 hours per week earning more than 4 times the average income and I get to travel for pleasure about 1/10th of the year -- very well, thank you very much.
including John Nash
The Nobel prize committee supports socialist positions, so I'd rather not trust it. I read authors like Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, and Bovard. William Hamilton's writings I have read, and I disagree with them completely. Mises and Hayek convinced me of it in more recent works -- such as Hayek's works against socialism.
But if it can't, it's because of free market winner-take-all looking-out-for-number-one avaricious snots like yourself.
Actually, in a free market, the best outcome is born out of mutual profit through cooperation -- not dog eat dog. My biggest successes came out of trading my skills for income when my customer made a profit from the trade. This is the free market.
It's generally considered bad form to tell a professional you know more than he does. I think you owe the biologist an apology.
Quote where I said this.
I don't know the biologist from Adam, and I never said I knew more. I have a different premise for my beliefs, and the scientists that I am friends with admit that even they know other scientists who research in order to justify a belief or an end result. I don't trust any research without it being found to be true by others who I do trust. Generally speaking, the best scientific discovering have an impact in the market -- results that can be sold for a profit. Other discovering that can not be sold for a profit are not ready for society, and may never be. Their hidden costs outweight the results of their use.
A few decades ago they were crying about how we'd have no food to feed the overpopulated earth (Malthusians).
If by couple decades you mean 200 years...
Now we're dying from genetically modified foods that are feeding millions of starving people (who happen to be starving because of the socialist government they live under, not because of lack of opportunities).
Sub-Saharan Africans are all commies? I was under the impression it was a lack of cohesive government that was causing a lot of problems over there? But regardless, there is enough food on the planet already to feed everyone, the problem is getting it where it's needed. If there is no profit in it Capitalism isn't going to do a whole lot of good either.
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact. I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods -- all I see is rhetoric that makes that assumption.
This is the only part that I actually somewhat agree with. If you read the article they don't try and show how they have proven that it is in fact cross-polination. In fact this excerpt is rather interesting: The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically engineered to be resistant to only one.
who happen to be starving because of the socialist government they live under
Right... because no capitalist countries are poor and have starving.
...if it's herbicide resistant, you can just leave it on the weed right? mmm...that's gotta give dat smoking some flavah!... wait...
I hate to break this to you, but that's the general motivation behind most "greenies"--the desire for a higher quality environment.
I have not found this to be true. Free market advocates (I hate to use the term libertarians) such as the CEO of Whole Foods do it the correct way. Those who want to use political force do it the wrong way.
I donate to PERC.ORG -- a market environmental group. They work hard to convince by offering the evidence that I need. The environmental nazis seem to just cry about the falling sky or the depleting ozono or something that I just don't see evidence for.
by Bullshit.
There's no mention of this in the Bible. It almost smacks of Evolution, so of course it can't be true.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart.
(emphasis added)
Never? Never ever? You've never once seen or experienced anyone, even one time, doing something kind or generous, without expecting something in return?
What a sad, cold world you live in.
'Your brain is God.' -- Dr. Timothy Leary
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens
No. Evolution happens all of the time. Strong environmental pressures can cause dramatic change, the results of which evolution operates on, but evolution operates all other times as well. Evolution is simply change, and everything is always changing. Everything. Always.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists
And I'm getting sick of ignorant people thinking they know how nature works, and using that arrogant assumption to support political stances. That includes "greenie environmentalists" and YOU.
Uhh... Moderators, I think you should look up the definition of troll. It's someone who tries to evoke an emotional response. Telling someone to apologize and quit argument would be trying to *end* an emotional response.
Please, not this tired apology. Selective breeding is completely unrelated to genetic modification, it introduces no new genes into a species. Grafting is even more unrelated.
Along with introducing allergens into foods that didn't previously have them, and introducing "better yield" characteristics into weeds.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Corn-Sheep.
Give me... the butter.
Looks interesting, thanks for the tip! Living in apartments, this could be just our ticket. I would be a little worried for our landlord's reaction when he sees a couple of high intensity grow lamps and a drip feed sitting in the corner...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My understanding - as perhaps you as a biologist can speak to this point - is that the techniques of GM can make horizontal gene transfer more probable. After all, the gene in question was transfered into the "target" organism by some vector, some sort of "artifical virus" (this is my lay understanding and I welcome informed corrections from knowledgable biologists).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Why the hell didn't Monsanto neuter their seeds while they were busy tinkering with the herbicide genes?
/.'ers have seen/heard/read?
I know I'm not the first person to ask this question...
What's the best answer
I know and understand about Terminator seeds but if the company is going to sue you for reusing 'their' seeds, they might as well make the seeds one shot wonders.
Either the royalty payments on reusing seeds is less than buying them new from Monsanto, or Monsanto wants to save on distribution costs.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Humans are pretty good at exterminating animals that are rabbit-sized or larger. However, anything smaller than that and we're useless.
If we're so good at cooking up these chemicals, why can't we get rid of Kudzu, the emerald ash borer, the gypsy moth? There's probably dozens more examples, if not hundreds, of insect and plant pests that we can't rid ourselves of.
My point with the "millions of years" comment is that any plant species extant today has survived millions of years of chemical warfare, and literally millions of different chemicals. It will have no problem when humans cook up one more chemical. It's just round 2,578,729 in a war that has been going on for a long long time. They will have no problem surviving.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Of course not -- I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart. I have yet to meet a person (even the diehard communists I know) who don't do everything out of self sufficiency and personal profit.
... ))
.... but it doesn't cover all the expenses."
... ))
Damn.
X: "Hey, Adam, how ya doin?"
Y: (( Let's see, what can I do to get money from this guy
Y: "Horrible, man. I need a lung transplant."
X: "Oh God! Do you have insurance?"
Y: "Yeah
X: "That's horrible! Listen - I know some friends who run a club, down the street. I'll get a couple friends together, we'll get some bands in there, have a benefit concert for you. Lung transplant! Man, that's out of nowhere."
Y: (( Nice
Yeah, laws are totally worthless. How do you expect all these property rights you keep going on about to work without laws?
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
I agree with you, however, Monsanto has been suing farmers who have not planted Monstano's Canola seeds yet the farmer's crops get cross-pollinated from a neighbouring Monsanto Canola field. Farmers call it 'Nature', Monstanto calls it 'Theft'.
Link? Every time I've heard this alleged, it turns out it's just some cheat farmer trying to plant Monsanto product he didn't pay for, or seeds he illegally harvested and re-planted without paying for them.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
You need to get out more. And open your eyes. You are living in poverty while surrounded by riches.
Comments like this cry out for a mod that goes: "+1 Awesome."
Nerry, this is a curse The Lord have putteth forth upon ye faithless scientists who have Molested the Nature's fine balance. Repent! Repent!
"I've learned my lesson: a mountain of sugar is too much for one man. It's clear now why God portions it out in those tiny packets, and why he lives of a plantation in Hawaii."
- Homer (Ep.105, "Lisa's Rival")
The problem with GM crops is that because nature is a complex interaction with thousands of variables (bacteria infects plant, gets eaten by insect, which gets eaten by frog, which gets eaten by larger preditor and so on), you have to test combinations and variables through an entire generation. The regression testing becomes a nightmare. The other half of the problem is the idiots shouting 'nothing bad will happen' when they don't know. I have an uncle who said that he didn't think that there was anything wrong with advertising on the internet, and he thought that those 'lab closet academics' who called it spam were just anti-business, and needed to cut their hair and get jobs. A few years later, he saw the problem in a clearer light (he missed it before) and began getting tired of spam. Suddenly the long-hairs aren't so dumb after all (but alas, spam is still with us). GM canola (rapeseed), got killed in Canada because no one would buy it (the farmers were wary of Monsanto's claims too). It might be possible to create safe genetically modified food, but it's a bit like adding animal waste products from rendering plants into animal feed (and getting mad cow disease as a result). For 10,000 years people just fed cows grass, and no BSE. Piss around with nature, and she will shit on you. GM crops? Sure, BUT you MUST PROVE BEYOND ANY DOUBTS that it REALLY IS SAFE FOR PEOPLE AND THE ENTIRE ENVIRONMENT! Genetic regression testing through several generations. The crop manufactures have a much much shorter profit/loss timespan and are usually unwilling to test properly. It does me little good to eat the GM wheat this week and die 5 years from now, or grow a 3rd ear, or have kids with heart, kidney or mental problems. Tinkering 'just a little bit' usually results in the 'butterfly effect' (a butterfly creates minute air currents, which under the right conditions creates a storm system which turns into a category 5 hurricane). A small genetic modification can do the same. If you aren't 100% certain, then don't do it.
Bring back DDT, save billions of the next few decades.
DDT is saving millions of lives right now by combating malaria. However, putting the stuff on foods intended for comsuption is a fundamentally flawed concept.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists.
If they are green and not a normal skin color, its no wonder you fear sickness.
A few decades ago they were crying about how we'd have no food to feed the overpopulated earth (Malthusians).
So long as fossil fuels are being converted into food via fertilizer and machine use, The Malthusians will wait to be proven right.
At the point machines can't go on and the artifical boosting of land productivity stops, then you will be one of the people whining "Why didn't THEY DO something!"
Meanwhile - Go have some happy reading
Which of course ignores those people who are too poor to move away from nuclear plants,
You're assuming that is it unsafe to live near one, which it isn't. In fact. I used to own a paintball field across the street from one of the biggest plants in the Midwest, and the cancer rates in that region are lower than the national average.
Can I sell a $5 car that explodes if it so much as lightly taps a stationary object?
If you manufacture such a car, and a car dealer buys and sells it, neither will be in business for very long -- the free market provides for this.
Last I checked, the laws protecting intangibles like copyright and patent were much more popular among capitalists, such as yourself.
No, socialists and mercantilists love these laws. Capitalists HATE these laws -- a capitalism is merely another word for mutually-profitable cooperation. Don't confuse capitalism for mercantilism.
I'd like to pay you a visit some night with an automatic weapon. Is your wife hot? If so, I may take her captive and have some fun with her before I sell her to a Japanese businessman to take back overseas.
223 W. Erie, 7th floor, Chicago, IL.
Come visit, with a weapon. I guarantee they won't find you. I've defending one of my retail stores twice with a weapon. I only wish the thief took the time to threaten me rather than run off. My wife is hot, and she also has an impeccable aim. She took down a guy 3 times her size at a party who was violating her space. The right to self defense is inherent - God-given if you believe that term.
How do you expect all these property rights you keep going on about to work without laws?
Mutual cooperation. Read Mises.
Only idiots believe this horseshit. There's a reason the supreme court of Canada has ruled against Schmeiser, and that's because he knowingly cultivated the seed he found growing in his ditch, stored it over winter, and planted it seperately so that he could take advantage of its herbicide resistance.
You obviously haven't actually bothered to read the facts of the case. The people who argue in favour of Percy Schmeiser are idiots in the same way that people who would argue in favour of people who not just download music, but burn CDs and sell them commercially would be. It's just fucking dumb.
HaHaHa! I love the not-so-subtle way you imply that he is a tool. BRILLIANT! You are quite the wordsmith.
(jackass)
A few decades ago they were crying about how we'd have no food to feed the overpopulated earth (Malthusians). Six billion and growing at 500,000/year (source UN).
Then they were crying about how the world will freeze from global cooling. See ocean current shutdown.
Then they were concerned that Florida was be flooded by global warming. Maybe not Florida but an island has reciently been evacuated due to rising tides.
Then we would die from mega-viruses created out of medical research. Ever heard of MRSA and the other hospital super bugs?
Now we're dying from genetically modified foods that are feeding millions of starving people (who happen to be starving because of the socialist government they live under, not because of lack of opportunities). I'm not aware of many socalists governments in developing countries, corrupt dictorships might be more acurate. In India one of the most prosprous well fed states is Kerella which has had a long tradition of communist governments. Have a listern to the discussions at the world trade talks to find out the cause of the stravation.
Sounds like you've got some rethinking to do or soon you will be sick of Greenie environmantalists saying "I told you so".
There are four sorts of people in the world: fools, lunatics, idiots and morons. - Umberto Eco, Foucaut's pendulum.
Actually, in a free market, the best outcome is born out of mutual profit through cooperation -- not dog eat dog. My biggest successes came out of trading my skills for income when my customer made a profit from the trade. This is the free market.
If I could mod you up, I would.
My customers are my partners. The better they do as a result of my work for them, the better I do. The free market is treating me very well. My customers have proven quite grateful to good work done right.
Free market doesn't always work. GM is a controversial issue, but there's plenty of people who just don't care, and not enough vocal detractors to have an impact. However, if they completely f-up the world food supply, everyone suffers. Neither the minority or the majority have the right to screw us all over.
Consider also the problem of attaining critical mass, not so much for labelling (which I believe will be implemented sooner or later) but social issues in general. Humour me on this boycotting 101 lecture. Suppose we're back in the 70's and you have aerosol sprays with CFCs that harm the ozone. Assume for the sake of argument that CFCs are harmful, whether or not people know or not. Unlike GM, which has uncertainties regarding personal health safety, the average consumer doesn't give a damn about a label saying the product contains CFCs. Suppose not selling aerosols has a cost X, and losing the business of people who won't shop at your store if you continue to sell aerosols has a cost Y. Now if any one store stops selling aerosols and the others don't, and Y X the free market swings the other way and hurts stores that don't ban aerosols.
Unfortunately, X is usually pretty high thanks to the large number of people who don't give a damn. And boycotting a store is more expensive for the boycotters nowadays with large chain stores and not enough competition, and even high gas prices. You need a lot of people -- fortunately still only a minority -- to reach the point where the boycott becomes effective. That's why we have the big bad government around to protect minority interests even if everyone else wants to go screw up the world. In theory, at least, because as you've pointed out the govt has plenty of problems, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong (nor necessarily doomed in practice) with the use of govt force to protect our individual selves.
Thanks for supporting my opinion that no one does anything except for personal profit.
Feeling good is a profit incentive -- just not a financial one.
Giving to charity makes you feel good.
Giving to the sick makes you feel good.
Q.E.D.
We shall call this new superweed "Pirate's Delight"
Ramen
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
No, it doesn't. Evolution happens randomly.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
The only way that I might support GM food is if patent law did not cover living organismsn whether animal or vegetal. When Monsanto went after a farmer, and won, which mean his entire crop belonged to Monsanto and that because despite the fact that it was Monsanto's failure to prevent its crops from cross polinating the fields of innocent bystanders... then it meant war. GM foods should be totally boycotted on that gound alone. And it's not even including the awful DRM measures that are being considered to prevent the "illegal copy" of the seeds. World hunger can only be made worse by those guys. They don't want farmers able to produce a self-sustaining crop. They want them to get sterile seeds that they can only get from them if they have the cash. Now consider that they are not likely to consider the side effect of their research. Sure, herbicide resistance is nothing much. Just a good reason to used better way of controlling weeds. It's long since been time to get rid of those anyway. But it illustrates how these modifications are being made without considering the whole picture. Again, the problem is patent law. These guys should not be the ones researching the improvement in the means of production. They can't find better ways: not from the farmer or consumer point of view. They can only find better ways from the supplier point of view. And the world may rot because of it they don't care.
"I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists."
Don't lump all environmentalists into one giant stereotype because you read something somewhere. Nuclear waste has a 10000 year half-life. Global warming is a real. Dying fish stocks are a problem. Deforestation threatens us on many fronts. The fossil record indicates a massive manmade extinction is occuring. Summed up.... a rapidly changing global environment without controls and monitoring is just begging for problems. It would be completely iresponsible to ignore these issues.
There is nothing wrong with earning a living. However because solutions are sometimes found to evnvironmental problems certainly isn't due to industrialists concerned for the environment. It's because a whack of good people try to look beyond just making buck at the "big picture" and bring threats to civilization into the public consciousnes. When enough evidence is presented industry and the public eventually take action.
I'm really getting sick of morons that whine about environmentalists while reaping all the benefits of these true heros. Be thankful these good people are out there "hugging trees" so we have a chance at creating a sustainable environment rather than depending on sheer blind luck for everything to work out. If you don't mind a crappy environment.... I suggest moving to a garbage dump. I hear property is cheap because no one wants to live there.
I for one will also continue to pay more for organic food, though I don't know where your GF is shopping to be paying %400 more. I can get my organic groceries for roughly the same cost at Trader Joes here in Chicago, as I can for crap food at Jewel, and have it all taste better and have actual nutrition.
Free market doesn't always work.
I think it does -- I look at markets which are unencumbered by regulations and restrictions and monopoly grants (look at the PC business and the clothing industry). We see falling prices, until tariffs and regulations are added, which then causes manufacturers to find loopholes so they can lower prices to compete.
Neither the minority or the majority have the right to screw us all over.
Yet that is what government does -- the majority tells the individual how to act/think/respond.
Now if any one store stops selling aerosols and the others don't, and Y X the free market swings the other way and hurts stores that don't ban aerosols.
Because the consumers wanted aerosols. If aerosols are bad, then other consumer watchdog groups must warn about them so consumers can make informed decisions to protect their futures. If they don't want change, then they either don't care about the future or they don't believe there is a problem. The free market provides in either situation.
Now if any one store stops selling aerosols and the others don't, and Y X the free market swings the other way and hurts stores that don't ban aerosols.
Mega-retailers comes out of over-regulation. High gas prices, too. Both are part of the problem of big government.
That's why we have the big bad government around to protect minority interests even if everyone else wants to go screw up the world.
Except the minority interests are not protected -- only those who can control government are protected (usually the big corporations). Laws may SEEM to protect the little guy, but 10-20 years later we find the big guys are the ones that profit and the little guy is long forgotten.
GM foods are easy to dismiss in a free market: stop buying them. Convince others to do the same. The market will choose a winner and a loser, or two winners. I look at Whole Foods (which exists WITHOUT using legal devices to mandate their product) and I see success without the law. Hey! That's a free market success.
"Most anarchocapitalists, like me" ....
I used to be an anarcho-capitalist, and then I grew up. Anarcho-capitalism is one of those beguiling ideologies that looks great on paper, but it useless in practice.
It's useless in practice because most of the underlying assumptions of anarcho-capitalism don't hold in practice. For example a) information is not equally available to all, b) information does not distribute equally among all, c) people do not make rational decisions (look up the research on non-transitivity of consumer preferences), etc, etc.
Before you write me off as some left wing pinko liberal, I would suggest you read some of the more recent published material on markets and topology (yes topology!) -- the Fields Institute is a good place to look for such material. They will give you a very different perspective on the market that you trust so implicitly.
In practice anarcho-capitalism is nothing more than social darwinism -- survival of the strongest, supression of the weak.
In a free market, Mosanto will get whatever power and control it can afford to buy.
See, communism doesn't work since it expects too much from people, that they will work out of the goodness of their hearts (actually it works in small scale, as long as everyone knows everyone else). Capitalism doesn't work either, since it expects too much from people, that they won't sell their integrity and pass laws and do evil for money.
Imagining that free markets and the invisible hand of market forces will cure all the ills of the world is simply modern superstition.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Serious regulation will come to GM crops eventually (even in the U.S.), however I fear that it will be the result of a major crop failure. Don't get me wrong, GM crops do hold a lot of promise for mankind, but like atomic power there is a serious 'downside'.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Hee-freakin'-haw. Every biologist who doesn't actually work for Monsanto or Cargill saw this one coming decades ago. Families like the brassicas are more promiscuous than a San Francisco bathouse. They cross breed all the time with their wild relatives.
It doesn't even take sexual reproduction to do it. Plant viruses transfer genetic material from one plant to another sometimes completely unrelated one. All it takes is one or two out of billions to start the evolutionary ball rolling.
The whole point of the exercise was to sell more herbicides. By making the crops herbicide resistant you encourage farmers to change the way they farm to buy tons of the stuff. There are other methods that produce more nutrition per acre - and even per dollar - but they don't sell the product that the agrichem industry is pushing.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
dada21:
I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart. I have yet to meet a person (even the diehard communists I know) who don't do everything out of self sufficiency and personal profit.
radtea:
You need to get out more. And open your eyes. You are living in poverty while surrounded by riches.
dada21:
I travel almost 90 days a year on average -- including visiting almost every continent at least once every 3-4 years. I meet with elite and poor people, every day. Don't tell me what I need to do.
You may be wealthy beyond measure, but if you do not have love then you are impoverished. No amount of money can buy it. The only way you get it is by giving it away.
Peace and love, y'all
The farmers should file a counter-suit against Monsanto for ruining their crops.
They'd probably win.
Anarcho-capitalism is one of those beguiling ideologies that looks great on paper, but it useless in practice.
For the last 6 years I have lived as an anarchocapitalist (I recently went to the Social Security office to ask for a refund, 50 people all laughed in unison). I try very hard to avoid anything the State "provided" for me, but of course there are some things one can't avoid.
a) information is not equally available to all
This is a myth about anarchocapitalism. Every side of a trade must believe that they're getting something out of the trade -- there is no allotment for information having to be known by all. This is why I don't trust stock markets and banking industries -- I know they know more than I do, so I avoid them.
b) information does not distribute equally among all
It doesn't need to -- if I need information about a product, I can pay someone else who has studied it. If I can't figure out what I need to know, I don't acquire that product.
c) people do not make rational decisions (look up the research on non-transitivity of consumer preferences),
Maybe not in specific situations, but over time they do. If a guy buys a keyboard that doesn't work, he won't buy that brand again -- until that brand offers a better product. So he makes one mistake, but learns from that mistake.
They will give you a very different perspective on the market that you trust so implicitly.
Actually, I'm aware and well read on the Fields Institute, and I don't think that MathSci applies to market forces. The dynamics of the market are too complex to plot mathematically -- but I can figure out a market direction without looking at equations. I lost a very profitable business in 2005 because I didn't listen to what the market needed. One of my other businesses tripled in profit because I fed the market what it wanted.
Anarchocapitalism is NOT social darwinism -- it is everyone taking responsibility for their actions and cooperating while mutually profiting.
Was it feasible up to 1990? No. But with the Internet, we see anarchocapitalism growing in areas never before seen. We can now easily moderate transactions instantly (a la eBay feedback) and we can review products, services and even people instantly, too. I see less and less need for "transparency" through the law when we have the ability to learn all we need to know through the sharing of information we're already doing.
They will give you a very different perspective on the market that you trust so implicitly.
I'm not wealthy at all -- I invest my money in businesses that help my employees more than they help me (considering what I pay them versus what I get paid). I tithe 10% of my pretax dollars to my church -- where I watch my money get people off drugs, get single moms into paying jobs, and get children out of the streets and into mentorship programs. My money is working in front of my eyes, which can't be said for government theft of dollars via taxation.
The market that I so love brings opportunities to those who want them. The government that you so love brings sadness to those who are barred from taking advantage of opportunities stolen from them, and sadness to those who are taxed in order to support the powerful.
The dandelion os not native to North America - it was imported from Europe by the Pilgrims who thought of it as useful crop.
Natural selection and transmission of resistance really have nothing to do with GM crops - it is go to happen anyway, whether or not the crop is modified. And of course GM modification for herbicide resistance is only one of the ways that modification is used. GM modification can be used to add new nutritional value or other charactericts as well.
So in reality this article is just a stupid troll, which I guess shouldn't be that surprising given what goes for science reporting in this daya and age.
Proudhon also said "Property is Liberty", and various other Property== quotes. The only way I see to make sense of Proudhon is to assume he wasn't talking about the same kinds of property in the same applications. We're left with "Property (subscript 1) is Theft", "Property (subscript 2) is Liberty", etc.
Oh, but if we do that, we're essentially discussing a system where property rights have to be balanced with other rights. Wonder what that would be like? Anyone know of a real world case?
Who is John Cabal?
Genetic engineering is the most powerful technology ever developed by man. It's potential for both harm and benefit seem limitless, yet we know little for certain. The concern is that greedy multinationals are busy marketing it as safe and effective with the same amount of safety research that brought you tobacco and Vioxx. We're like infants who've found daddy's guns. Right now we've got the barrel in our mouth, and wondering what the trigger does.
So what happens if someone with a bigger gun than you from tresspasses on your property?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
The 'free market' has hurt and killed many innocent people. Fire codes, building codes, labor laws, securities laws, health codes, etc, etc, etc, have all been created due to failures of the free market, why should GM crops be any different?
Actually, I'm in the contracting and engineering business -- codes are used in order to control who builds in a given area, to compensate cronies who own businesses that sell code-meeting devices, to supplement the unions that publish some code regulation books, and to devise ways to tax those unfriendly to government.
Fire codes, building codes, etc, are better written by insurance companies in order to set a policy up. Insurance companies were given a way out of paying claims by these codes.
Monsanto has been suing farmers i believe a good example of this is Percy Schmeiser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Schmeiser his case went all the way to the supreme court of canada
Who is this Jimmy character, and why was he cracking corn in the first place?
I never did like those GM Plants. I don't really like Ford or Honda plants either! What? Nevermind!
How can completely different and unrelated species of plants "cross-pollinate"?
Please document "cross-pollinization" of weeds and domestic crops occuring in nature; we aren't talking about a domestic crop and its wild cousin, but rather a domestic crop and a totally unrelated species of weed. WTF? How can they "cross-pollinate" naturally?
The entire reason we have GM foods is because this kind of "cross-pollinization" can't happen naturally!
suid has nothing to do with sudoers, what you want to do "chmod -s" them.
To summarize your argument:
"This must be evolution just because you think so, even though I'm not a biologist and have not done any research before making this statement. Some people who do not think it is evolution share this viewpoint with others who I am grouping with many other people who have made some claims that turned out to be nothing to worry about in the past"
Corporations are evil, selfish, greedy monsters. If you want to find true evil in the world, look no further than your neighboring corporate HQ. But you know what? They've been evil since they were first created. But look at what they have brought us! Like an evil Santa Claus who distributes toys to the world's children for purely selfish reasons, they have effectively brought wealth to the common person in our country.
You know what? I'm not too concerned about Monsanto or any other EVIL corporation. (Not even Haliburton, even if Satan Lord Beelzebub was CEO and chairman of the board.) I'll explain why.
I can think of several other evil corporations. Let's take Microsoft for instance. Monsanto would like to license farmers to use their seeds and using their seeds require their chemicals and the whole package. Doesn't this sound like Microsoft? Sure, food is more important than software, but for a great number of people, software is food. If servers crash or viruses hit, money is lost, money that would buy food to feed someone's family. If my company's software were to absolutely fail, I would be out of a job, and if I couldn't find more money, my family would starve. Not to mention the people who are depending on me to donate money to charity, and the government who depends on my tax revenue.
But look at what Microsoft really did. In their EVIL desire to rule the world, they put a PC or two in almost every home in America and Europe and East Asia. They are trying really hard to make the PC palatable to 3rd world countries and even in China. (I strongly believe that the reason why Bill Gates wants better education and clean water for everyone is so that they can buy more Microsoft computers. EVIL!) They also created a market for cheap consumer computer components. This has resulted in better components for much cheaper prices. Take a look at the cost of hard drive storage compared to 10 years ago. Fascinating, huh? By expanding the market by a magnitude of several million, we not only get selection, but look at the cheap prices!
I love Linux, I use Linux almost exclusively, but I can't say that Linux would've done the same thing as Microsoft did. We don't really have an incentive to saturate the market with cheap OS's and productivity suites. So no one is spending 60 hours a week trying to figure out how to boost Linux installations by 25% next year. See, unlike Microsoft, we're not evil enough to try and force Linux on the masses. In some ways, I wish we were more evil. There's hope for Red Hat yet to turn evil and start forcing its way into server rooms and home offices.
You know what? Farmers are only going to deal with Monsanto if it benefits them, period. In other words, if they can produce more higher quality food with less cost using Monsanto's evilly licensed system, they will do it. Or, in more realistic terms, if they can get paid more money for their crops while spending less and making more of it, they will do it. Farmers aren't stupid. (Individual farmers--maybe. But not the entire class as a whole.) Some farmers won't trust Monsanto, others will use a different company, and still others won't use GM crops at all. Heck, you can buy organic food pretty much anywhere nowadays. If people want something like that, then Monsanto will never penetrate the market 100%. We're going to have the same diversity that has saved us from the same kind of famines that have hit other countries in the past. And if Monsanto wants to sue to keep people from accidentally growing Monsanto licensed soybeans, that's probably a good thing.
What does this mean for the consumer? Better food, more of it, for cheaper. But we also get more variety. I can't wait until I can buy 5 pound tomatoes and soybeans the size of my arm, personally. That can't be a bad thing, can it?
That's the reason why the free market works and the US is the wealthiest country the world has ever known. The free market takes the selfish, evil desires of some very smart people and turns it into cheap, quality products
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Holy shit, you're the epitome of a backwards capitalist pig. Do you know that people like you have been on the receiving end of basically every revolution in the history of mankind? See, in the real world, we care about other people. It's just how it goes. Enjoy your dying philosophy.
Economics is junk science, economists are quaks. There is no appreciable difference between an economist and a hippie who believes crystals heal diseases. Both of them believe things that are based purely on faith or what they feel ought to work. Neither one is even willing to consider any evidence that their theories are junk
What article did you read?
Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants
But the resulting hybrid was not fertile it seems:
What is not clear in the English case is whether the charlock was fertile. Scientists collected eight seeds from the plant but they failed to germinate them and concluded the plant was "not viable".
But it did produce pollen, so it is possible that it could transfer the resistant gene to another plant.
So, this is not a case of natural selection, but rather the engineered gene actually being incorporated into a different species of plant via cross polination.
"Come visit, with a weapon. I guarantee they won't find you."
I think you are missing the OP's point entirely. You require everyone to be armed to the teeth just to protect themselves, throwing civilization back in the 1500s, and only because it's a system you feel comfortable with.
You are also a bit naive to assume that everything happens in a direct face-to-face confrontation, which allows one to defend himself. There are unfortunately plenty of other ways to "never see it coming", and major figures in world history are testament to this fact. Maybe you can devote a lot of energy for your defense; you should however not require everyone to have to do the same thing.
You are right that there are issues with GM foods. The IP issues in particular are very troubling. If a company has their crops pollinate my crops, they sure as hell shouldn't suddenly own everything on my field. There are also worries about environmental effects. Though, in the case of environmental effects we need to realize that a few square kilometers of a single planet is NEVER natural. We also need to realize that GM foods can drastically help reduce the amount of pollution put out by a farm by reducing the fertilizer waste.
The thing to keep in mind with GM foods is that like all technologies, it will bring harm and good. GM foods have the ability to cure hunger in certain places. Nutritionally enriched rice in particular is doing wonders in Asia for malnourishment. GM foods offer a potential band-aid to global environmental change. Here in the US a climate shift is not a big deal for farmers. US farmers can switch crops and modify their methods with relative ease. Poor farmers in Africa on the other hand do not have the luxury. If their stable crop suddenly stops growing, they are, in a word, fucked. Other dangers include poor soil due to soil erosion. Modify crops to grow in these places are a possible stopgap measure to prevent mass starvation.
GM foods is something that we must pursue for the sake world hunger and malnourishment. To me, the issue is far less about if we should do, and more a question of 'how'. The how of it is what we are really fucking up. Growing untested GM food in the wild is down right stupid. Untested GM foods should be grown in enclosed areas. Cross pollination issues need to be dealt with. Cross pollination might be okay if you are giving Africa a super crop that will grow more and be more resistant to drought, but it is a down right horrible idea if you are growing corn with an anti-biotic in it for the sake of pharmaceutical production. Further, this whole notion that cross pollinated genes some how belong to someone is down right insane. The only way I will accept that cross pollination of genes belongs to a certain company is if farmers can sue said company for violating their private property and demand reparation payments for the damage to their crops.
This stuff needs to be looked at with a balanced and level head. Anyone who claims that GM is all good or all bad is just a fundamentalist who has no intentions of thinking this issue through. Fundamentalist should never be listened to, no matter what their position.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
How do you respond to 'tragedy-of-the-commons' type issues, or do you deny the existence of any kind of 'commons' at all?
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
You're doing the same thing the other poster did, and it's quite awful.
The environmental nazis seem to just cry about the falling sky or the depleting ozono or something that I just don't see evidence for.
You are conflating irrational idiots (who are very few in number) with rational environmentalists. Most Americans are rational environmentalists. They don't want the environment ruined, but they want oil and paper. So they are balanced. They don't set fires to SUV dealerships, in fact, many of them drive SUV's.
Those who want to use political force do it the wrong way.
Capitalism, the way it's run in the US, dictates that if you can save a few dollars by destroying an ecosystem, then you are pressured to do so. The government (ie: us, you still don't understand that we are the government, although we are giving away that status to the corporations all in the name of free market capitalism) can make it cost more (via taxes, fines, etc) to destroy an ecosystem than it costs to be more responsible.
What you keep advocating, which is for the people to give up all forms of political clout, just gives the wealthy more power. Your whole system destroys itself. It's unstable. Absolutely every society requires a government that tinkers in the economy. Whether that government is official (such as in the US) or unofficial (as in the mafia), or semi-official (as in worker's unions and corporations) it doesn't matter. There's *always* going to be someone forcing their will on someone else. Might as well be as rational as possible, and as equal as possible, when it comes to delegating that force, no?
We need oil, but what's wrong with mandating that oil tankers be made spill-resistant up to a certain point? We need wood and paper, but what's wrong with saying you must keep in mind the impact to streams and wetlands? We need power, but what's wrong with saying it's OK if the power costs a few cents more per month, but just make sure the salmon can get past the dams? Or that the nuclear plant is highly unlikely to melt-down? Or that the mercury in the coal exhaust is collected in the smokestacks instead of in children's brains?
It's irrational to be an environmental extremist, but it's just as irrational to trust the free market to look out for your best interests and not its own. The free market is quite wonderful when it works, but it does not always work, and sometimes needs to be directed or controlled by we, the people.
I don't see how that is a valid assumption to make.
I personally don't know enough about chainsaw design to look at a product and deduce whether or not the chain is going to break and tear my face open or score my shin bone. I don't know enough about centrifugal clutches to make an informed decision about how long my chainsaw will last before the clutch gives out.
I'm not sure how you expect everyone to be an expert in every aspect of purchasing and if they're not, it's their fault.
You sound like you're heavily influenced by Milton Freedman and his writing, so I'll give you a quote to refute something you said earlier about manufacturers' responsibilityDon't forget, for a completely free market to work, you need perfect information. I suggest you read the (lengthy) wikipedia entry on capitalism and take some time to think about the pieces of that entry that you don't agree with.
I think it's also fair to point out that much of what's been written by 'great minds' represents ideals. Ideals rarely work out in the real world..
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
There are several ways to integrate the exogenous DNA into the plants - I work with bacteria, the specific techniques you use there (which I know something about) are completely different.
Does doing this make the DNA in question more likely to hop out again?
No one really knows, I'm afraid. In most cases, it still seems like it would be highly unlikely, but our understanding is really very limited.
The only real way to answer that question is to plant the genetically modified organisms and then check. In this respect, you may have an answer to your question right here.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The theory of Evolution really consists of two sub-theories: Mendellian Genetics and Darwinian Selection.
Mutation is a part of genetics, and happens randomly - Natural Selection is the NON-random part of the overall theory. Natural selection always proceeds towards the immediately optimum goal of increasing the number of viable copies of a given gene that exist in the ecosystem, ignoring all other, possibly longer term goals (including the integrity of species boundaries, and the survival of the parent organism, if these conflict). That's an extremely non-random filtering process.
Who is John Cabal?
Of course not -- I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart. I have yet to meet a person (even the diehard communists I know) who don't do everything out of self sufficiency and personal profit.
Oh please. I'm fairly tired of this worn out meme. I'm sure you feel pretty elightened saying such things, as though you've pulled back the veil on everyone's bullshit. But it's a meaningless statement. Are you really claiming that every time I've donated to a cause, volunteered or helped out, it was for personal profit? You'd have a damn hard time tracing any of the benefits back to me. Oh sure, I felt good about helping... so I guess that makes it a selfish act? What a shallow and pointless philosophy.
I mean, I get it: everything we do can be traced back to a desire to feel good. But given that, if you can't tell the difference between kindness and selfishness, well, pull your head out of the sand.
Cheers.
"Mega-retailers comes out of over-regulation. High gas prices, too. Both are part of the problem of big government."
Maybe I am just dense this morning, but I don't follow how mega-retailers and high gas prices are the result of over-regulation. I'd like to hear your reasoning behind this assertation.
I would have normally thought that mega-retailers come from economies of scale and market forces and are not restricted in growth because of of little regulation at the local level.
I can see how taxes and some regulations increase gas prices, but on the flip side the cost of roads is highly subsidised vs the cost of railroads. If true market costs were felt on each, much of the current cross-country truck transit would be moved to rail.
If I have a flawed view of the world or economics, I would like to correct that view.
I don't trust such news coming from "general" newspapers. Journalists have a tendency of twisting meanings when dealing with science. What I'd like to see is a detailed study published on a scientific paper. Like that it would be at least worthy of consideration. Disclaimer: I'm a biotechnologist.
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
At first glance, I thought I went to marijuana.com by accident :( what a letdown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigon
While I'm at it, there's a bunch of other cross-breeds too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeedonk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebroid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cama_(animal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolphin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zony/zetland
I'll cut-n-paste wikipedia's definition of a crossbreed:
And the definition of a hybrid to follow it up
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The poor farmers are in other countries that cannot afford to subsidize farming like we do here in the US. The poor farmers are in countries where they have been lured into buying into GM crops and are stuck paying Monsanto for their seeds every year which serves as a drain on the local economy. It is like the whole baby formula scandal where companies like Nestle' convice poor people that infant formula is better (and easier) than breast milk. But by the time the poor people realize that they can't really afford the formula in the long run, they find that they HAVE to buy th eforumla because the mother isn't producing milk any more. Sometimes they resort to cow's milk and really mess up the infant nutritionally.
I'm sorry, but it is sick. They export their perfectly good food and labor, and we give them "Burger King" in return.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Let me rephrase that one for you:
Who happen to be starving because of the fascist dick licking government, supported by Del Monte and the US of A, they are living under
send + more == money?
why dont we just engineer something to kill these new weeds?
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
Humor me - why are gold and silver the only true store of wealth? From a utilitarian standpoint, they are useful for being good electric and heat conductors, one of which doesn't corrode. You can make shiny decorations out of them. That's kinda it. So... the reason that they are the "only true store of wealth" is that... people have always been willing to trade other assets for them historically? Or is there another basis I am missing? This is not meant as a troll, but I would like to know your rationale.
Sure, as you point out, insurance companies have an interest in these codes and can (should) offer valuable input, but the fact is many people died to produce examples.
On of the biggest problems with our quickly moving technological society is that needed regulation can fall well behind technological innovation. When that happens people die.
Next time you get behind the wheel of a car, remember that nearly every safety feature of the car, the highway, and the rules of the road, were 'inked' from spilt blood. The next time you take a plane ride, just think of jumbo jets with exploding fuel tanks, metal fatuge, or terrorist bombings.
I just don't want to be part of a generation which has to the example for the regulation of GM foods.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Should have gone with Ford.
Duh, my bad. I picked up this anectdotally, through The Corporation. They devote about 10-15 minutes on Monsanto and their litigious pursuits over their IP protection.
If you haven't heard of it, it's a documentary that analyzes the behavior and nature of today's corporations, quite long at 3 hours (but it's split into 6 pieces as it was originally a doc series for public TV), but a decent rental choice for a Sunday afternoon.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Herbicide resistance has been seen time and time again for decades.
Herbicide after herbicide has been effective for a while, sooner or later that effectiveness diminishes and that herbicide falls out of favor. Some are mandated out of existence due to unforeseen environmental side effects (see DDT)others simply have to be replaced due to diminishing effectiveness.
Herbicide resistance drives a large segment of the chemical engineering industry.
As an aside it should also be noted that cross-pollenization is the mechanism that genes are distributed Within a Species not from species to species.
One of the definitions of a species is a set of actually or potentially interbreeding populations. "crabgrass doe not get it on with corn, its as simple as that.
I don't know where you draw the line between "greenie environmentalists" and people like myself -- who understand that in a closed system you can only fuck with your resources so much before you fuck yourself. I agree there's a lot of chicken-little-sky-is-falling going on. There are extremes in every group. But I take greater exception to those who think we can plow ahead with resource consumption and contamination and never pay a price.
I mean, it's not impossible to contruct a formula that would tell us how much of a given resource we can consume without upsetting the ecosystem. (I'm guessing the word ecosystem makes you cringe). Here's an example: at the extremes, cutting down only a million trees per year is probably fine, cutting down a trillion per year is probably not. Do you know why? Because by my rough calculations there's less than 2 trillion trees in the world. I don't have any idea the rate at which we're cutting down trees, so maybe there's no problem. But I bet most people form their opinions on the topic of deforestation without any data. Did you have any guess as to the number of trees in the world before I threw out my estimate? Do you have any idea of the rate of deforestation (I don't)? Isn't that strange? We do need these things for oxygen among other things.
I don't know anything about tree reproduction rates or biodiversity needs. So who's going to do the research and tell me what's sustainable? So far all I hear is people shouting "not one more tree" or "cut at will" without anything but ideology to back up their stance. Seems a bit foolish to me. I wonder whether those who go around using phrases like "greenie environmentalists" care. But we're not talking about unknowable mysteries here, and it does matter eventually, assuming you care about the human race.
So stop and think, from time to time, about how many people are pissing in the pool before being so cavalier about it. You're swimming in the pool whether you like it or not.
As to your comment about evolution vs. genetic modification & cross-pollination causing the resistant weeds, I totally agree. This was bound to happen anyways. Finding new antibiotics, pesticides, etc, will be a endless task.
Cheers.
You are truly talking out of your arse. What fresh GM veggies can you buy in the supermarket? maize? Soy? Potato, The only thing that I know of marketed to consumers one time was a tomato that would keep longer, not shorter. If you really thing GM food will rot sooner, you don't have a clue about genetic modification. They add one or two genes to add a particular trait like roundup resistance. That will not change ripening of the veggie. If you think the veggies in your supermarket go off sooner than the 'bio'(ever seen vegetables that were anorganic?) stuff you buy at the greengrocer, that is probably because the supermarket stuff has worse or older products (and the other reason is because you don't know what double blind tests are. The plural of anecdote != data).
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
This is the only time when I think having a lot of lawyers might be a good idea!
Can't talk for you, of course, but I wasn't designed by Monsanto.
How ironic that you would crack a joke about Intelligent Design in the one article where not only is the concept appropriate, but you can actually give the street address (Monsanto Company, 800 North Lindbergh Boulevard, St. Louis, MO-63167) of the particular designer responsible...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If a guy buys a keyboard that doesn't work, he won't buy that brand again -- until that brand offers a better product.
In my experience, not always. I've found that people can be a *lot* less rational than you might think.
This is a case where the solution is worse than the problem.
1) No more saving the best seeds to be replanted, new seed must be licensed every year. This not only has legal force (see Canadian Supreme Court decision in favor of Monsanto), but from not on, they only eat if they have money to pay Monsanto. There is no going back, refer to that court decision. The seed Monsanto sells produces a sterile crop. Monsanto has a de facto monopoly on worldwide crop seed production.
2) The GM supercrops form a genetic monoculture that create a situation ripe for a worldwide famine. We are one bug away from a total wipeout. The last time so few strains were cultivated, the population of Ireland was decimated. Ask millions of dead Irish if having only two or three varieties of potatoes is enough. Then ask the Board of Monsanto, they will beg to differ. Further, the GM crops have been altered to resist RoundUp, a Monsanto pesticide, thereby locking farmers into one company's pesticide and forcing other pesticide companies out of business. Of course, we are now seeing RoundUp resistant weeds, so back to square one, except Monsanto has achieved monopoly both on seed and pesticide, and farmers are locked into their sterile crops.
GM in and of itself is not evil. I am not a corporation hater. However, Monsanto,s implementation sucks. To put something as critical as worldwide food production in the hands of one unaccountable company, places us one accident away from worldwide famine.
Everyone knows that the Cannabis Cup 1995 winner is the strongest weed around.
We have all kinds of anti-trespass laws and the most private-property (and private-power) favorable government seen in this country since the days of the robber barrons, and yet your "pollution is trespass" solution isn't working. When power is concentrated into the hands of large corporations, it's impossible for the "little guy" to successfully prosecute them for "trespass".
(Now, if you're saying that the ultimate solution is to make sure that economic power isn't concentrated into the hands of a few, great. I agree. Welcome to libertarian socialism. But at the moment it is the case that economic power is immensely concentrated thanks to the state actions that enable capitalism.)
Even there, though, someone has to figure out where "trespass" starts. Somewhere on the continuum between the negligable pollution I add to the air we all share when I burn a candle, and a smokestack pumping pure poison into the air, there has to be the line where behavior becomes actionable. That line is regulation.
(And I love how libertarian capitalists pretend that enforcing anti-trespass laws is somehow not the use of force. The verbal gymnastics involved in asserting that someone who is sitting quietly on your front lawn is using force against you, is entertaining.)
Falsely label something is fraud. Calling a GM organism a "tomato" when it is so different from a tomato that a patent is warranted is false labeling. I'm sure as a libertarian capitalist you're opposed to fraud, no?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Perhaps you might be so kind as to also tell the free market solution for figuring out where the pollution came from ? After all, pollen is airborne and leaves no marks on its way, so any Monsanto-carrying field nearby could be responsible - and if they are owned by different people, you need to find the culprit to do anything about this violation, since they and not Monsanto are responsible for Mosantos little genetic timebomb.
Well, actually, the grocer will just print some official-looking labels on self-adhesive paper and stick them on his products. This isn't fraud, since in the anarcho-capitalist utopia there is no laws except for protecting property, so there is no such thing as "fraud" since no law forbids it.
Or all the grocers withing hundred miles could simply agree that none of them gets labeled food. And while they are at it, they can as well fix the prices to certain level to get a healthy profit without any of that nasty "competition" driving prices down. No law forbids this, after all.
Then you don't have any problem with us, the people owning the properties surrounding yours, building a wall that prevents any movement to and from your property. We aren't using force, after all, we are just preventing you from moving accross our properties - a pity that this makes yours useless, but hey, maybe if you pay us enough for the use of our properties for passage...
Oh yes, lack of any regulation is just wonderfull, at least for those who have - not so nice for those who have not, thought >:].
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
What fresh GM veggies can you buy in the supermarket?
...ever seen vegetables that were anorganic?>
Again, you are confused. Here is a Wikipedia article about Organic food and a definition of the term.
It seems the geography presented in my comment has confused you. Notice that it is in the US I am buying GM foods. In the US, genetically modified food is widely available and accepted by consumers. Here is a list according to theFSA:
Cantaloupe
Radicchio
Tomato
Potato
Squash
Papaya
Sugar beet
Rice
Sweetcorn
They add one or two genes to add a particular trait like roundup resistance. That will not change ripening of the veggie... the plural of anecdote != data
The very first FSA approved GM food was the Flavr Savr tomato in 1994. Here is how one article describes the Flavr Savr tomato:
"Briefly, the Flavr Savr(TM) tomato is the result of the insertion of a single DNA sequence that interferes with the expression of a gene involved in fruit ripening."
Moe here.
The tomato was designed to last longer than regular tomatoes at room temperature. The incorrectness of your claim aside, it is entirely probable my experience shows, not that the Flavr Savr tomatoes don't last longer, but that grocers try to take too much advantage of the Flavr Savr.
You obviously know next to nothing about farming. I do, it's my business. Farmers are going broke all over the place. They despise the big agcos but are locked into dealing with them for the most part. The big agcos are destroying agriculture as they create a handful of global cartels. They don't care, get it, because eventually they get to own all of it, that's THE PLAN. Just like when walfarts moves in and cleans out all the local competition by undercutting prices. Eventually, they are going to stick it to everyone, including you, price wise for your "cheap food". WAKE UP. Think RIAA with seriously advanced DRM that can spread enforced by legislation, but applied to food. Now just STFU and think on it more than ten seconds. Extrapolate a decade or so. Do some google research on what's been going on with Iraqi farmers, what's being imposed on them from the US corporate boys and their puppet politicians to see what will be coming to the US shortly, because it's the same greed filled goons in charge, they just are using Iraq as a test bed. Go LOOK, learn something. And you haven't even addressed what crap produced pseudo food has done to peoples health, that's an actual true mega-cost that doesn't show up in your overly simplistic analysis of food prices. Or do you think food and nutrition and health are totally unrelated subjects?
Stick to your expertise, you make occassional decent points there, but you aren't an expert in everything.. Where I live out in the boonies that's where we draw the line, there's rednecks, then dumbass rednecks. The dumbass ones know everything, or they think they do. Oh, and another thing, I feel real sorry for you if you don't know any actual non-greedy people. That's pitiful man, just pitiful.
So you're such a free-wheelin' cowboy type that you'd rather have an armed shootout in your home at 3 am than have a society that establishes laws which by-and-large prevent people from coming into your home trying to kill you and take your stuff?
This one needs an explanation. You're saying that laws PREVENT criminals from entering a persons home and taking their stuff? Newsflash, boy: we call them "criminals" because they make it a point to BREAK laws. They don't give a shit how many laws you pass, or indeed, what the penalties for breaking them are. If they did they wouldn't be criminals, now would they?
And just in case you've seen one too many cop shows on TV, the police arrive AFTER a crime has been committed more than 99.5% of the time. While they sometimes catch the criminal and prevent him from doing future harm to someone else, that doesn't help YOU - the purpose who's just been raped, robbed, or murdered. It doesn't help YOU one fucking bit. The only person who's going to help you is YOU. Society won't help you, the government won't help you, and sure as shit it's almost certain that the police won't help you. The only person standing between you and a criminal is YOU.
It's the same under every system of government. Personal defense, defense of your loved ones, and defense of your property is always YOUR responsibility. You can either buck up and be a man about it, or you can fall on your knees, beg for mercy, and let the criminal do whatever the hell he wants to you. Those are the only two choices you have.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Herbicide resistance hurts organic and traditional farmers too.
The bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is used as a biological pest control agent to protect crops from caterpillars; unfortunately this was noticed by the GM companies, who engineered the Bt toxin gene into their crops. Guess what: it didn't work quite as well as the bacterium.
Result: Bt toxin-resistant caterpillars. Great work, guys.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
" What's not immediately clear from the story is how this happened."
Yep, you have to read the whole article and not just the first paragraph.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Is it anywhere else? Not yet but as they tried to hide this report who the hell knows?
People can't see beyond the anarchocapitalist propaganda, which you lay on pretty bloody thick, Dada21. While I'm mostly libertarian even I am tempted to label you "loon" and stop reading your posts; they sound like the anarchist equivalent to religious tripe.
But if you can refrain from pouring on the verbage about how great anarchy is, you could concentrate on the relevent point in the argument - that being that Monsanto isn't solely to blame for this bullshit. Monsanto would have no claim whatsoever if government didn't give it a right to make that claim in the first place. And government can only give Monsanto that right if the people who supposedly elected that government allow it to.
So the blame for Monsantos evil deeds lies not only with Monsanto, but also with the government (in this case, the Canadian government) and the people who elected that government and allowed them to pass these bullshit laws in the first place (in this case, the Canadian people). All three are to blame for what occurred, although each group does its level best to avoid responsibility while passing it one to one of the other two groups.
It's a favorite game these days; everyone whines, but nobody wants to take responsibility. Every citizen is responsible for the actions of their government, yet people immediately duck and run whenever someone points this out, usually with the lame excuse "but waaaaah! I didn't vote for that guy!". Doesn't matter, of course; you live in the country, you're reponsible for what your country does. Period. You don't get a special pass, and no political church can absolve you of your sins.
Monsanto did evil; they deliberately made their crops so that they'd spread to non-Monsanto farmers, allowing them to "sue into existence" a new customer base. But the Canadian government did evil by allowing Monsanto to pursue this as a policy through law in the first place. And the Canadian people did evil by standing by and letting it happen - ALL Canadians because it's the government of EVERY Canadian.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
It doesn't matter for shit if a monoculture may or may not result in some mythical future 'superfamine'. Not if you're the guy watching his family starve to death.
Feed the people who're dying right now. After you do that *then* maybe I'll pay attention to your doom-and-gloom predictions. But until you do you have nothing of interest to say on the topic.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
What about doing things for fun? Does fun not exist in your tiny world? It sure sounds like it doesn't. "The whole world runs on profit!", he roared. "Now excuse me, I have to go buy more top hats and monocles!" I'm sure you'll find some way to define everything as either self-sufficiency and personal profit, but let me say that money can't buy peace of mind, spare you from death or make your life meaningful. I will grant that the pursuit of profit can be a meaningful way of living, but it is not the end product of money that makes it so, but the process of it and experience. The thrill of strategizing and working the system to produce a desired result, of perceiving a pattern and using it to your advantage, yes, it can be quite exciting. But you might feel that people who don't understand and don't value your kind of fun are trying to regulate and destroy it, which might be true, but claiming that what you value is the only thing worth valuing is no way to win friends. Which is something else money can't buy.
A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit, not from doing what is good for man.You are exactly wrong. A good scientist understands that historically, scientific progress came largely from wealthy aristocrats who already had more money than they could possibly ever spend, so they turned their attentions to the secret lives of birds and trees and planets and electrons, out of simple curiosity and wonder.
"It's Dot Com!"
It's true, laws and enforcement don't prevent all criminals from breaking the law at present. But what you're totally ignoring is that the existance of the laws and the likelihood of being caught and punished after the fact stops a good number of people from doing these things. If laws didn't exist, and the only thing stopping me from killing you and taking your stuff was the fact that you may have a weapon, I could just hurl a grenade through your bedroom window while you slept, then walk in and take your car and whatever else I wanted. There's not a damn thing you or your gun could do to stop me. However, the fact that there's a legal system and a trained police force waiting to hunt such a criminal down after the fact deters a lot of people who might otherwise not be so hesitant. It's a huge social pressure against that type of behavior which individual defense and vigilantism simply can't provide on their own. They need the force of a society-wide mechanism to back it up.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
"previous products include good old napalm!" i know at least one Vietnam vet who is very glad they invented napalm! when used as directed it saved many soldiers lives.
Ok.. I happen to make a living doing this very thing. I spend every day working with genetically modified crops, in fact I'm covered with corn pollen right now. I don't mean to be rude but what you're saying doesn't make one bit of sense. While you may be a scientist, that obviously does not make you an expert on the agricultural biotech industry. First, not all biotech companies are also chemical companies. Second, there are no companies which prevent the usage of their chemicals unless you use their seed. That just doesn't happen. In fact, Monsanto's patent on the herbicide glyphosate (Round-Up) has run out and it is now made by many many different companies in many different formulations for field application. Even prior to that, nobody was kept from using glyphosate if you weren't using Monsanto seed. The whole reason people hate Monsanto so much is because they don't know how to deal with farmers, even I admit they are a tad nasty at times. As far as the goal not being to use less chemicals in the end, that is also plain false. When a farmer plant an insect resistant crop for instance, they end up using little or no traditional pesticide. I'm ranting/rambling a little here but since I do in fact work in the industry I get a bit frustrated with people just repeat what they've read in sensationalist news reports while they know nothing of what really goes on.
How about "Real property can't be copied"
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If I recall correctly, that dispute revolved around the farmer wanting to actually harvest his crop when Monsanto wanted the crop destroyed. The farmer lost, Monsanto gets to destroy the crop in the name of IP. Given that, farmers should simply threaten to harvest the weed crop. Then they get to watch and laugh as Monsanto is forced to do their weeding the hard way. ;-)
Total socialism and total capitalism are two extremes of an axis - that being government interference in an economy. "Somewhere in between" is the best bet, as always.
Of course, until we get away from the childish "They stole my idea!" attitude of intellectual property, we're not going to get anywhere.
*grumble* Yeah. IP protects innovation. We, as humans, have been innovating for longer than there's been IP protection. It's bullshit. It shouldn't exist.
Seriously. People still buy CDs even though they can get the music free. Why? It's convenient, prepackaged, and has pretty pictures on it. It's like, why buy a classic book when you can get the text from the Gutenberg project? Simple: Books have something special that text files don't. They're more convienent, more asthetically pleasing, and generally better. If you don't have the cash, you settle for free. If you do, you get the Real Thing (tm).
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Meh. At least business schools nowadays are teaching coasean economics rather than machiavellian. Prince-worshippers are asshats, in my experience.
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I've read that Monsanto has said it's not their responsibility to ensure GM foods are safe, that they're a business, and will try to sell as much as possible. Instead they believe the FDA should be solely responsible for ensuring the safety of their foods. In the same book I read that no tests have been done to prove that GM is or isn't safe. With such a cavalier attitude and infamous history, how can there never have been any tests done on GM food? I could understand Big Business being in the pockets of the .Gov, but what about any independent studies?
This sort of reminds me of the conundrum created by Virus Protection software. There is a cottage industry of hackers who submit new viruses for a bounty that gets paid by the virus protection company. The "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" here is that the un-spoken secret is that many of these Virus bounty hunters are writing the new viruses. While plenty of spyware and trojan horses are out there helping zombify computers for other reasons -- the anti-virus economy creates a "habitat" for virus writers.
Where there is money to be made, there will be labor.
There are a lot of unintended consequences of genetically altered plants. Putting the genes of one plant into another creates a new vector for diseases. Or, allows a trait to be taken on by a related species of plant that never had that trait -- in this case weeds. The weed is probably very similar genetically to the protected crop. Even a tomato plant or a new grass can be a "weed" if it grows where it shouldn't.
Other unintended consequences abound. In England, I've read that a lot of wild song birds are dying, because the altered crops are not providing insects. Some may say; "what's the big deal?" Well, it is something that nobody predicted. All the "side effects" that keep "cropping up" show that the Monsanto's of the world are not being careful enough. When things happen differently from your predictions, it means you didn't test enough. We have been assured that genes can't jump to other plants or that some crops won't grow wild and out of control -- pretty much the attitude of "dada21", who seems to think that if the world doesn't get destroyed, why should anybody be whining. Well, we have plenty of food -- we actually pay farmers in this country to allow fields to go fallow. Why can't we be slow and careful? If some scientists say that we could cause Global Cooling or Global Warming -- shouldn't we look into it? And if the prediction is wrong, the greatest threat is that some company didn't make as big a profit as they wanted to.
Because that's the balance here; you have concerned scientists and environmentalists and you have companies. Steadily, the "right to profit" for the company is seen as paramount. No environmentalist action can be taken if it hurts profits and cannot be proven. Government is abdicating its role to protect the greater good.
I mean, it would sure make nuclear energy cheaper if we just dumped the waste in a big pile. But, the pollution that would cause would cost society many times more than the profits of the company. It's shifting the burden and costs from companies and to society.
And as the previous poster mentioned; "Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year. Do you think they do it to reduce the usage of chemicals ? Actually, they also produce the chemicals, that you cannot use without agreeing to use their seeds."
Yeah. That was some of the first laws written into the books for the New Iraqi government. They can't keep seeds, and they can't grow any crops but those from Monsanto or ADM. Talk about control. Would you want the future of your food supply dependent upon a hostile foreign power who could decide not to give you next years crop?
And as the anonymous scientist posted before, you don't have to be a "greenie" to have a rational notion that these sorts of things need to be done very carefully. The only guiding principle controlling ADM and Monsanto right now is profit. It isn't very profitable to make people self-sufficient and independent of you. Much more profitable is a system of addiction and dependence.
Also notice, that if you want to make a good living as a "speaker" or an "expert" on TV -- you just have to pick an industry that does damage and come up with theories to explain them away. Or, are we going to say all the Pulmonary Doctors who used to push the idea that cigarettes were good for you weren't influenced? I'm not saying this as a blanket statement for all companies. But the
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
You don't think a lot of "foreign aide" doesn't get tied to how a third world country treats a Multinational Corporation? There's always this assumption about a FREE Market and CHOICE. Do I have a choice about taking a car to work? No. I can't get there with a bus or a train or a bike in a reasonable amount of time and we have very little mass transit services in Georgia. So, I HAVE to have a car. So I have to have a drivers license and I have to have auto insurance. Heck, I can CHOOSE to get DSL from the local baby bell, or to never actually get it by one of the other providers. It's hard to always fight the current -- so we end up "choosing" to go the path of least resistance. That's life -- there's nothing free about it.
Can I go without a phone? Maybe -- would I be able to keep my job -- maybe not.
I'm not an expert on what means Monsanto and ADM use to make sure people buy their product. I'm sure it is good product -- but I'm not so sure about there being many options on who you can get seeds from. I'll admit ignorance. It's just that I think it is pretty foolish to assume that the Market is ever Free. If NAFTA were really about Free Trade, why is it thousands of pages long?
And, the Anonymous Biologist posting is very right that Patents and IP hurt the small farmer. If I want to grow my own crops and use seeds or even sell them -- I have to spend a lot of money to make sure I haven't infringed on a copyright. Wow. Talk about pulling up the ladder. The same thing is happening with programming -- there may come a time (soon), where more is spent reviewing what is legal to provide in software than there is actually writing the algorithms. How much "free choice" is there when you can only choose a few huge companies to provide you with your means of making a living?
"msuarezalvarez" hit the nail on the head; a "free market" is an abstraction. We've never had one. The true balance of "the marketplace" is between ownership and labor. All of these struggles come down to people who own wanting money for owning the means, or the ideas, or the property of someone else who has to do labor. Now, there should be compensation for owners, but where is the balance? Why is it, we have to have fund raisers for "farm aide" and yet, Monsanto or ADM reap huge profits year over year? And why do we send 80% or more of the government subsidies for farming to the very companies that are already making these huge profits? Simple, they've lobbied (bought) politicians to make the market more FREE towards their interests. They often OWN the land, the seeds and the licenses and the farmer gets to own the debt.
Everyone, will of course understand what I'm saying and agree with me -- after we've all been turned into indenbtured servants and the only good paying jobs will be for saying nice things about all the great owners that we could never possibly do anything without.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Seriously though, I'm no biologist and can't speak to the cross pollination and such, but I play an economist on TV and I think the economics of GMOs is interesting. I could be totally wrong as I've given this about 15 minutes of thought, but it seems like GM crops are (or can be):
But at current prices I'm not sure it can be "good" for all farmers and all consumers (Paretto efficient). If only some farmers use GM crops they (only a few) have higher yeilds -> more to sell (with a higher marginal cost), but don't depress prices (much) -> higher profits (for a few). If all farmers use GM crops then we have higher yeilds -> greater supply -> lower prices, at a higher marginal cost (assuming GM seed is more expensive). So, this reduces (possibly eliminates) the farmer's profit margins unless the government steps in to either artificially restrict supply or artificially increase demand. If one of these things don't happen the price could drop to the point that net consumers of grain (think underdeveloped nations) could afford it. I haven't done the math, so it's possible that the lower price with GM crops could be more profitable for farmers (trade restrictions and governement intervention aside) or it's possible that even greater economies of scale would be needed and more small farmers would be bought out (again, trade restrictions and governement intervention aside).
Again, I'm not sure, but another interesting side to the debate. Hopefully we don't all grow third arms or something - remember that it took a long time for us to realize that tobacco and alcohol aren't that good for us.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
I'm no fan of Monsanto or ADM -- but I don't blame them for taking advantage of the reckless laws your government put into force.
Good God man, talk about disingenuous! Who do you think lobbys the politicians so that laws favouring THEM get passed? Who do you think picks which politicians get elected in the first place? The common man doesn't have a hope in hell of standing against that magnitude of influence!
You're using her as bait, Master!
It must have been an intelligent designer!
So you see, mother nature can develop Roundup resistance faster than our genetic engineers. She's been at it longer though. I would imagine "survival of the fittest" works quite nicely with with roundup resistance just like it does with antibiotic resistance. But there's no reason to argue about it. Obviously, it's possible to test this cross-pollenation theory by looking at the genes in these weeds. According to TFA:
Apparently, they haven't bothered to do genetic testing yet. No reason to bitch one way or the other until they do. And you both know what they say about arguing on the internet, right?
Ultranova said; "Imagining that free markets and the invisible hand of market forces will cure all the ills of the world is simply modern superstition."
I totally agree. I'm frustrated that it is so hard now to have a basic discussion on any industry and not have to drop down into fighting off all the Economics 101 experts. With them, any statement that hurts profits is a pro-communist statement. Unfettered capitalism ends up becoming anarchy or a tyranny fairly quickly--we've had 3 or 4 instances now in this country of living with Robber Baron tyranny -- and obviously, the lessons of the past have all been removed from our consciousness while we slept.
We are in a Socialist Democracy that uses a regulated capitalist system. All the really ignorant people now are convinced that they understand everything and it's all about supply and demand and that markets are self-correcting and regulating. Utter, complete Bullshit.
Why is the vocabulary so damn black and white. You are a Capitalist or a Communist. Well, it's just this sort of simplistic thinking that is careening this country headlong towards becoming a Corporatist State. Just like Italy under Mussolini.
***
By the way Dada21, "I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver." I think that is a very shrewd dicision right now. But some of your previous statements sound a lot like someone who has been weened on the Supply-side Economics propaganda. I'm not a non-supporter of business -- I don't see how that is possible. I have to buy things. And don't you need some money in cash for your business?
Anywho, we are all probably in for a rough ride soon on the economy. I wish I had my money in gold right now.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
With all due respect, no offense intended of course.
If laws didn't exist, and the only thing stopping me from killing you and taking your stuff was the fact that you may have a weapon, I could just hurl a grenade through your bedroom window while you slept, then walk in and take your car and whatever else I wanted.
If you're an evil, sociopathic motherfucker whose mother should've strangled you at birth, then yes, I guess that's true. Fortunately most people don't commit crimes because they think it's wrong, not because they fear retribution.
There's not a damn thing you or your gun could do to stop me.
Riiight. Tell me another, grenade-boy. I assume your superior intellect (or access to explosives) is just too much for the average Joe to handle. Perhaps we should bow down before *you*.
However, the fact that there's a legal system and a trained police force waiting to hunt such a criminal down after the fact deters a lot of people who might otherwise not be so hesitant.
In real life we call that "bullshit". Only 2% of the population is sociopathic; the rest are not. Just because you happen to be amongst that 2% is no reason to think the rest of us are fucked in the head.
It's a huge social pressure against that type of behavior which individual defense and vigilantism simply can't provide on their own.
You've confused "social pressure" with "legal accountability". The two aren't even close to being one and the same.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I think that articles submitted to Slashdot should at least be expected to tell us what non-computer acronyms means when used in posts. If took me a little while to figure out why General Motors had anything to do with plants in the first place...
The GM crop was modified to have resistance to herbicide. That trait was likely transferred to a weed via cross-pollination. It is of course, impossible to "prove" exactly that this is what happened, just as you cannot "prove" that gravity exists. But if something happens often enough, we know that something is up.
BTW, your symptoms will clear up in a couple of months if you stop watching Fox News.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
Except that Monsanto sues farmers that have been contaminated with the RoundUp Ready crops. This is documented in many media. Moreover, they put pressure on governments of third-world countries to get a monopoly on seeds used in these countries. Farmers don't need to buy it when they have something else to buy.
Y'know, I've been thinking about this. It seems to me that Monsanto's agressive stance with respect to "their IP" might come back to bite them in the a** if somebody decides to sue them for this clear misuse. They might have trouble convincing a judge that "stuff happens" when all the precedents state otherwise. This could, of course, lead to them filing suit against Nature for stealing "their IP" but I hope THAT trial takes place well away from here.
(sorry about the quotes but I think that it should not be possible to patent viral information such as genomes simply because, as we have already seen, it gives the patentee a license to exploit others. the effect is similar to releasing a patented worm on the internet then suing anyone who gets infected).
Selective breeding is completely unrelated to genetic modification, it introduces no new genes into a species. No, genius that is what evolution does, or do you think the wheat that was grown in 1920 is identical to the grasses found in 10000 BC?
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
RTFA
"The entire reason we have GM foods is because this kind of "cross-pollinization" can't happen naturally!"
Do you know where mules come from?
Personally I was not in the slightest bit suprised to read the headline (n.b. this is Slashdot so I haven't actually read the article or anything radical like that !)
The moral of the story is that Nature will always adapt no matter what us Humans do. Life will always find a way round the problems facing it. That's not to say we shouldn't try stuff out (we are questioning beings after all) but if we change conditions (via the introduction of weedkillers etc.) then eventually some sort of "stuff" will adapt to the new environment. You only need to look at how many bacteria are now resistant to antibiotics to see how things work out.
The only way we could stop life on Earth evolving to thrive in whatever conditions we create would be to blow the entire planet into little pieces. And even then I bet gravitational pull would eventually assemble some of those pieces back into a small "plantoid" which, if there were an observer to see it, would be seen to have some sort of life on it (evolved from some micro organism that was on one of the little fragments of Earth)
Natures bigger, badder, smarter, more cunning and tougher than all of the Humans that ever lived put together. We should see ourselves for what we are. A small temporary blip on the graph of "dominant species who lived on Earth".
So whilst I think the Monsantos of this world are a bunch of evil bastards who are trying to corner the world market for seed crops I'm not worried that they ever will. All that'll happen is that they fuck things up real bad for us humans. But nature won't care 'cause there's plenty more species waiting to take our place.
Or as an insect once said to me "Behold I am the mighty cockroach, give me 100 generations alone with them, and I can eat your poisons for lunch".
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
"Herbicide resistance has been seen time and time again for decades."
Then you're suggesting that this new strain of weed "just happened" to show up in a crop that uses markedly higher dosages of herbicides, instead of years before and miles away in any number of unmodified crop fields?
Yes, they show up, but they don't just show up within a single generation like this, and they don't just show up where the hostile chemical is at a higher concentration than elsewhere. This is something you'd expect to see either over a period of time, with successive generations and gradually increasing dosages of herbicide, or in a case of cross-pollenization.
"As an aside it should also be noted that cross-pollenization is the mechanism that genes are distributed Within a Species not from species to species."
Cross-species reproduction is possible (e. g. horse + donkey = mule), the question is whether the offspring can reproduce. Sometimes, through random mutations, natural selection, etc. the offspring will be fertile. The odds of that happening may be low, but I'd say it's greater than the odds of this particular kind of herbicide-resistant mutation showing itself for the first time at this particular place and this particular time.
So tell me, with your magical 2% of the population actually being sociopathic, why do we have way more than 2% of the population that commits crimes even today? You think if a guy holds up a couple people in a back alley, knowledge of a stricter punishment for actually pulling the trigger won't make him hesitate just a bit more than if there were no such law? You think that the average checkout clerk wouldn't be just a bit more likely to skim a bit out of the register if there were no laws against theft and the worst that could happen would be they lose their job?
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
"Consumers are free to organize research companies to look into products."
And as an anarcho-capitalist, you would also assert that the (e. g.) meatpackers would be free to refuse to allow these research companies to come on to their property to conduct inspections. The force of government is the only way you're going to make sure that the entire food supply is monitored for basic health and safety standards.
Yes, initially there may be some meatpackers that will allow such private inspectors, but history has show that it is only a matter of time before an oligopoly of companies are able to get together and able to dictate the quality of food sold to the public, regardless of any attempt at consumer oversight.
You think if a guy holds up a couple people in a back alley, knowledge of a stricter punishment for actually pulling the trigger won't make him hesitate just a bit more than if there were no such law?
No, I think that the possibility that the victims may be armed is far more of a deterrant than any law could be. It doesn't hurt to have a law punishing armed robbery, though, so long as the two guys being held up have the right to put a round or two in the criminals head in their own defense.
You think that the average checkout clerk wouldn't be just a bit more likely to skim a bit out of the register if there were no laws against theft and the worst that could happen would be they lose their job?
No, I don't. Of course, feel free to prove your point by providing a cite - say, an empirical study supporting your views published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal. That would mean a hell of a lot more than some average slashdotter claiming that everyone in the world is a criminal just waiting to happen.
Really, all that attitude convinces me of is that either a) you're one of the spineless little cowards who'd commit crimes if you thought you could get away with it, and hate the idea that other people aren't as equally spineless and criminally-inclined as yourself; or b) you think you're the moral superior of everyone around. *They* are all crooks who'd tear the world apart in a frenzy of violence given the chance, but YOU, now, you're special!
Heard it before. You aren't at all original.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
"Actually, in a free market, the best outcome is born out of mutual profit through cooperation -- not dog eat dog. My biggest successes came out of trading my skills for income when my customer made a profit from the trade. This is the free market."
No, the free market more resmbles the prisoners' dilemma. As you were selling your expertise, your client can be assumed to have little (if any) in the field you are operating in. Therefore, you were likely free to sell (and charge) your customers more than what was required and could have taken them for a ride, complete with higher profit. Perhaps you chose not to, but personal ethics aside there is little preventing you from doing so.
Keep in mind that herbicide resistance arises spontaneously in the wild. It's going to happen sooner or later, GM or not. So the practical question is whether gene transfer resulting in viable, fertile plants that can compete effectively with unmodified wildtype plants occurs frequently enough to have a significant impact on the rate at which herbicide resistance arises. It is still unclear whether this is the case.
What else but God can explain the miraculous ability of weeds to prosper? Perhaps not a Christian god, but one of the nature gods instead, although that's sure to upset some people in Kansas...
Link? Every time I've heard this alleged, it turns out it's just some cheat farmer trying to plant Monsanto product he didn't pay for, or seeds he illegally harvested and re-planted without paying for them.
The case I am thinking of, the Monstanto genome was infecting HIS crops. He had no contract or agreement with Monsanto. Yes, he selected for roundup resistance.
Now.
Suppose the neighbours dog has a habit of leaving a deposit on your lawn every morning. Suppose that neighbour is aware this is happening (they are letting their dog out every morning) yet takes no steps to control their pet or to compensate you for the damage being done to your lawn or the effort you must take to clean it up.
Question:
Should the neighbour be able to prosecute you for theft because you are throwing the turds on your compost?
Their tactics are disgusting, and moreover, these practice are a danger for the environmenet, because it is impossible to prevent dissemination of the resistance genes into other species.
This give a whole new meaning to the phrase "viral marketing", where 'viral' of course refers to the pattern of spreading, not to the means by which it is done. Yet another proof why viral marketing doesn't always produce a desired outcome, because you cannot fully control it.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
It was the first result that came up when I did a Google(monsanto farmer). If you haven't tried Google before, I highly recommend it.
From the linked page:
I've heard Percy Schmeiser speak. He didn't sound anything like how you described him.We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Way to effectively neuter your original statement completely. You have now stated effectively nothing, since you have just defined personal profit as any sort of motivation.
I do not support the dollar -- I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver.
heh. big mistake, this guy my daughter knows has taught her to spin straw into gold and now the KING HIMSELF wishes to marry her.
rumplestilteskin or something was his name.....
music lover since 1969
Did you ever see that Simpsons episode around the "Tomaco", the cross between a Tomato and Tabacco? He should have dueled the Colonel! But instead, Homer gives us a lesson about GMO's that is bar-none the best out there! http://www.thesimpsons.com/episode_guide/1105.htm
Horns are really just a broken halo.
from Wikipedia:
:-)
Essentially, a part of Schmeiser's canola crop, grown from seed he had bred over many decades, was accidentally contaminated with Monsanto's GE canola, likely by seed escaping from passing trucks. Schmeiser discovered the crossbreeding, collected the seed, planted it the next year, and harvested that crop. Both the case, and Monsanto's ultimate victory, were widely misunderstood. In fact, the infringement finding solely concerned the fact that he had knowingly replanted the crossbred seed he had collected. The court did not impose punitive damages on Schmeiser, as may have been expected in a patent infringement case, and the decision did not absolve Monsanto of responsibilty for genetic contamination, or even consider that aspect. The case did cause Monsanto's aggressively litigious tactics to be highlighted in the media over the years it took to play out.
Not that I defend Monsanto's motives, but if this was the article to which you refer, you're spreading FUD. I hate FUD as much as "devient corporations(tm)". Let them hang themselves, there's no doubt they don't need your PR to do it.
Batman has an excellent foriegn policy for things like this: "Let's Nuke the Fucking Kids and Get this over with" Alfred, get me my F-22A Raptor and my blowtorch. We're going to be burning some weed in the mothefucking fields.....
Interesting.
one thing that is never discussed and should be is the environmental impact and quality of "conventionally" grown food.[1] this stuff has much lower nutritional value per product meaning you have to supplement your diet with a lot more vitamins (ie resort to less-efficacious chemicals). not only this, but the harvested crop is covered with toxins meant to protect it from insects, it's gassed during transport to keep it looking fresh while allowing more to be crammed on a truck, the various agents will seep into the product regardless of washing, and the production of all the additional tools and materials needed causes an environmental impact that is totally left out of the damage analysis.
if everybody converted to "conventionally" farmed foods the environmental impact would be horrific, and hundreds of millions of people would die of subtle malnutrition and contamination effects.
oh wait, that is already happening.
do you know that most of the vegetables you can buy in most stores have been bred specifically to allow easier mechanical processing? do you know that is the number one concern, and that details like nutritional value and even taste lie in that shadow?
and yes: if you argue that there's no other way to feed the world population, i will argue that the world population has become unsustainable and there *will* be a crash - one way or the other. and yes, i've thought about how that affects the people i love. simple fact is that if we have to create a big problem to deal with a big problem, we still have a big problem... only now it's more complicated and carries more unexpected side effects.
if you don't know what goes into producing your food first-hand i suggest you learn. i have done this... in fact, i have done this at an organic *demonstration* farm. and you know what? conditions weren't good enough to make me feel alright about the whole thing. organic is no panacea. what *does* work is small-scale, locally grown and distributed food (plant or animal). the real problem, the crucial problem, is not so much even the chemicals or the overcrowding - the real problem is the willful ignorance of most everyone in regard to the problems presented by distribution of food on a massive scale. the distribution itself is the root problem. it is the single point of failure. and it is the location of nearly all of the failures in the economic analysis of our environmental situation.
(as a side note, if you think organic can't compete on production you haven't done your research. and that's just the style of organic that's developed out of this 'no chem' half-assedness. you've certainly never heard of biointensive techniques. no, it doesn't work on a large scale - it requires care and does not adapt to mechanical harvest. if more people did it, we wouldn't *need* it to work on a large scale, because it is incredibly, ridiculously productive on a small scale. it even works here in alaska.)
[1] ok, so it is discussed. but it's not usually discussed well, and most of the time everyone involved gets hysterical and stupid about it. there is no simple solution, the ideal is already out of reach, and we're all going to have to compromise. but we need to take the best of the best for our techne, we need to try to solve the root problems rather than simply reacting to the symptoms, and maybe most of all we need to stop thinking there's either no problem or a quick fix. none of this usda organic crap is the final answer. but large scale farming has in most cases already been proven not to be the final answer. we all need to learn the issues, cooperate with each other, and try. just. actually. try.
[|]
I for one welcome our new multi-herbicide resistant superweed overlords.
I think you meant to write that, "humans created machines that fly higher and faster than birds, but with much less finese." That is, if you've ever watched swallows or flycatchers feeding, or wondered at how the hummingbird can fly non-stop across the gulf of mexico.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
I have nearly 98% of my currency in the only true store of wealth: gold and silver
That's too bad. My GM super-hydro-weed that extracts gold from sea water is going to put a real dent in your worth. Maybe you should switch to diamonds.
"Evolution" is a vague term. Natural selection does not add new genes into a species, it selects from those that exist. Mutation adds new genes into a species. Evolutionary change can occur without any new genes being introduced merely by selection, or it can occur through mutation where new genes are introduced.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Any starvation in the world is a distribution problem. I do my best to feed the starving, I've made more than my or your share of contributions, however certain corrupt governments and warlords seem to have the habit of taking the food shipments for themselves. Beyond that, just a few minutes ago CNN reported how fat people in 3rd world countries are becoming, quickly closing the gap with our own fat poor. However, the aforementioned corporation has put forth DRM'ed food as the solution to this starvation "problem" and judging from your response you bought it, all of it, 100 percent.
Exporting GM food and techniques is not the solution to the starvation problem. Why are you so hell-bent to lock in poor third-world farmers to licensing GM seeds, as if I didn't know.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists. [...] Then they were crying about how the world will freeze from global cooling. [...]
Actually, you might want to read more about that here : http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/
"I've defending one of my retail stores twice with a weapon."
That's use of force, which you've said elsewhere you don't believe in.
"I only wish the thief took the time to threaten me rather than run off. "
So you could use force against him. Sounds like you're pretty enthusiastic about the whole idea of using force!
"My wife is hot, and she also has an impeccable aim. She took down a guy 3 times her size at a party who was violating her space."
Again, use of force, which you obviously revel in. It would therefore appear that what you're actually against is the use of force by others.
""How do you expect all these property rights you keep going on about to work without laws?""
"Mutual cooperation."
Which historically doesn't work in communities that are larger than a few dozen individuals because (a) petty jealousies and squabbles fuck it all up by splitting the single cooperative community into two that cooperate against each-other; and (b) said communities tend to get overrun by large collections of organised armed fellows who have discovered that taking what they want from little cooperative communities is both easier and a lot more fun that cooperating with them. It's been tried countless times throughout history, and it has _always_ failed unless the community was (a) extremely small and geographically isolated; or (b) had damn all that anyone wanted, and so wasn't worth bothering to attack and rob.
Modern anarcho-capitalism is not therefore a system based on any form of practicality at all: it is a survivalist fantasy land where cooperating groups of rugged individualists hold off Mad Max style bands of brigands who are never numerous, and don't have access to tanks or other advanced military hardware. Because they know that naughty people who would take from others and enslave them are too stupid to gather together in large numbers, organise themselves effectively, and use the very best military technology, which is why would-be conquerers like Alexander, the Romans, Attilla, Ghenghis Kahn etc. were routinely thrashed by small, rugged bands of individualists who mutually cooperated them into oblivion.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Typical conservative idiot.
You're a dumb, angry ape who doesn't want to understand, just to beat his chest.
Is it more important to not sound like a hateful bigot or to not BE a hateful bigot?
I've got no beef with the Wahhabi sect of Islam and the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the others. I'd just as soon they let us alone, and everyone else for that matter.
Apparently, they want to come into my home, rape and murder me and my wife because we refuse to join Islam. They would also see all the Jews killed in the most horrific manner, women, men, and children. They don't tolerate homosexuality, they don't tolerate democracy, and they don't tolerate non-Moslems testifying against a Moslem in court. Osama Bin Laden called our country depraved and without any morals or religion. He thinks he has a divine calling to kill us and subjugate us to a global caliphate. He wants to impose shari'a law on us and charge us a jizrah tax if we refuse to become moslem.
And I'm the hateful bigot because I am pointing out these obvious facts? Go read and listen to Osama bin Laden's speeches if you want to know what he really thinks.
Bush didn't invent this war. This war has been happening since Mohammed's time. Go look at Europe's history for obvious proof of what some whackjobs do to a continent when they believe Mohammed justified the shameless subjugation, rape, torture, and murder of other peoples. It wasn't until France's foreign legion that they've stopped being so bold. But back in the 70's, when France withdrew the foreign legion, they started up again, kidnapping, murdering, torturing, bombing, and waging war in the most despicable manner possible against women and children.
As long as there are people on the face of the earth who would impose religion or ideology by force, I will work to destroy them. I don't care if they are communist, socialist, Islam, Jew, or Christian.
Whose the bigot? The one who wants to tear down the tower of bigotry or the one who says we should let it alone?
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Also, I'm not much of a fan of the state, I prefer voluntary community. Those who violate our trust, we will not trade with.
Peace and love, y'all
You quoted someone other than me, above.
Peace and love, y'all
One of the most informative and somewhat chilling documentaries on the subject: The Future of Food. Shows clearly how a few multinational corporations have taken over most of the global food supply. Should be of interest to anyone who eats:
http://thefutureoffood.com/