They are in Redmond because it has the infastructure to support them. The telecommunications, roadways and educational system to supply those tens of thousands of employees. Nevada, by contrast, cannot supply these (sorry nevada, you're a great state, but your infastructure is horrid). For microsoft to do such a move would be to cut off its nose to spite its face.
There is a reason why the top performing companies are found in areas with the highest tax brackets. Those territories, which tax for the needed infastructure, are the ones which can support businesses of Microsofts size. You are confusing taxes in general with specific corporate income tax. There are many places (Sweden, for example), that tax the hell out of their citizens to fund infrastructure, but keep the corporate tax low in order to prevent corporations from moving elsewhere.
It is argueable that big corporations don't really pay taxes anyway, because the real cost of taxes are passed down to consumers/employees in the form of higher prices / lower wages (corporations are just an abstraction, after all). But assuming that corporations do in fact pay taxes, corporate taxes aren't the only form of taxation.
And Nevada, with its huge tax revenue from gambling, most definitly has the tax revenue to fund the infrastructure if it thought it could snag Microsoft.
And that's where I take issue. There is a difference between telling society that A. they -must- purchase Artwork X and B. they -must not- pirate Artwork X Except that to practicly enforce B, the following is required:
1. That I give up my right to own machines capable of copying and storing content.
2. That the police, government, or record labels are able to monitor my data transfers in order to determine if what I am copying is copyright or not.
3. That the copyright holders have the ability for fish net style legal tactics, a tactic that is likely to hurt innocent people as easily as guilty people.
While I can sympathize with the desire to spot music piracy, the only tactics that are available are ones that greatly infringe on the rights of the vast majority of innocent people.
If a law, even a moral law, can only be enforced with immoral authoritarian means, then the law isn't viable. We are going to end up creating a technologically crippled police state, destroying our most precious rights nessicary to democracy, in order to make some copyright owners a little money. Sorry, that ain't good enough.
If you think that privatization is the way to get a cheaper, more efficient organization, then I have to ask: How are your medical insurance premiums?
The U.S. doesn't have a privitized medical system. In fact the U.S. government spends more, per capita, than Canada, France, Germany, etc on medical care, not including research and things like the CDC.
The U.S. has a highly government regulated and subsidized hybrid of public and private care. It in no way, shape, or form is "private" or "free-market", by any stretch of the imagination.
In many ways, the people who run the USPS *DO* run our medical system - in that they are both chosen from the same pool of government beurocrats, and manage both systems using the same management principles and public policy philosophy.
From where I'm sitting, it looks like the USPS could teach the insurance industry a thing or two about how to deliver the most bang for your buck.
The USPS is more effiecient that the postal services of other countries, only because those systems are also highly inefficient government monopolies. It is like being the winner of the Special Olympics, it doesn't mean you are good, only that you better than the other Special People.
A more fair comparison would be comparing the USPS to UPS or Fed Ex. In both cases, a price comparison is impossible, because it is *ILLEGAL* for UPS or Fed Ex to charge less than the USPS. Given that it was the USPS that lobbied for making it illegal for UPS or Fed Ex to charge less, it is highly unlikely that the USPS could compete with those companies on price. And they don't compete on service now.
3 billion dollars in capital contributions from the U.S. government in 2007. And for the past couple years, at least.
I'll say it again: The USPS does a fantastic job, and I find it hard to believe private industry could do any better.
When I worked for a company that decided to add USPS shipping in addition to UPS, and we had loses of about 5% of the packages we sent via USPS (in contrast, we never had a lost package once with UPS). They engaged in outright fraud (such as promising "Garanteed Delivery by Christmas", and then all the packages arived weeks after Christmas)... when trying to contact management at the post office to address the problems, we were threatened and harrassed. If the USPS was a private buisness instead of a government monopoly, it would not only be out of buisness, the CEO and management would be in prison.
And this aweful service was despite the fact that it recieves billions in subsidies, and doesn't let other companies compete.
If the USPS is your model for a successful organization, and you want the medical and science field to be more like the USPS, God help the United States!
I think the USPS does a fantastic job. How far can you send something for $0.41 via UPS or FedEx? With USPS I can send a letter all the way to Alaska or Hawaii for the change under my couch cushions. If you compare time & cost for a 1 pound package shipped domestically, USPS comes out ahead there too.
It is illegal for any shipping company to charge less than the USPS for shipping, so the USPS is garanteed to come out ahead. It is also illegal for private companies to deliver first class mail, so the USPS is garanteed to come out ahead there as well.
It is like winning the race by shooting the other runners in the leg.
Many years ago, the USPS received taxpayer subsidies; but today the USPS is funded entirely by revenues from postage. If medical insurance or drug research was run half as efficiently as the USPS, we'd all be better off.
Actually, the USPS recieved 3 billion dollars in government subsidies for 2007 according to the 2007 annual report, so what you are saying is totally false. Of course, having a government enforced monopoly is also a form of subsidy.
The USPS, despite recieving BILLIONS in taxpayer subsidies, can't compete with UPS or FedEx in any way, shape, or form.
It should not be too hard to log downloads of which songs and apportion the right percentage of this month's collected $5 pot in the ratio of who's songs were downloaded. Yeah, I mean all it requires is Big Brother monitoring of all your internet activity. The government tracks every single file, by every user, everywhere on the internet, so they can make sure artists get paid for downloads. I don't see how anything could go wrong or how the system could be abused.
No, there is no moral right to "intellectual property". Things like copyright and patents were designed to promote the useful arts and sciencies, the idea being that it promoted publishing and the exchange of information to give a party a temporary monopoly. There is no moral right to these things.
Do you pay royalties every time you sing happy birthday at a birthday party? Do you feel guilty for not paying the royalties, as you are required to do by law? Perhaps we should throw you in jail for your blatent criminal violations, after all violating copyright is like stealing, right?
I wish people wouldn't say stuff like this. You're basically saying, "If you only had a bunch of emotions interfering with your logic, you would change your mind." It's anti-reasoning, and it's senseless. The rest of your post was good but raw appeals to emotion like this just demean it. Virtually all government policy is based on emotional hysterical arguements like this.
Now, I would not necessarily advocate doing it by introducing genetically altered beings, however. But your opinion on appropriate and inappropriate ways to find mosquitos, probably has something to do with the fact that your family and children are at zero risk of catching Dengue fever.
If 5,000,000 people a year where dying in Europe, or North America, and your family was at risk, your opinions might change.
DDT *IS* used for mosquito control, because many countries have resisted the pressure by rich western nations to stop using DDT. However, DDT use dropped drasticly because it is no longer a significant part of international aid.
Look, the U.S. government is still going to piss away 20 billion dollars a year on dead end space programs, so don't get your socialist pants all wet and stinky.
Some very rich people who can't compete properly in a free market still want to make tons and tons of money, and they will alway be very good at convincing saps like you that they are providing a "public good". And the politicians realize that things like a "space race" are good at keeping the saps distracted from domestic economic problems, foreign wars, etc., and that they get kickbacks from the corporate boys for the effort. Space programs make for good nationalistic propoganda theater. So don't cry too hard, the space program isn't going anywhere!
Libertarians can dream about a day when the average person can afford a cheap space flight... and Socialists can dream of the day when the government sends some military guy on a propoganda mission, proving national superiority, at the cost of trillions. The future has room for cool people and assholes!
So it's not about GM as a technology - it's about what is going to be done with it, and what industry will turn it into. Nobody trusts corporations anymore, and rightly so.
But it *IS* about GM technology. That is the point. Someone can use just about any technology to do harm. People can use the Internet to spread hate ideologies, does that make the Internet technology evil? People can make a bomb out of fertilizer, can carry out atrocious acts of violence, does that mean we should oppose fertilizer? Airplanes can be used to re-unite familes, promote friendship and cultural exchange - or they can be used to bomb people... but no sensible person opposes airplanes as a technology.
Likewise, genetic modification can be used for good purposes, or evil purposes, like any technology. Opposing the technology though, is irrational.
Second, people might not trust corporations anymore, but why should they trust governments either? The most evil corporations on the planet haven't hurt or killed as many people as even relatively moderate and benign democratic governments (even a tiny war, or a single misguided law such as postponing the approval a lifesaving medicine, causes more loss of life and suffering than all the evil things Coke and Monsanto have done). Even most of the evil things you blame on corporations, the corporations did because government enabled them to do so. The state as an institution is the most destructive, violent, xenophobic and oppressive force humans have ever unleashed - it is the single critical ingredient for all warfare and mass-oppression. Entrusting the state to prevent corporate abuse is like entrusting Hitler to prevent racism... it is a contradiction.
Corporations, while certainly very dangerous and deserving of our caution and skeptism, are a far less dangerous alternative to the state.
Sorry if I came off a bit nasty in the last post... I was just frustrated and offended that you were comparing widely used and well established technology to fictional comic book technology. I stand by what I said technology wise regarding mutation breeding, but I should have been much less hostile. In retrospect, after reading what I said, I understand it came off meaner than I ever inteded, and for that I sincerely apologize.
Show me a source other than TMNT, the DC universe, or the marvel universe that describes the use of radiation and mutagenic (carcinogenic) agents in order to produce viable food. I would be ever so entertained.
Well, normally I tell smarmy dorks to type "mutation breeding" into Google, but that might be too complicated for you:
So now, when faced with incontrovertible proof that the use of radiation and mutagenic agents to produce viable food is widespread, will you change your position? Probably not, because once people have invested a certain amount of time and passion into hating and fearing something, they rarely change their minds for something as trivial as irrefutable evidence.
Unfortunatly, since mutation breeding is completly unregulated, I can't tell you specificly what crops are or aren't created with mutation breeding - There is no legal obligation for the breeder to report any such thing, as it is all grandfathered in as "safe", "organic", and "natural". But have no doubts when you pay extra for your "non-GM" food, that much of it has been artificially geneticly modified.
So your arguement is that, while there is zero evidence for this event ever taking place, and there are a whole serious of issues that make the event unlikely, the event is technically possible, and therefore must be true!
Lets say, for example, that a plant species, over millions of years, is slowly affected by small changes that gradually turn it into a plant we know and love today like corn.
Except this is patently false. Most of the crops we eat today (including certified "organic" crops) have been produced by mutation breeding. Meaning that the changes in the plant didn't happen over millions of years - They happened instantly, when the plant was subjected to intense amounts of man-made radiation, and/or highly toxic chemical mutagens.
GM technology isn't new, plants have been geneticly modified since the ancient Incas developed systems for antificially introducing mutations. And in the last few generations where it is easy to produce artificial radiation and create powerful toxic mutagenic chemicals, we have been in a golden age of genetic modification.
The only difference between the GM that you have a problem with, and the old school methods of genetic modification (like radiation and mutagens), is that modern GM involves deliberate modifications, vs. random modifications. If anything, the GM that you oppose is the safest kind of GM.
From what I recall, the whole thing of GM crops was never to provide the well fed western world with extra food. We've already got more than we need.
North America is a food exporter... North American food exports feed several billion people.
The original idea was robust crops that would work in the third world, where death from lack of food is an everyday occurrence.
Or that robust crops planted in the first world wouldn't need so many enviornmentally harmful pesticides, wouldn't need too much eco-system disrupting irrigation, and a higher yield means that less land is needed for farming (conserving the un-used farmland).
Alas for them the corporations discovered that it made cheap food that they could make good profits on, and the biotech companies realised this was an idea way to control farmers worldwide by forcing them to purchase a constant supply of (patented) seeds, not replanting with saved seeds as has been the practice since farming was first developed.
Farmers already purchase most of their seed from big companies, so GM or not GM makes no difference.
Basically it went from a wonderful idea to just another way for money to be made.
And here is the real reason people are against GM foods: They see it as a product of capitalism, and everything tainted by capitalism is evil. While the old-school Soviet socialists where all about genetic experimentation, the new school sensitive blogging hippy generation of diseffected bourgeoise leftists have an almost religious ritual hatred of non-consumer technology.
You realize that all the problems with GM food also exist with mutation breeding, right?
So why are people freaked out when scientists modify a plant in a small and specific way in a lab... but not freaked out when people not even trained in science bombard plants with radiation and chemical mutagens in order to create widely mutated plants? Both have the danger of some "bad code" being introduced that we won't be able to predict the behavior... in fact, that is way more likely with mutation breeding.
So why is there no call to regulate mutation breeding? (it is totally unregulated) Why can mutation breeding plants be certified 100% organic? (they have been drasticly geneticly modified... it is just that they have been geneticly modified in completly unpredictable and untested ways)
Why do you feel genetic modification is more dangerous the more deliberate and carefully tested it is, but genetic modification is safe when done in a totaly random method without testing?
The real question is, how long is it before the average consumer becomes apathetic about buying and eatting cloned meat.
Why "apathetic"? Maybe consumers will realize that cloned meat is as safe as regular meat, and won't care. Most people aren't ludites, and have no problem with technology... so don't project negative things like "apathy" on people when they choose these products.
Because destroying the country's ability to produce food internally is a bad idea. What happens when externally produced food skyrockets in price, or worse, is not available at all?
Bad arguement... We could eliminate 90% of domestic farming, and still maintain enough food production capability to feed everyone in case of war or national emergency.
If we are worried about food as a national security/safety issue, then set up a strategic food reserve.
Ah, I see your problem; you assume that Greenpeace represents all Environmentalists. Your assumption is incorrect. Greenpeace represents the majority of enviornmentalists... they are the most mainstream and popular enviornmental group, and most people calling themselves "enviornmentalists" get their talking points straight from Greenpeace's website.
I realize there are some folks who consider themselves enviornmentalists and support nuclear power... In the same way that there are Republicans who support gay marrage and raising taxes. But those people are outside the mainstream of their respective movement.
It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the people who are making the loudest fuss over global warming, are opposed to nuclear power... In the same way it is safe to assume the vast majority of the people who vote Republican probably are opposed raising taxes.
So, the real question is, who is trying to stop this? I do not see Environmentalists stopping any alternative energy (though some minor groups try to stop individual projects). But I do see LOTS of ACs here and elsehwere pointing at Environmentalists. Hmmmm. Are you seriously implying that enviornmental groups are dead set against nuclear power and try to stop it at every chance?
For example, from the Greenpeace site:
Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
I think it is very safe to say, those calling themselves "enviornmentalists" are pretty much universally opposed to nuclear power.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security are deserving of neither." I find that quote especially tiresome. Can't you intellectual giants think of any instances where this is just flat wrong? I can. The idea is that a state is either moving towards authoritarianism, despotism, and totalitarianism, etc., or they are moving away from it.
I am sure you can think of lots of "important" situations, where our "benevolent" government needs to restrict our liberty "for the good of everyone". The trouble is, once you decide there are exception to liberty, everyone has their pet issue that they think liberty should be sacrificed for. In the same way you may be paranoid about say firearms, or recreational drugs, or free markets, or whatever, some people are paranoid about terrorism. It is unreasonable to think that the government will choose to address only your fears, and choose to ignore the fears of others. You aren't special, and in a Democracy, you are just one of tens or hundreds of millions who want the government to address whatever it is that you are terrified of.
You are either the type of person who supports an expansion of the police state, or you are the type of person who supports rolling back the police state. But if you think the police state is going to restrict liberty only in ways you approve of, you are delusional. The Patriot Act is the price you pay for gun control. The War on Terrorism is the price you pay for the War on Drugs. When you give the government the power to monitor your bank accounts so it can tax you to pay for the social services you approve of, you also give government the power to monitor your bank account to make sure you aren't a "supporting terrorists".
You are either more afraid of terrorists, criminals, buisnesses, etc. than the government... in which case you support the police state, and you accept the good with the bad. Or, you are more afraid of the government than terrorists, criminals, buisnesses, etc., and you are willing to accept that there might be slightly greater amount of risk that goes along with liberty. You make your choice, but don't decieve yourself that you can have your cake and eat it too.
I find great amusement in the fact that you're quoting a slavemaster in regards to the importance of liberty. The people who are against free speech, or the right to own weapons, or the right to keep what you earn or to own property, always like to point out that the early American advocates of these rights owned slaves. What they don't like to point out, is that slaves where denied free speech, denied the right to own weapons, and denied the right to keep what they earned or to own property, because such rights are incompatible with slavery.
The slave owning founding fathers where racist in that they wanted to deny blacks the same rights that they wanted to give to whites... But they at least they understood that if you don't have free speech, the right to own property, the right to arm yourself, that you are a helpless slave. They understood that gun control, censorship, and taxation and confiscation where tools that you used in order to control and exploit the people you wanted to enslave.
The fact that the American founding fathers where hippocrites and racists does not change the fact that they had a clear understanding of how restricting liberty is a tool of exploitation. The fact that so many so-called "progressives" or "advocates of social justice" want the government to implement policies that were designed 500 years ago so that slave masters could better exploit their slaves, means that those people are either ignorant to the facts of history, or secretly want to enslave people.
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They are in Redmond because it has the infastructure to support them. The telecommunications, roadways and educational system to supply those tens of thousands of employees. Nevada, by contrast, cannot supply these (sorry nevada, you're a great state, but your infastructure is horrid). For microsoft to do such a move would be to cut off its nose to spite its face.
There is a reason why the top performing companies are found in areas with the highest tax brackets. Those territories, which tax for the needed infastructure, are the ones which can support businesses of Microsofts size. You are confusing taxes in general with specific corporate income tax. There are many places (Sweden, for example), that tax the hell out of their citizens to fund infrastructure, but keep the corporate tax low in order to prevent corporations from moving elsewhere.
It is argueable that big corporations don't really pay taxes anyway, because the real cost of taxes are passed down to consumers/employees in the form of higher prices / lower wages (corporations are just an abstraction, after all). But assuming that corporations do in fact pay taxes, corporate taxes aren't the only form of taxation.
And Nevada, with its huge tax revenue from gambling, most definitly has the tax revenue to fund the infrastructure if it thought it could snag Microsoft.
A. they -must- purchase Artwork X
and
B. they -must not- pirate Artwork X Except that to practicly enforce B, the following is required:
1. That I give up my right to own machines capable of copying and storing content.
2. That the police, government, or record labels are able to monitor my data transfers in order to determine if what I am copying is copyright or not.
3. That the copyright holders have the ability for fish net style legal tactics, a tactic that is likely to hurt innocent people as easily as guilty people.
While I can sympathize with the desire to spot music piracy, the only tactics that are available are ones that greatly infringe on the rights of the vast majority of innocent people.
If a law, even a moral law, can only be enforced with immoral authoritarian means, then the law isn't viable. We are going to end up creating a technologically crippled police state, destroying our most precious rights nessicary to democracy, in order to make some copyright owners a little money. Sorry, that ain't good enough.
The U.S. doesn't have a privitized medical system. In fact the U.S. government spends more, per capita, than Canada, France, Germany, etc on medical care, not including research and things like the CDC.
The U.S. has a highly government regulated and subsidized hybrid of public and private care. It in no way, shape, or form is "private" or "free-market", by any stretch of the imagination.
In many ways, the people who run the USPS *DO* run our medical system - in that they are both chosen from the same pool of government beurocrats, and manage both systems using the same management principles and public policy philosophy.
The USPS is more effiecient that the postal services of other countries, only because those systems are also highly inefficient government monopolies. It is like being the winner of the Special Olympics, it doesn't mean you are good, only that you better than the other Special People.
A more fair comparison would be comparing the USPS to UPS or Fed Ex. In both cases, a price comparison is impossible, because it is *ILLEGAL* for UPS or Fed Ex to charge less than the USPS. Given that it was the USPS that lobbied for making it illegal for UPS or Fed Ex to charge less, it is highly unlikely that the USPS could compete with those companies on price. And they don't compete on service now.
The National Association of Letter Carriers are hardly a reputable source.
I got my information from the USPS Annual Report, where it breaks down all its revenue and costs:
http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt07/highlights.htm
3 billion dollars in capital contributions from the U.S. government in 2007. And for the past couple years, at least.
When I worked for a company that decided to add USPS shipping in addition to UPS, and we had loses of about 5% of the packages we sent via USPS (in contrast, we never had a lost package once with UPS). They engaged in outright fraud (such as promising "Garanteed Delivery by Christmas", and then all the packages arived weeks after Christmas)... when trying to contact management at the post office to address the problems, we were threatened and harrassed. If the USPS was a private buisness instead of a government monopoly, it would not only be out of buisness, the CEO and management would be in prison.
And this aweful service was despite the fact that it recieves billions in subsidies, and doesn't let other companies compete.
If the USPS is your model for a successful organization, and you want the medical and science field to be more like the USPS, God help the United States!
It is illegal for any shipping company to charge less than the USPS for shipping, so the USPS is garanteed to come out ahead. It is also illegal for private companies to deliver first class mail, so the USPS is garanteed to come out ahead there as well.
It is like winning the race by shooting the other runners in the leg.
Actually, the USPS recieved 3 billion dollars in government subsidies for 2007 according to the 2007 annual report, so what you are saying is totally false. Of course, having a government enforced monopoly is also a form of subsidy.
The USPS, despite recieving BILLIONS in taxpayer subsidies, can't compete with UPS or FedEx in any way, shape, or form.
No, there is no moral right to "intellectual property". Things like copyright and patents were designed to promote the useful arts and sciencies, the idea being that it promoted publishing and the exchange of information to give a party a temporary monopoly. There is no moral right to these things.
Do you pay royalties every time you sing happy birthday at a birthday party? Do you feel guilty for not paying the royalties, as you are required to do by law? Perhaps we should throw you in jail for your blatent criminal violations, after all violating copyright is like stealing, right?
If 5,000,000 people a year where dying in Europe, or North America, and your family was at risk, your opinions might change.
DDT *IS* used for mosquito control, because many countries have resisted the pressure by rich western nations to stop using DDT. However, DDT use dropped drasticly because it is no longer a significant part of international aid.
Look, the U.S. government is still going to piss away 20 billion dollars a year on dead end space programs, so don't get your socialist pants all wet and stinky.
Some very rich people who can't compete properly in a free market still want to make tons and tons of money, and they will alway be very good at convincing saps like you that they are providing a "public good". And the politicians realize that things like a "space race" are good at keeping the saps distracted from domestic economic problems, foreign wars, etc., and that they get kickbacks from the corporate boys for the effort. Space programs make for good nationalistic propoganda theater. So don't cry too hard, the space program isn't going anywhere!
Libertarians can dream about a day when the average person can afford a cheap space flight... and Socialists can dream of the day when the government sends some military guy on a propoganda mission, proving national superiority, at the cost of trillions. The future has room for cool people and assholes!
No, we want private rocketry companies that put people in orbit cheaply.
But it *IS* about GM technology. That is the point. Someone can use just about any technology to do harm. People can use the Internet to spread hate ideologies, does that make the Internet technology evil? People can make a bomb out of fertilizer, can carry out atrocious acts of violence, does that mean we should oppose fertilizer? Airplanes can be used to re-unite familes, promote friendship and cultural exchange - or they can be used to bomb people... but no sensible person opposes airplanes as a technology.
Likewise, genetic modification can be used for good purposes, or evil purposes, like any technology. Opposing the technology though, is irrational.
Second, people might not trust corporations anymore, but why should they trust governments either? The most evil corporations on the planet haven't hurt or killed as many people as even relatively moderate and benign democratic governments (even a tiny war, or a single misguided law such as postponing the approval a lifesaving medicine, causes more loss of life and suffering than all the evil things Coke and Monsanto have done). Even most of the evil things you blame on corporations, the corporations did because government enabled them to do so. The state as an institution is the most destructive, violent, xenophobic and oppressive force humans have ever unleashed - it is the single critical ingredient for all warfare and mass-oppression. Entrusting the state to prevent corporate abuse is like entrusting Hitler to prevent racism... it is a contradiction.
Corporations, while certainly very dangerous and deserving of our caution and skeptism, are a far less dangerous alternative to the state.
Sorry if I came off a bit nasty in the last post... I was just frustrated and offended that you were comparing widely used and well established technology to fictional comic book technology. I stand by what I said technology wise regarding mutation breeding, but I should have been much less hostile. In retrospect, after reading what I said, I understand it came off meaner than I ever inteded, and for that I sincerely apologize.
Well, normally I tell smarmy dorks to type "mutation breeding" into Google, but that might be too complicated for you:
http://www.amazon.ca/Mutation-Breeding-Theory-Practical-Applications/dp/0521036828/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200536610&sr=1-6
https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no38082.htm
http://www.fnca.mext.go.jp/english/mb/mbm/e_mbm.html
http://www.springerlink.com/content/jt5063wpq6673044/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w8651q494j1w6721/
http://crop.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/41/1/253
So now, when faced with incontrovertible proof that the use of radiation and mutagenic agents to produce viable food is widespread, will you change your position? Probably not, because once people have invested a certain amount of time and passion into hating and fearing something, they rarely change their minds for something as trivial as irrefutable evidence.
Unfortunatly, since mutation breeding is completly unregulated, I can't tell you specificly what crops are or aren't created with mutation breeding - There is no legal obligation for the breeder to report any such thing, as it is all grandfathered in as "safe", "organic", and "natural". But have no doubts when you pay extra for your "non-GM" food, that much of it has been artificially geneticly modified.
So your arguement is that, while there is zero evidence for this event ever taking place, and there are a whole serious of issues that make the event unlikely, the event is technically possible, and therefore must be true!
I prefer my food made of heavy metals.
Except this is patently false. Most of the crops we eat today (including certified "organic" crops) have been produced by mutation breeding. Meaning that the changes in the plant didn't happen over millions of years - They happened instantly, when the plant was subjected to intense amounts of man-made radiation, and/or highly toxic chemical mutagens.
GM technology isn't new, plants have been geneticly modified since the ancient Incas developed systems for antificially introducing mutations. And in the last few generations where it is easy to produce artificial radiation and create powerful toxic mutagenic chemicals, we have been in a golden age of genetic modification.
The only difference between the GM that you have a problem with, and the old school methods of genetic modification (like radiation and mutagens), is that modern GM involves deliberate modifications, vs. random modifications. If anything, the GM that you oppose is the safest kind of GM.
North America is a food exporter... North American food exports feed several billion people.
Or that robust crops planted in the first world wouldn't need so many enviornmentally harmful pesticides, wouldn't need too much eco-system disrupting irrigation, and a higher yield means that less land is needed for farming (conserving the un-used farmland).
Farmers already purchase most of their seed from big companies, so GM or not GM makes no difference.
And here is the real reason people are against GM foods: They see it as a product of capitalism, and everything tainted by capitalism is evil. While the old-school Soviet socialists where all about genetic experimentation, the new school sensitive blogging hippy generation of diseffected bourgeoise leftists have an almost religious ritual hatred of non-consumer technology.
You realize that all the problems with GM food also exist with mutation breeding, right?
So why are people freaked out when scientists modify a plant in a small and specific way in a lab... but not freaked out when people not even trained in science bombard plants with radiation and chemical mutagens in order to create widely mutated plants? Both have the danger of some "bad code" being introduced that we won't be able to predict the behavior... in fact, that is way more likely with mutation breeding.
So why is there no call to regulate mutation breeding? (it is totally unregulated) Why can mutation breeding plants be certified 100% organic? (they have been drasticly geneticly modified... it is just that they have been geneticly modified in completly unpredictable and untested ways)
Why do you feel genetic modification is more dangerous the more deliberate and carefully tested it is, but genetic modification is safe when done in a totaly random method without testing?
Why "apathetic"? Maybe consumers will realize that cloned meat is as safe as regular meat, and won't care. Most people aren't ludites, and have no problem with technology... so don't project negative things like "apathy" on people when they choose these products.
Bad arguement... We could eliminate 90% of domestic farming, and still maintain enough food production capability to feed everyone in case of war or national emergency.
If we are worried about food as a national security/safety issue, then set up a strategic food reserve.
I realize there are some folks who consider themselves enviornmentalists and support nuclear power... In the same way that there are Republicans who support gay marrage and raising taxes. But those people are outside the mainstream of their respective movement.
It is safe to assume that the vast majority of the people who are making the loudest fuss over global warming, are opposed to nuclear power... In the same way it is safe to assume the vast majority of the people who vote Republican probably are opposed raising taxes.
For example, from the Greenpeace site:
Greenpeace has always fought - and will continue to fight - vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants.
I think it is very safe to say, those calling themselves "enviornmentalists" are pretty much universally opposed to nuclear power.
I find that quote especially tiresome. Can't you intellectual giants think of any instances where this is just flat wrong? I can. The idea is that a state is either moving towards authoritarianism, despotism, and totalitarianism, etc., or they are moving away from it.
I am sure you can think of lots of "important" situations, where our "benevolent" government needs to restrict our liberty "for the good of everyone". The trouble is, once you decide there are exception to liberty, everyone has their pet issue that they think liberty should be sacrificed for. In the same way you may be paranoid about say firearms, or recreational drugs, or free markets, or whatever, some people are paranoid about terrorism. It is unreasonable to think that the government will choose to address only your fears, and choose to ignore the fears of others. You aren't special, and in a Democracy, you are just one of tens or hundreds of millions who want the government to address whatever it is that you are terrified of.
You are either the type of person who supports an expansion of the police state, or you are the type of person who supports rolling back the police state. But if you think the police state is going to restrict liberty only in ways you approve of, you are delusional. The Patriot Act is the price you pay for gun control. The War on Terrorism is the price you pay for the War on Drugs. When you give the government the power to monitor your bank accounts so it can tax you to pay for the social services you approve of, you also give government the power to monitor your bank account to make sure you aren't a "supporting terrorists".
You are either more afraid of terrorists, criminals, buisnesses, etc. than the government... in which case you support the police state, and you accept the good with the bad. Or, you are more afraid of the government than terrorists, criminals, buisnesses, etc., and you are willing to accept that there might be slightly greater amount of risk that goes along with liberty. You make your choice, but don't decieve yourself that you can have your cake and eat it too. I find great amusement in the fact that you're quoting a slavemaster in regards to the importance of liberty. The people who are against free speech, or the right to own weapons, or the right to keep what you earn or to own property, always like to point out that the early American advocates of these rights owned slaves. What they don't like to point out, is that slaves where denied free speech, denied the right to own weapons, and denied the right to keep what they earned or to own property, because such rights are incompatible with slavery.
The slave owning founding fathers where racist in that they wanted to deny blacks the same rights that they wanted to give to whites... But they at least they understood that if you don't have free speech, the right to own property, the right to arm yourself, that you are a helpless slave. They understood that gun control, censorship, and taxation and confiscation where tools that you used in order to control and exploit the people you wanted to enslave.
The fact that the American founding fathers where hippocrites and racists does not change the fact that they had a clear understanding of how restricting liberty is a tool of exploitation. The fact that so many so-called "progressives" or "advocates of social justice" want the government to implement policies that were designed 500 years ago so that slave masters could better exploit their slaves, means that those people are either ignorant to the facts of history, or secretly want to enslave people.