It is in the peoples' interest, in general, to have a cleaner and more sustainable world to live raise their children in. A bleak dog-eat-dog world where large, wealthy industries devour the planet for the profit of a few individuals is somewhat less in the interest of the people. Yet, here we are.
We need to do more to actually reduce the amount of shit we tip into the oceans, rather than bleating about how everyone *else* should stop using their cars.
So the shit we tip into the oceans is bad but the shit we tip into the atmosphere is OK? That's a bit inconsistent.
On an individual scale, natural selection does not seek harmony with the environment.Natural selection seeks nothing, and tunes to nothing except the amplification of oneself. Organisms do not seek to live in harmony with the environment, they seek to exploit it the best they can.
This is demonstrably untrue. While effective exploitation of resources is imperative, unrestrained exploitation of resources will lead to a quick extinction due to loss of livelihood. Many species will reduce their fertility, for example, during times of reduced availability of resources. Organisms, while seeking to thrive, must also harmonize with their environment.
The environment (i.e., the other organisms around it)...
Why do you restrict your definition of "environment" to living organisms? There are many other features including water, weather, sunlight, topography, and minerals.
...counter this by trying to exploit each other in the same manner. This is natural selection. Selective breeding accelerates this process drastically.
No it doesn't. Selective breeding alters organisms to meet the needs of people. These species would most likely go extinct in a rapid manner if not for human husbandry. You're caviling.
This should be fairly obvious, but it has resulted in a hardier competitor. Many, many times. That's evolution.
That was my point, duh. We're already living with the more hardy competitors so that's pretty good proof that selective breeding (natural or man-made) is unlikely to create the problems you alluded to.
And simply stating that something is "flat out destructive" does not make it so.
What, exactly, did I claim was flat out destructive? I pointed that out as a distinct possibility because we really don't know what we're doing yet. Remember, these organisms are self-replicating. That's a huge power and one we would be foolish to treat lightly as you advocate.
I'm not saying that GM is de facto safe, just that it's not by default unsafe, either. In fact, the resarch that has been done points to "safe".
That's like saying, "I've pointed this gun at my head and pulled the trigger three times and nothing happened to me. That's a good indication that this is safe." As I said, our knowledge is incomplete. Best to keep these organisms tightly in biohazard containment until we're lots more knowledgeable.
Also, I can't think of a single mechanism other than improved hardiness that would cause an organism to be destructive. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to compete with indigenous species and would be wiped out.
Just because you have an impaired imagination it's no reason to advocate hazardous behavior. How about a bacteria that multiplies rapidly and converts mass quantities of oxygen to methane faster than plants can replenish it? How about one that consumes hemoglobin? I could go on and on but truth is stranger than fiction and the reality is more daunting to me than anything I can imagine.
All of this avoids the big lie that you and the biotech industry want the public to believe -- that gene splicing is functionally equivalent to selective breeding. It is not. It never was and it never will be.
I mean that the DNA (the "document") has been combined in an eons-old method that has been vetted by natural selection to generate combinations that are tuned to live in harmony with their environment. Humans have a poor understanding of the functions and effects of their unnatural DNA tinkering. Breeding keeps natural laws intact for the most part. DNA splicing bypasses the checks and opens us up for disaster.
And how is the result of selective breeding not "self-replicating"?
I never said they weren't. They're just more trustworthy for replication than GMOs.
For that matter, what is the argument behind saying that a selectively bred organism is not a "potential time bomb"? You could easily accidentally create an unusually hardy organism through breeding selection that, if released, could wreack havoc.
It's not impossible, but I would consider it less dangerous because, if breeding created a more hardy competitor, don't you think nature would have created it by now over the 4.5 billion years it's been at work? Also, "unusually hardy" is a far cry from flat-out destructive. We can't fully predict how an organism will behave when we start splicing genes together. Nature has already done the vetting of the unhealthy combinations.
So if you modify the genes by natural methods its not GM, but if you use artificial means to accomplish the exact same result, it is GM. God! I love the un-inteeligent masses that find this acceptable.
This is just blatant "un-inteeligent" propaganda. In order to get the "exact same result" researchers would have to first use selective breeding to get the traits they want, then take the original plant and splice the exact same altered sequences into that plant's DNA. It would simply be looking at how nature would change the genes and duplicating the process. That would be a pointless exercise in reverse engineering rather than genetic engineering and nobody would waste time doing that.
Natural methods create "fact-checked" documents while GM methods create self-replicating potential time bombs. Your understanding of the issue is very shallow.
And I love the way Slashdotty modders love to mod up industry propaganda as "insightful." It happens every time.
Also, I agree that we should be moving to non-polluting (or as nearly as possible) energy sources, but that isn't going to happen until clean energy sources are reasonably cost competitive on a scale that allows similar capacity.
And clean energy sources aren't going to be cost competitive until dirty energy sources include all the costs of their product into the price of the product. As it is now, they export those costs onto the public at large making them seem cheaper than they actually are. Atmospheric composition changes, acid rain, mercury, mountaintop removal, one thousand miles of streams buried in Appalachia; these are all costs that are exported onto the people rather than included in the price of coal. So who is not being real here?
So you find that living with a delusion that you are greater than you are is motivating? Your "natural extension" is actually a non sequitur. Our common situation is significant... to us. It's the only reality we have to work in so I'm motivated to make it the best it can be despite the fact that, cosmically speaking, we are insignificant. Fortunateley (for us, and the universe) we don't live our lives on a cosmic scale.
OK. So corporations have taken over the government and are using it to oppress the people. The Randian/objectivist solution is to reduce or eliminate government power. But without government power what will the citizens use to counter corporate power. With no government in place to enforce laws the richest and most powerful will rule. The corporations are, by far, the richest and most powerful. They're also psychopathic.
The real solution is to break the bond between corporations and the government. The simplest and most effective way is to overturn the court decision that declared corporations to be persons. As persons, their ability to lobby and finance the politicians can't be checked effectively. They get what they want because they are the most powerful "persons" in the process. We need to end that and take our government back.
By targeting government and regulation as the problems you play right into corporations' hands -- willingly throwing away the only source of power you can hope to have (unless you're a billionaire). We need to force a divorce between government and corporation and re-wed government to the people (from whom it has been stolen).
Remember -- the constitution starts with the words, "We, The People." It's time we took that seriously. Choose or lose.
As another data point... The only time the US has used aerial bombs on its own citizens was at the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia when officials called in the US Army Air Corps to bomb striking coal miners.
It's just that Slashdotters don't need any evidence or proof of what's happening with the atmosphere.
They're already dead-certain that the atmosphere isn't changing and, even if it is, we're not causing the changes and, even if we are, we've just become the hand of nature/God and therefore the changes are natural/divine.
No satellite proof is needed so the satellite is redundant as is the story. "Nothing to see here. Move along," they would say -- before being killed at the next zebra crossing.
Why do you characterize that as "socialist." Socialism proscribes that resources be shared among the group. The conditions described in The Jungle seem more like an extreme form of capitalism to me. The workers were considered human capital -- similar to the buildings and equipment -- to be used and depreciated on the balance sheet. I don't see anything socialist about it (unless you're just using "socialist" as a synonym for "bad.")
OK, let's go back to my first message. Basically, I explained why your argument wasn't persuasive. I outlined very specifically two reasons (numbered helpfully 1 and 2). If you can address those reasons directly and effectively, then you may persuade me.
If you would like the answers then go back up the thread four levels and reread my post. I don't know what was unclear or indirect about my answers except maybe that you couldn't twist my words to fit your argument. I can't hold your hand through this and I'm really not interested in persuading you. (You replied to me, remember?)
One of the best ways to *really* understand how things work is by experimentation. And that involves doing GM research, and making GM plants and animals.
Experimentation is fine. They just need to keep the products well isolated from the rest of the environment. They aren't doing that. Millions of acres of land are populated by their living, breeding experiments as we debate.
The argument that the "natural" mode is the proper one, because it's always done that way is not persuasive.
I never said it was the "proper" mode (straw man). My claim is that it's the prudent one.
You're in essence arguing that yours is the only right and moral way to do something. Hardly a position to be distinguishing hubris from.
What makes you think that I've laid claim to the methods of natural reproduction? They're not my methods. They're nature's methods. Your position is that it's OK to deviate from those methods. That's an extreme deviation and one that requires extreme proof of safety. I just don't think we're at the point in our knowledge where that's possible.
Completely sidestepped the question.
How so?
You claimed that natural change is good, and artificial change is bad. Now, support that claim.
That's a lie. I did not say that. (That was another straw man. Do you notice how your hypocrisy over argument techniques is piling up?) My claim is that we should not be fiddling with things we don't fully understand and that easily have the potential to destroy us. My argument is based purely on self-preservation.
When something is not known, there is no logical support to draw a conclusion from.
My point exactly. The something that is not known is how DNA combines to make life work. The illogical conclusion is that we should proceed full-steam-ahead with development and production of genetically engineered life forms.
The burden of proof is yours.
That's funny, because I'm not the one proposing that we make changes to the way life works. It seems logical to me that those who propose to change things bear the burden of proof. My argument is that we go slowly and carefully because we're in uncharted territory and there's no great threat to humanity that warrants taking great risks. That's sound strategy that already has plenty of proof to back it up.
Faith? First you make some ridiculous claims, and I ask you to explain yourself. That's the natural way things work. Either you can explain yourself, or you have to admit that you haven't thought out your position.
Wow. That's just verbal bullying. You keep trying to back me into a corner of your own creation. I owe you no explanations. I'm making sound arguments. If you don't like them then make your own arguments.
Ad hominem attack. I'm a computer programmer at IBM.
Not ad hominem -- just speculation. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong. I just know that I wouldn't argue for corporations unless they were paying me.
And, a person who knows how to argue logically.
Well, I just put the lie to that statement multiple times, now, didn't I?
I hate to break it to you, but we have been doing genetic engineering in the lab for quite some time now. No one has made plague. No one has made either Pinky or the Brain. No one has made a sqaudron of atomic mutant basketball players to challenge the Globetrotters. The most we have managed is a few things that are resistant to certain diseases, and a lot of things that get funky diseases. And we know that's all it is in many cases, because these animals, plants, and bugs have been monitored for nearly 100 generations in some cases.
So just because it hasn't happened means that it can't happen? Sorry, that's not a good argument. "I hate to break it to you."
("SUV's and GM are joining forces to destroy Gaia! Come to her aid!") If you are going to oppose GM, at least use logical arguments and not absurd analogies that try to tie GM with something you may consider the Epitome of Evil.
Conversely, if you are going to debate me, please do so honestly. You quoted something that I never said or intended. Then compounded that by debating a point that I never made or implied. That was a total straw man and doesn't deserve any kind of defense or explanation from me.
And by the way, there no rules about interbreeding except the laws of genetics and physics.
I never said there were. (straw man, again) But there is common sense, prudence, and a desire for survival. You might have faith that these laboratories will do only good things. I would think the profit motive would drive them to take risks. You have to put your faith in one method or the other since the future is unknown. I think that nature's way is much more proven and not motivated by profit.
Slashdot Mirror
It is in the peoples' interest, in general, to have a cleaner and more sustainable world to live raise their children in. A bleak dog-eat-dog world where large, wealthy industries devour the planet for the profit of a few individuals is somewhat less in the interest of the people. Yet, here we are.
... as it appears pressed on the inner rims of The Clash's Sandinista! LPs:
IN SPACE...
...NO ONE...
...CAN...
...HEAR...
...YOU...
...CLAS
I have two cases for you to help you ponder your hypocrisy:
Al-Jazeera
Yellow Times
Censorship is wrong. A liberal would not be in favor of censorship. These guys are more accurately described as anarchists.
We need to do more to actually reduce the amount of shit we tip into the oceans, rather than bleating about how everyone *else* should stop using their cars.
So the shit we tip into the oceans is bad but the shit we tip into the atmosphere is OK? That's a bit inconsistent.
All right, then. Carry on, Icarus. Try not to get too near the sun.
On an individual scale, natural selection does not seek harmony with the environment.Natural selection seeks nothing, and tunes to nothing except the amplification of oneself. Organisms do not seek to live in harmony with the environment, they seek to exploit it the best they can.
This is demonstrably untrue. While effective exploitation of resources is imperative, unrestrained exploitation of resources will lead to a quick extinction due to loss of livelihood. Many species will reduce their fertility, for example, during times of reduced availability of resources. Organisms, while seeking to thrive, must also harmonize with their environment.
The environment (i.e., the other organisms around it)...
Why do you restrict your definition of "environment" to living organisms? There are many other features including water, weather, sunlight, topography, and minerals.
No it doesn't. Selective breeding alters organisms to meet the needs of people. These species would most likely go extinct in a rapid manner if not for human husbandry.
You're caviling.
This should be fairly obvious, but it has resulted in a hardier competitor. Many, many times. That's evolution.
That was my point, duh. We're already living with the more hardy competitors so that's pretty good proof that selective breeding (natural or man-made) is unlikely to create the problems you alluded to.
And simply stating that something is "flat out destructive" does not make it so.
What, exactly, did I claim was flat out destructive? I pointed that out as a distinct possibility because we really don't know what we're doing yet. Remember, these organisms are self-replicating. That's a huge power and one we would be foolish to treat lightly as you advocate.
I'm not saying that GM is de facto safe, just that it's not by default unsafe, either. In fact, the resarch that has been done points to "safe".
That's like saying, "I've pointed this gun at my head and pulled the trigger three times and nothing happened to me. That's a good indication that this is safe." As I said, our knowledge is incomplete. Best to keep these organisms tightly in biohazard containment until we're lots more knowledgeable.
Also, I can't think of a single mechanism other than improved hardiness that would cause an organism to be destructive. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to compete with indigenous species and would be wiped out.
Just because you have an impaired imagination it's no reason to advocate hazardous behavior.
How about a bacteria that multiplies rapidly and converts mass quantities of oxygen to methane faster than plants can replenish it? How about one that consumes hemoglobin? I could go on and on but truth is stranger than fiction and the reality is more daunting to me than anything I can imagine.
All of this avoids the big lie that you and the biotech industry want the public to believe -- that gene splicing is functionally equivalent to selective breeding. It is not. It never was and it never will be.
I mean that the DNA (the "document") has been combined in an eons-old method that has been vetted by natural selection to generate combinations that are tuned to live in harmony with their environment. Humans have a poor understanding of the functions and effects of their unnatural DNA tinkering. Breeding keeps natural laws intact for the most part. DNA splicing bypasses the checks and opens us up for disaster.
And how is the result of selective breeding not "self-replicating"?
I never said they weren't. They're just more trustworthy for replication than GMOs.
For that matter, what is the argument behind saying that a selectively bred organism is not a "potential time bomb"? You could easily accidentally create an unusually hardy organism through breeding selection that, if released, could wreack havoc.
It's not impossible, but I would consider it less dangerous because, if breeding created a more hardy competitor, don't you think nature would have created it by now over the 4.5 billion years it's been at work? Also, "unusually hardy" is a far cry from flat-out destructive. We can't fully predict how an organism will behave when we start splicing genes together. Nature has already done the vetting of the unhealthy combinations.
Only available in size XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX-Large.
So if you modify the genes by natural methods its not GM, but if you use artificial means to accomplish the exact same result, it is GM. God! I love the un-inteeligent masses that find this acceptable.
This is just blatant "un-inteeligent" propaganda. In order to get the "exact same result" researchers would have to first use selective breeding to get the traits they want, then take the original plant and splice the exact same altered sequences into that plant's DNA. It would simply be looking at how nature would change the genes and duplicating the process. That would be a pointless exercise in reverse engineering rather than genetic engineering and nobody would waste time doing that.
Natural methods create "fact-checked" documents while GM methods create self-replicating potential time bombs. Your understanding of the issue is very shallow.
And I love the way Slashdotty modders love to mod up industry propaganda as "insightful." It happens every time.
Also, I agree that we should be moving to non-polluting (or as nearly as possible) energy sources, but that isn't going to happen until clean energy sources are reasonably cost competitive on a scale that allows similar capacity.
And clean energy sources aren't going to be cost competitive until dirty energy sources include all the costs of their product into the price of the product. As it is now, they export those costs onto the public at large making them seem cheaper than they actually are. Atmospheric composition changes, acid rain, mercury, mountaintop removal, one thousand miles of streams buried in Appalachia; these are all costs that are exported onto the people rather than included in the price of coal. So who is not being real here?
So you find that living with a delusion that you are greater than you are is motivating?
Your "natural extension" is actually a non sequitur. Our common situation is significant
OK. So corporations have taken over the government and are using it to oppress the people. The Randian/objectivist solution is to reduce or eliminate government power. But without government power what will the citizens use to counter corporate power. With no government in place to enforce laws the richest and most powerful will rule. The corporations are, by far, the richest and most powerful. They're also psychopathic.
The real solution is to break the bond between corporations and the government. The simplest and most effective way is to overturn the court decision that declared corporations to be persons. As persons, their ability to lobby and finance the politicians can't be checked effectively. They get what they want because they are the most powerful "persons" in the process. We need to end that and take our government back.
By targeting government and regulation as the problems you play right into corporations' hands -- willingly throwing away the only source of power you can hope to have (unless you're a billionaire). We need to force a divorce between government and corporation and re-wed government to the people (from whom it has been stolen).
Remember -- the constitution starts with the words, "We, The People." It's time we took that seriously. Choose or lose.
As another data point... The only time the US has used aerial bombs on its own citizens was at the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia when officials called in the US Army Air Corps to bomb striking coal miners.
From Merriam-Webster:
fiat:
Sounds like a perfect match for Microsoft.
It's just that Slashdotters don't need any evidence or proof of what's happening with the atmosphere.
They're already dead-certain that the atmosphere isn't changing and, even if it is, we're not causing the changes and, even if we are, we've just become the hand of nature/God and therefore the changes are natural/divine.
No satellite proof is needed so the satellite is redundant as is the story. "Nothing to see here. Move along," they would say -- before being killed at the next zebra crossing.
Shouldn't that be GNU/Space Bridge?
Closeup (2050x2900 pixels) Look for the bright crater right at the top (on the solar terminator line)
It looks like the aliens have put a tribute to Elvis in the top left of that crater.
Oh, OK. Could you name the continents that reside in the western hemisphere for me? List them all so that I can be fully educated.
'America' is a continent.
Actually, it's an entire hemisphere -- divided into the "North" and "South" varieties of continents.
This seems absolutely socialist behavior...
Why do you characterize that as "socialist." Socialism proscribes that resources be shared among the group. The conditions described in The Jungle seem more like an extreme form of capitalism to me. The workers were considered human capital -- similar to the buildings and equipment -- to be used and depreciated on the balance sheet. I don't see anything socialist about it (unless you're just using "socialist" as a synonym for "bad.")
Here's another one.
Misleader
OK, let's go back to my first message. Basically, I explained why your argument wasn't persuasive. I outlined very specifically two reasons (numbered helpfully 1 and 2). If you can address those reasons directly and effectively, then you may persuade me.
If you would like the answers then go back up the thread four levels and reread my post. I don't know what was unclear or indirect about my answers except maybe that you couldn't twist my words to fit your argument. I can't hold your hand through this and I'm really not interested in persuading you. (You replied to me, remember?)
One of the best ways to *really* understand how things work is by experimentation. And that involves doing GM research, and making GM plants and animals.
Experimentation is fine. They just need to keep the products well isolated from the rest of the environment. They aren't doing that. Millions of acres of land are populated by their living, breeding experiments as we debate.
The argument that the "natural" mode is the proper one, because it's always done that way is not persuasive.
I never said it was the "proper" mode (straw man). My claim is that it's the prudent one.
You're in essence arguing that yours is the only right and moral way to do something. Hardly a position to be distinguishing hubris from.
What makes you think that I've laid claim to the methods of natural reproduction? They're not my methods. They're nature's methods. Your position is that it's OK to deviate from those methods. That's an extreme deviation and one that requires extreme proof of safety. I just don't think we're at the point in our knowledge where that's possible.
Completely sidestepped the question.
How so?
You claimed that natural change is good, and artificial change is bad. Now, support that claim.
That's a lie. I did not say that. (That was another straw man. Do you notice how your hypocrisy over argument techniques is piling up?) My claim is that we should not be fiddling with things we don't fully understand and that easily have the potential to destroy us. My argument is based purely on self-preservation.
When something is not known, there is no logical support to draw a conclusion from.
My point exactly. The something that is not known is how DNA combines to make life work. The illogical conclusion is that we should proceed full-steam-ahead with development and production of genetically engineered life forms.
The burden of proof is yours.
That's funny, because I'm not the one proposing that we make changes to the way life works. It seems logical to me that those who propose to change things bear the burden of proof. My argument is that we go slowly and carefully because we're in uncharted territory and there's no great threat to humanity that warrants taking great risks. That's sound strategy that already has plenty of proof to back it up.
Faith? First you make some ridiculous claims, and I ask you to explain yourself. That's the natural way things work. Either you can explain yourself, or you have to admit that you haven't thought out your position.
Wow. That's just verbal bullying. You keep trying to back me into a corner of your own creation. I owe you no explanations. I'm making sound arguments. If you don't like them then make your own arguments.
Ad hominem attack. I'm a computer programmer at IBM.
Not ad hominem -- just speculation. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong. I just know that I wouldn't argue for corporations unless they were paying me.
And, a person who knows how to argue logically.
Well, I just put the lie to that statement multiple times, now, didn't I?
I hate to break it to you, but we have been doing genetic engineering in the lab for quite some time now. No one has made plague. No one has made either Pinky or the Brain. No one has made a sqaudron of atomic mutant basketball players to challenge the Globetrotters. The most we have managed is a few things that are resistant to certain diseases, and a lot of things that get funky diseases. And we know that's all it is in many cases, because these animals, plants, and bugs have been monitored for nearly 100 generations in some cases.
So just because it hasn't happened means that it can't happen? Sorry, that's not a good argument. "I hate to break it to you."
("SUV's and GM are joining forces to destroy Gaia! Come to her aid!") If you are going to oppose GM, at least use logical arguments and not absurd analogies that try to tie GM with something you may consider the Epitome of Evil.
Conversely, if you are going to debate me, please do so honestly. You quoted something that I never said or intended. Then compounded that by debating a point that I never made or implied. That was a total straw man and doesn't deserve any kind of defense or explanation from me.
And by the way, there no rules about interbreeding except the laws of genetics and physics.
I never said there were. (straw man, again) But there is common sense, prudence, and a desire for survival. You might have faith that these laboratories will do only good things. I would think the profit motive would drive them to take risks. You have to put your faith in one method or the other since the future is unknown. I think that nature's way is much more proven and not motivated by profit.