The problem with a free market approach is that we don't have a free market. We have a collection of oligopolies in a regulated economy. When somebody fails it results in market consolidation not renewal and diversification. ESPECIALLY in the banking sector.
Look at happened to the companies that failed. They were adsorbed by those who didn't. And now we have an even more concentrated banking sector.
It's silly to spout off free market dogma when in fact we don't have any such thing. Until we do free market theory isn't a useful basis for policy decisions.
The thing is though that it wasn't a waste of money. We got a stinking big profit out of it.
Not only that but we saved a metric fuckton of money on things like pension insurance, deposit insurance and unemployment benefits that we would have had to pay out if they had gone tits up.
I didn't say what you are implying. All technologies have risks and benefits that must be weighed using a balanced and rational process to determine what the net value is. GMOs have potential benefits that are among the greatest ever offered by a new technology, and I happen to believe that the technology is absolutely critical to developing a sustainable high standard of living for humankind. However it must be applied in an intelligent manner.
I am simply pointing out that a large class of the arguments used against GMOs - that this process does not occur in nature, that it is something made up by scientists, that genetic information doesn't naturally cross species barriers etc etc are completely bullshit.
This type if argument is floating around in many fields against various products of technology. It completely neglects that man is still bound by the same laws of physics, chemistry and biology that nature operates under, and that what man does is generally driven by copying and then adjusting something that nature is already doing for man's own benefit.
I see it all the time. It is a manifestation of ignorance.
> Are there observed, natural occurences of frog genes splicing into vegetable genes, in the last 100 years of science?
Natural transport of genes across phyla is well known. This sort of mechanism is one of the key processes by which nature manages to fill ecological niches.
Yes, they were making money out of this. They were selling the pirated movies.
IMHO there is a big difference between copyright infringement for personal use and for the purpose of making a profit. The latter is a common activity of criminal organizations aka the Mafia.
It is very likely this person was running a criminal organization engaging in a variety of illegal activities, and copped a plea to this one charge.
Slashdot of course is incapable of making such an in depth analysis of a story and reacts only to the internet equivalent of a sound bite.
Um Not Correct. People seem to misunderstand the origins of GMO technology. The technology that allows transplanting of genes was developed by copying natural processes that do exactly the same thing.
Transposons, retrotransposons, proviruses and other mobile genetic elements naturally translocate to new sites in a genome, and over long time scales will move genetic material across species. It happens all the time, in all forms of life. The speed at which it can happen is sometimes frightening - the rapidity at which resistance to antibiotics spread is due directly to natural genetic transfer.
Plant tissue culture and introduction of foreign germ plasm across species lines is a technology that is hundreds of years old. Almost all of our grain is produced by trans-species crops developed long before modern GMO came into existence.
The lack of basic understanding of what is going on here after so many years of debates on this topic is shocking.
Slashdot Mirror
Try Somalia. You can do pretty much anything you want there.
Special Relativity had antecedents.
GR is another matter altogether. It is a much more fundamental and revolutionary change.
Einstein made some major contributions to QM. The photon, specific heats of solids, etc.
Really? Einstein still claims that QM isn't complete.
The physical interpretation of QM is still a matter of great debate. It's not at all a smooth transition.
I don't think they become smaller. QM for example was huge.
Less frequent, yes. But when they happen there is a huge retrenchment required.
What, pray tell, does that have to do with science?
QM *was* a massive shift in thinking. Ditto evolution, germ theory, Mendelian inheritance, Boyle's "The Sceptical Chymist" and plate tectonics.
I think there are more examples of paradigm shifts than evolutionary transitions.
Even relativity required quite a few old skool physicists to die off before acceptance was universal.
cf. "Subtle is the Lord", a great biography of Albert Einstein.
Citation:
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxpayers-make-money-tarp-treasury-says-715381
The problem with a free market approach is that we don't have a free market. We have a collection of oligopolies in a regulated economy. When somebody fails it results in market consolidation not renewal and diversification. ESPECIALLY in the banking sector.
Look at happened to the companies that failed. They were adsorbed by those who didn't. And now we have an even more concentrated banking sector.
It's silly to spout off free market dogma when in fact we don't have any such thing. Until we do free market theory isn't a useful basis for policy decisions.
Of course it comes out of thin air. That's what you can do if you own the presses.
Except it was W who bailed out AIG.
The thing is though that it wasn't a waste of money. We got a stinking big profit out of it.
Not only that but we saved a metric fuckton of money on things like pension insurance, deposit insurance and unemployment benefits that we would have had to pay out if they had gone tits up.
Go watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
It's caused plenty of issues.
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/eu.cfm
For good reason too. Those square drive things cam out like crazy. Use torx next time, please.
> every US city had a different measure system.
It used to be that way. That's why the Constitution has this thing about Congress establishing standard units.
Fast forward 240 years and now the time to go from one continent to the next is shorter than the time it used to take to travel between cities.
So guess what. If you want to sell your stuff outside your village (the US) you have a problem.
There certainly is a problem with non-standardized containers. US companies have to maintain two sets of container sizes if they want to export.
The result is higher costs and lack of economic competitiveness.
Many countries that have officially gone metric still use local units for things like building materials.
Your objection really isn't an issue.
The US is in the process of metrication. Slow, but then again even France took a long time to convert.
For example all of US units are now defined in terms of metric units. The foot is 0.3048m.
http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/metric-program.cfm
Not to mention having been invented by the Godless Communist Papist Socialist Cheese-Eating French.
If we are going to adopt a decimal system of weights and measures at least we should go with an American one.
I didn't say what you are implying. All technologies have risks and benefits that must be weighed using a balanced and rational process to determine what the net value is. GMOs have potential benefits that are among the greatest ever offered by a new technology, and I happen to believe that the technology is absolutely critical to developing a sustainable high standard of living for humankind. However it must be applied in an intelligent manner.
I am simply pointing out that a large class of the arguments used against GMOs - that this process does not occur in nature, that it is something made up by scientists, that genetic information doesn't naturally cross species barriers etc etc are completely bullshit.
This type if argument is floating around in many fields against various products of technology.
It completely neglects that man is still bound by the same laws of physics, chemistry and biology that nature operates under, and that what man does is generally driven by copying and then adjusting something that nature is already doing for man's own benefit.
I see it all the time. It is a manifestation of ignorance.
> Are there observed, natural occurences of frog genes splicing into vegetable genes, in the last 100 years of science?
Natural transport of genes across phyla is well known. This sort of mechanism is one of the key processes by which nature manages to fill ecological niches.
http://www.billbrouard.com/genetic.htm
Yes, they were making money out of this. They were selling the pirated movies.
IMHO there is a big difference between copyright infringement for personal use and for the purpose of making a profit. The latter is a common activity of criminal organizations aka the Mafia.
It is very likely this person was running a criminal organization engaging in a variety of illegal activities, and copped a plea to this one charge.
Slashdot of course is incapable of making such an in depth analysis of a story and reacts only to the internet equivalent of a sound bite.
Some bankers are in jail.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120612/ARTICLE/120619859
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/walker-365061-theft-farmers.html
http://www.fbi.gov/tampa/press-releases/2012/tampa-man-and-maryland-banker-sentenced-for-bank-fraud-and-other-offenses
It isn't that unusual.
Um Not Correct. People seem to misunderstand the origins of GMO technology. The technology that allows transplanting of genes was developed by copying natural processes that do exactly the same thing.
Transposons, retrotransposons, proviruses and other mobile genetic elements naturally translocate to new sites in a genome, and over long time scales will move genetic material across species. It happens all the time, in all forms of life. The speed at which it can happen is sometimes frightening - the rapidity at which resistance to antibiotics spread is due directly to natural genetic transfer.
Plant tissue culture and introduction of foreign germ plasm across species lines is a technology that is hundreds of years old. Almost all of our grain is produced by trans-species crops developed long before modern GMO came into existence.
The lack of basic understanding of what is going on here after so many years of debates on this topic is shocking.
That sort of argument has used against every single new technology invented by man.
It's ridiculous.