We don't do 100 year studies on newly bred hybrids or plants produced via induced mutation. We don't do 100 year studies on new types of plastic, medications, floor coverings, artificial sweeteners, or anything else. Should we be doing 100 year studies on everything new we create on the off chance that they produce slow-moving problems, or is there some specific thing about transgenic plants that warrants it?
Here's my problem with GMO crops in general: There's a big difference between hybridizing crops the way farmers have been doing it for centuries, and the way they're doing it in a lab, directly splicing genes together, sometimes in ways that couldn't be done the way farmers can do it. Here's my problem with Monsanto, and companies like them: They don't act in a way that encourages you to feel like you can trust them. Here's my problem with the testing of things like this in general: They have to make assumptions based on testing on other animals over a relatively short period of time. You can't test these things directly on humans, either. There's also a big uncertainty factor because you can't wait decades to see if what you've created is actually going to be harmful. If it was just some product, and it turns out 20 years from now that the product causes harm, they stop producing it, or change it so it's safe. If you're futzing around with genetics, then your product, if it's harmful, may cause permanent, irreversible harm to either the environment, animal life, or human life. There have been plenty of drugs that the FDA initially approved, but then decades later it's discovered they were harmful; our testing methodology, in my opinion, is not sufficient. But as I keep saying: It's already too late.
Any number of things can cause genetic damage that could be passed on to the next generation. I honestly don't believe they've tested or are even able to test adequately for these possibilities. Of course as previously stated it's way too late to even worry about it now, the stuff is already in the wind and proliferating. We'll know in some decades to come if what they've released into the ecosphere is OK or if it's going to cause damage.
Here's the main problem with 'self-driving cars', 'autonomous vehicles', 'driverless cars/vehicles', or however you want to refer to them as: Where the safety of human life is concerned, another human being should always be the final backup system to any automated system. If you have 'autonomous vehicles' with no manual controls, then you can't have a human being in the vehicle that is able to take control in an emergency situation (autopilot system fails, unexpected situation it's not handling properly, etc). If there are manual controls, then you must be educated, trained, tested, and licensed, just like always. Furthermore there will always be situations where a 'self-driving car' won't work: you don't know where you're going, you're going off-road, you need to maneuver the vehicle in a very precise manner (tight space, etc) or any number of other exceptions that an automated system won't handle; it'll happen, and a human being has to then be competent to operate the vehicle.
Remember Howard Stern? Back in the day, most people liked to listen to Stern 'because they wanted to see what he'd do next'. Ironically enough the people who passionately hated Stern and wanted him off the air more than anything? They'd listen to him 'because they wanted to see what he'd do next'. So it goes, in my opinion, with TBB: There are people out there who will say it's crap, shouldn't be allowed on television, is ruining our children and our society -- and they'll faithfully tune in to watch it week after week, to see what it's going to do this time. They need to get a life, is what they need to do, or at least get a new hobby.
You'll get your 'robocars' about the same time you get flying cars and hoverboards.
In my opinion, at best you'll have a sophisticated 'autopilot' system to supplement your full set of manual controls, and it'll be a boon on long highway trips, and maybe to keep you safe if you fall asleep at the wheel in the middle of the night. Assuming you're rich and can afford a luxury car, that is; economy cars won't have such things as an option. Sorry, kids, but you'll still have to learn how to drive, pass tests, and pay for insurance, and you'll have a steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals (if not a clutch pedal) in front of you for quite some time to come; please do learn your driver training lessons well so we're all safe on the roads, OK? Thanks.
Exactly. And in their greedy rush to make mad profits, companies like Monsanto couldn't have possibly sufficiently tested their GM plants for human safety. Like it matters now. I guess in 50-100 years we'll know if they've created a toxic mess for humanity or not.
Genetically modified crops have already dispersed sufficiently throughout the world through cross pollination to make the damage to the ecosphere irreversible. If it turns out that 50 years from now we discover that the tampering done to them produces foodstuffs harmful to humans in the long run, it'll be far to late to do anything about it.
Either of these strategies are far better than buying flavored water with weird chemicals added
I agree with you. However, the best option is to drink just water, and get your nutrients from other sources -- like whole fruits and vegetables, wasting nothing, and getting the entire benefit of the food.;-)
Having scanned through a few pages of your recent comments, you're clearly a negative person who likes to start arguments for the sake of starting arguments, and furthermore insults people just to rile them up, and as such nothing you say to me is worth responding to; please bugger off.
Oh really? Let's see here.. 'TED talks' don't mean a thing, by the way. But I did research 'red meat consumption' and 'diabetes' and came up with an article about some actual research that had this to say:
âoeThe final proof in humans will be much harder to come by,â Varki said. âoeBut on a more general note, this work may also help explain potential connections of red meat consumption to other diseases exacerbated by chronic inflammation, such as atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes.
So let's summarize: They genetically modify some mice, then feed them insane amounts of some sugar molecule that is found in red meat, and lo-and-behold! They get weird tumors and stuff. How amazing! But note the wording there: "The final proof in humans will be much harder to come by.." "this mayalso help explain.." Nothing is proven yet. By the way if you're a vegetarian or vegan then I question your motives.
Along with that, I think somebody should point out that fuit juice is almost as bad as soda
Yes, they should, and anyone that disagrees with you is, in my opinion, deeply in denial and needs to acknowledge the truth: 'fruit juice' is just more flavored sugar water, devoid of any real nutrition. Nutritionists, trainers, coaches, etc., will tell you 'don't drink your calories'. You want fruit? Eat whole fruit, don't drink their juices. That being said if you're trying to avoid sugars then don't eat much fruit, except as a treat.
Just to be clear -- most flavors of Chobani yogurt contains more sugar per ounce than Coca Cola. That's what a "no sugar added" [foodnavigator-usa.com] label gets you these days
If you want yogurt, then you get plain Fage greek yogurt. If you want it flavored with something then you add it yourself, or put the yogurt into something else. By the way most nutrition labels show how many grams of sugars there are in something, not just all carbohydrates.
I woudn't at all be surprised if drinking sugary sodas is the number one cause of diabetes. Additionally, most artificial sweeteners really aren't all that great for you, either, if for no other reason than they don't break you of the habit of drinking sweet drinks all the time. People who live that way need to bite the bullet and drink nothing but WATER (the kind out of the tap that's free, not stupid overpriced bottled water!) for at least a year. Then they can have a soda once in a while.. assuming it's cane sugar-sweetened, not HFCS, not aspartame, not sucralose. In my opinion, stevia is OK, but as with most things YMMV. But everyone needs to get out of the habit of swilling sodas all the time and drink WATER instead. You'll be healthier and happier in the long run, and have more money in your pocket, too. In my opinion.
"Do the right thing" according to whose standard of ethics and morals? If as an example, a society believes that the weak should die 'for the greater good', and that 'might makes right', and that 'stealing is OK so long as you don't get caught', then "Do the right thing" means something entirely different than it would in a society where the opposites are true. My point being: "Do the right thing" is extremely vague to the point of being meaningless -- unless you back those four words up with specifications of what it means to you.
Oh hey there AC, I found a picture of you on the Internets! http://bitsocialmedia.com/wp-c... Now please go play somewhere else, the adults are trying to have a conversation, k?
So what? It's an airless, lifeless dustball. There's no 'environment' to protect. Also, anything left behind was left behind because it would require fuel to return it all to Earth, and that just wouldn't have made any sense.
Uhhhh.. but, there's nothing there to 'destroy'? It's a dead, airless dustball. It's not even geologically active. It's literally there for us to do whatever we want to with it. So long as nobody screws with it's orbit around the Earth, it's all good.
Hey diddle diddle,
The Electron and the fiddle,
The space-cow jumped over the moon.
Space-X laughed,
To see such sport,
And NASA ran away with the spoon.
The age-discrimination thing is just a symptom of the real problem, as is the H1-B problem: It's all about money. They'd rather hire some kid fresh out of some cheesy technical school who can just barely find his ass with both hands, because they can pay him far, far less money, and he'll (or she'll, as the case may be) lick their boots in appreciation for getting any job. Then in 2 or 3 years (if that long) when they've got some real experience and are rightly due a raise, they'll claim 'budget cuts' or some such nonsense like that, and lay them all off -- then the next week go looking for a new batch of dumb kids to hire for peanuts. Same goes for engineering, too; I have a friend who recently retired from HP. He would tell me about how they were slowly but surely edging out the senior engineers and replacing them with kids fresh out of college in another country, who couldnt' find their asses with both hands, because of obvious reasons: They can pay them so much less, and they'll still respond like they've won the lottery because it's still better than they can get in their own country. It's bullshit, it's going to ruin the U.S. economy, it's fucking over U.S. citizens in general, and something needs to be done about it. Complain loud, complain long, my friend, enough people do that and someone will have to listen.
Oh my, will you look at that? I'm getting modded down to something like pond scum again for daring to speak my mind. Trolls and haters, when will they learn? You're not going to silence me, ever, so why bother trying?
If Volkswagen (and German automakers in general for that matter) want to salvage their reputation, they need to adopt an attitude of mea culpa, take their punishment, and move on towards playing by the rules instead of cheating. Again: Trying to worm their way out of criminal charges against them isn't going to accomplish that. Take your punishment with some dignity and grace, Volkswagen, then go forth and transgress no more.
If they're already trying to worm their way out of this on technicalities then in my opinion that just makes the guilty look all that much more guilty.
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We don't do 100 year studies on newly bred hybrids or plants produced via induced mutation. We don't do 100 year studies on new types of plastic, medications, floor coverings, artificial sweeteners, or anything else. Should we be doing 100 year studies on everything new we create on the off chance that they produce slow-moving problems, or is there some specific thing about transgenic plants that warrants it?
Here's my problem with GMO crops in general: There's a big difference between hybridizing crops the way farmers have been doing it for centuries, and the way they're doing it in a lab, directly splicing genes together, sometimes in ways that couldn't be done the way farmers can do it. Here's my problem with Monsanto, and companies like them: They don't act in a way that encourages you to feel like you can trust them. Here's my problem with the testing of things like this in general: They have to make assumptions based on testing on other animals over a relatively short period of time. You can't test these things directly on humans, either. There's also a big uncertainty factor because you can't wait decades to see if what you've created is actually going to be harmful. If it was just some product, and it turns out 20 years from now that the product causes harm, they stop producing it, or change it so it's safe. If you're futzing around with genetics, then your product, if it's harmful, may cause permanent, irreversible harm to either the environment, animal life, or human life. There have been plenty of drugs that the FDA initially approved, but then decades later it's discovered they were harmful; our testing methodology, in my opinion, is not sufficient. But as I keep saying: It's already too late.
Any number of things can cause genetic damage that could be passed on to the next generation. I honestly don't believe they've tested or are even able to test adequately for these possibilities. Of course as previously stated it's way too late to even worry about it now, the stuff is already in the wind and proliferating. We'll know in some decades to come if what they've released into the ecosphere is OK or if it's going to cause damage.
Here's the main problem with 'self-driving cars', 'autonomous vehicles', 'driverless cars/vehicles', or however you want to refer to them as: Where the safety of human life is concerned, another human being should always be the final backup system to any automated system. If you have 'autonomous vehicles' with no manual controls, then you can't have a human being in the vehicle that is able to take control in an emergency situation (autopilot system fails, unexpected situation it's not handling properly, etc). If there are manual controls, then you must be educated, trained, tested, and licensed, just like always. Furthermore there will always be situations where a 'self-driving car' won't work: you don't know where you're going, you're going off-road, you need to maneuver the vehicle in a very precise manner (tight space, etc) or any number of other exceptions that an automated system won't handle; it'll happen, and a human being has to then be competent to operate the vehicle.
Remember Howard Stern? Back in the day, most people liked to listen to Stern 'because they wanted to see what he'd do next'. Ironically enough the people who passionately hated Stern and wanted him off the air more than anything? They'd listen to him 'because they wanted to see what he'd do next'. So it goes, in my opinion, with TBB: There are people out there who will say it's crap, shouldn't be allowed on television, is ruining our children and our society -- and they'll faithfully tune in to watch it week after week, to see what it's going to do this time. They need to get a life, is what they need to do, or at least get a new hobby.
You'll get your 'robocars' about the same time you get flying cars and hoverboards.
In my opinion, at best you'll have a sophisticated 'autopilot' system to supplement your full set of manual controls, and it'll be a boon on long highway trips, and maybe to keep you safe if you fall asleep at the wheel in the middle of the night. Assuming you're rich and can afford a luxury car, that is; economy cars won't have such things as an option. Sorry, kids, but you'll still have to learn how to drive, pass tests, and pay for insurance, and you'll have a steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals (if not a clutch pedal) in front of you for quite some time to come; please do learn your driver training lessons well so we're all safe on the roads, OK? Thanks.
If you don't like the show then don't watch it anymore, but don't go trying to enforce your standards on everyone else.
How many years of testing is enough for you
As many as it takes to be 99.9% sure it's not going to cause harm to human or animal life.
and what do you base that requirement on?
A human generation or two, we'll know if there is any genetic damage to humans being caused by eating GMO foods.
Exactly. And in their greedy rush to make mad profits, companies like Monsanto couldn't have possibly sufficiently tested their GM plants for human safety. Like it matters now. I guess in 50-100 years we'll know if they've created a toxic mess for humanity or not.
Genetically modified crops have already dispersed sufficiently throughout the world through cross pollination to make the damage to the ecosphere irreversible. If it turns out that 50 years from now we discover that the tampering done to them produces foodstuffs harmful to humans in the long run, it'll be far to late to do anything about it.
Either of these strategies are far better than buying flavored water with weird chemicals added
I agree with you. However, the best option is to drink just water, and get your nutrients from other sources -- like whole fruits and vegetables, wasting nothing, and getting the entire benefit of the food. ;-)
Yep, sounds to me like it just became malware; maybe it should be rebranded as 'AdFeeder' instead of 'AdBlocker'?
Remove, overwrite, delete, find a replacement.
Having scanned through a few pages of your recent comments, you're clearly a negative person who likes to start arguments for the sake of starting arguments, and furthermore insults people just to rile them up, and as such nothing you say to me is worth responding to; please bugger off.
Excessive meat consumption is the leading cause.
Oh really? Let's see here.. 'TED talks' don't mean a thing, by the way. But I did research 'red meat consumption' and 'diabetes' and came up with an article about some actual research that had this to say:
âoeThe final proof in humans will be much harder to come by,â Varki said. âoeBut on a more general note, this work may also help explain potential connections of red meat consumption to other diseases exacerbated by chronic inflammation, such as atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes.
So let's summarize: They genetically modify some mice, then feed them insane amounts of some sugar molecule that is found in red meat, and lo-and-behold! They get weird tumors and stuff. How amazing! But note the wording there: "The final proof in humans will be much harder to come by.." "this mayalso help explain.." Nothing is proven yet. By the way if you're a vegetarian or vegan then I question your motives.
Along with that, I think somebody should point out that fuit juice is almost as bad as soda
Yes, they should, and anyone that disagrees with you is, in my opinion, deeply in denial and needs to acknowledge the truth: 'fruit juice' is just more flavored sugar water, devoid of any real nutrition. Nutritionists, trainers, coaches, etc., will tell you 'don't drink your calories'. You want fruit? Eat whole fruit, don't drink their juices. That being said if you're trying to avoid sugars then don't eat much fruit, except as a treat.
Just to be clear -- most flavors of Chobani yogurt contains more sugar per ounce than Coca Cola. That's what a "no sugar added" [foodnavigator-usa.com] label gets you these days
If you want yogurt, then you get plain Fage greek yogurt. If you want it flavored with something then you add it yourself, or put the yogurt into something else. By the way most nutrition labels show how many grams of sugars there are in something, not just all carbohydrates.
I woudn't at all be surprised if drinking sugary sodas is the number one cause of diabetes. Additionally, most artificial sweeteners really aren't all that great for you, either, if for no other reason than they don't break you of the habit of drinking sweet drinks all the time. People who live that way need to bite the bullet and drink nothing but WATER (the kind out of the tap that's free, not stupid overpriced bottled water!) for at least a year. Then they can have a soda once in a while.. assuming it's cane sugar-sweetened, not HFCS, not aspartame, not sucralose. In my opinion, stevia is OK, but as with most things YMMV. But everyone needs to get out of the habit of swilling sodas all the time and drink WATER instead. You'll be healthier and happier in the long run, and have more money in your pocket, too. In my opinion.
"Do the right thing" according to whose standard of ethics and morals? If as an example, a society believes that the weak should die 'for the greater good', and that 'might makes right', and that 'stealing is OK so long as you don't get caught', then "Do the right thing" means something entirely different than it would in a society where the opposites are true. My point being: "Do the right thing" is extremely vague to the point of being meaningless -- unless you back those four words up with specifications of what it means to you .
Oh hey there AC, I found a picture of you on the Internets!
http://bitsocialmedia.com/wp-c...
Now please go play somewhere else, the adults are trying to have a conversation, k?
So what? It's an airless, lifeless dustball. There's no 'environment' to protect. Also, anything left behind was left behind because it would require fuel to return it all to Earth, and that just wouldn't have made any sense.
Uhhhh.. but, there's nothing there to 'destroy'? It's a dead, airless dustball. It's not even geologically active. It's literally there for us to do whatever we want to with it. So long as nobody screws with it's orbit around the Earth, it's all good.
Hey diddle diddle,
The Electron and the fiddle,
The space-cow jumped over the moon.
Space-X laughed,
To see such sport,
And NASA ran away with the spoon.
The age-discrimination thing is just a symptom of the real problem, as is the H1-B problem: It's all about money. They'd rather hire some kid fresh out of some cheesy technical school who can just barely find his ass with both hands, because they can pay him far, far less money, and he'll (or she'll, as the case may be) lick their boots in appreciation for getting any job. Then in 2 or 3 years (if that long) when they've got some real experience and are rightly due a raise, they'll claim 'budget cuts' or some such nonsense like that, and lay them all off -- then the next week go looking for a new batch of dumb kids to hire for peanuts. Same goes for engineering, too; I have a friend who recently retired from HP. He would tell me about how they were slowly but surely edging out the senior engineers and replacing them with kids fresh out of college in another country, who couldnt' find their asses with both hands, because of obvious reasons: They can pay them so much less, and they'll still respond like they've won the lottery because it's still better than they can get in their own country. It's bullshit, it's going to ruin the U.S. economy, it's fucking over U.S. citizens in general, and something needs to be done about it. Complain loud, complain long, my friend, enough people do that and someone will have to listen.
You're being way, way too literal, and coming off as more than a little pedantic. Please stop that.
Oh my, will you look at that? I'm getting modded down to something like pond scum again for daring to speak my mind. Trolls and haters, when will they learn? You're not going to silence me, ever, so why bother trying?
If Volkswagen (and German automakers in general for that matter) want to salvage their reputation, they need to adopt an attitude of mea culpa, take their punishment, and move on towards playing by the rules instead of cheating. Again: Trying to worm their way out of criminal charges against them isn't going to accomplish that. Take your punishment with some dignity and grace, Volkswagen, then go forth and transgress no more.
If they're already trying to worm their way out of this on technicalities then in my opinion that just makes the guilty look all that much more guilty.