I have an old PowerBook 100 that just for grins I changed the date on the computer from 6/20/98 to 6/20/02; I left the date in the 2000 range during a month or so of use with really old versions of Word, Excel, FileMaker Pro, and Photoshop, and near as I can tell everything worked fine.
Russia has a very long history of food shortages because of extremely poorly thought out ag. practices. Such as the idea of, if you keep a potato in cold storage, the following spring this potato would be better adapted to grow in cold climates. Thanks to this line of thinking and not enough people standing up to fight this practice, millions (yes millions) starved to death. We are trying to prevent turing into another Russia, and the food supply is a little too important to leave to a world view solely controlled by quarterly gains.
This technology relies on inserting genes into a hybridize plant that will kill result in the plant kill its own developing seeds. Basically the bulk of the food supply will rely on plants that when they reach maturity, can't reproduce. Beyond a corporations ability to outright own the food supply, in the event of economic hard ship, the farmer can't even use their own seed. Granted, previously hybrids have been use and the yields declined overtime, but this is way diffferent. The though of having basically a sterile, mono-culture crop for a food supply should scary the hell out of you. The only way this technology could benefit society is as a way to fight noxious animals and plants (meaning species not native to a given area that are agressively pushing native species out), but given our success or nearly complete lack there of, this technology will only benefit the ultra-rich.
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I have an old PowerBook 100 that just for grins I changed the date on the computer from 6/20/98 to 6/20/02; I left the date in the 2000 range during a month or so of use with really old versions of Word, Excel, FileMaker Pro, and Photoshop, and near as I can tell everything worked fine.
Russia has a very long history of food shortages because of extremely poorly thought out ag. practices. Such as the idea of, if you keep a potato in cold storage, the following spring this potato would be better adapted to grow in cold climates. Thanks to this line of thinking and not enough people standing up to fight this practice, millions (yes millions) starved to death.
We are trying to prevent turing into another Russia, and the food supply is a little too important to leave to a world view solely controlled by quarterly gains.
Take a look at my comment, it lower on the page.
This technology relies on inserting genes into a hybridize plant that will kill result in the plant kill its own developing seeds.
Basically the bulk of the food supply will rely on plants that when they reach maturity, can't reproduce. Beyond a corporations ability to outright own the food supply, in the event of economic hard ship, the farmer can't even use their own seed.
Granted, previously hybrids have been use and the yields declined overtime, but this is way diffferent. The though of having basically a sterile, mono-culture crop for a food supply should scary the hell out of you.
The only way this technology could benefit society is as a way to fight noxious animals and plants (meaning species not native to a given area that are agressively pushing native species out), but given our success or nearly complete lack there of, this technology will only benefit the ultra-rich.