Power has nothing to do with this. All humans must eat food.
First, no one forces you to buy food from unknown places. Second, nothing stops you from testing your food. Third, if you want to test your food and buy locally, you can. Businessmen and people who profit don't care about you, it's not a surprise is it? You care about yourself right? Protect your food security and don't expect people in the food industry or federal government to do it.
Instead of expecting the food industry to do it. Simply create the food security industry and do it yourself. Sell the magazine, I'll buy it, and I think most people here would buy it. Slashdot could test the food privately and release the results to the subscribers of this site. People want to know, and there is plenty of money in that. Let's thank the FDA, the Avian Flu, and MadCow disease for creating the new food security industry.
Stop consuming long enough to test before you eat. If you are a consumer with a big brain, then figure out ways to organize and test what you consume. Why should you rely on the FDA? Why should you rely on big government?
If you want to protect your food and water, protect your food and water. Nothing short of actually doing it will make it so. Asking for protection means you don't really want it. Demand protection from your congressmen or and senators in your state. This is a local issue, a state issue, and your state senate, and city mayor, along with those CEO friends of yours and church leaders, all can join in and decide to protect the food and water. You do not have to buy your food from Walmart and McDonalds. You do not have to let these corporations get away with selling bad food if you test the food and water yourself. If you suspect it has bird flu, test it and find out, take it to the lab and see. Go to the resturant or the super market, buy the food and test it under the microscope. If you want to get paid to do it, ask your mayor or governor for a grant, and if they say no then ask your church or CEO friend to invest. The money is there for this, as this is the one issue everyone agrees on.
Mad Cow, Avian Flu, what next? The pork pox? Then you have the pesticides. Look, do something or keep eating your burgers. If you want to know about pesticides, here is a site
Let me explain, every word on the labels could be faked, because you have no way to know or trust the labeling unless you know who tested the food. You need to let the private sector handle it, set up a corporation that goes into super markets and tests food. Start the food testing corporation, and run lab tests on food for a profit. Sell the results through a magazine format.
The point is, there are many many business oppurtunities in the food security industry. You can make more money securing the food than you can selling it.
The food industry is not responsible for testing your food, or for your food security. It's your responsibility to test your food and handle your food security, LOCALLY. If you want to secure your food, YOU start the food security corporation. You get the venture capital, and YOU start the busienss that tests food. YOU elect senators and congressmen who will give you a statewide food/water/environmental security agency. You start the food and water security industry.
Stop blaming other corporations, and do it yourself. It's your food, it's your security, and the state government exists to protect stuff like food and water, so if it isn't, it's your fault for not establishing the organization to do it.
Organize and secure your food and water, or continue to eat dirty food. Labels aren't good enough, this is a security issue.
This is the type of move, that I suppose, helps libertarians who don't want big government anyway. If you look at the issue from a point of view of "big government = bad". The FDA is flexing it's muscle.
Here is the question, do we want real food security or not? Do you want real water security or not?
If you want food and water security, this is a non-partisan issue. You need to work locally, and statewide to create your own food and water regulation agency. Different people from different states eat different foods. You cannot nationally food security, it's impossible, and it's always a local issue, all the way down to consumers reading labels, and then to local networks providing the safety information.
To all of you so called scientists who want to claim this food and genetically modified foods are safe. Prove it is safe, lets test it publically, through the state agencies, and post the test results all over the internet. Let's lab test everything randomly by going to a supermarket and testing stuff in a lab to see exactly how safe it is. We already know Coke is deadly, people in India proved that, and through tests like putting coins and watching it, we can see how deadly it is. So ok Slashdotters, if you care about your health, start a private yet open source style food testing lab. Let us subscribe to it, and then send us the results of your tests in a magazine. You can profit, and we will get the knowledge we need as consumers. This will work until the state governments or the voters decide to tell their congress people to actually create a localized version of the same thing.
What do you all think? Anyone going to do it or are you all just the type of people to talk and complain? It's your food and water, you can clean it yourself or you can continue eating dirty.
This is why big government is bad. Soon you won't even be able to choose your food. Look, you need to have food secrity, and we all look like freakin idiots when we discuss national security for big corporations, all the while we don't have any clean food and water. The main thing we need to focus on are
1. Food security
2. Water security
3. Environmental security
You need clean food. You need clean water. You need clean air. You need to get your food locally, it supports your local economy, and you know who grew it. You need to have the state, and private corporations testing the food and water, and you should not rely on the federal government. Start a business if you are a business man, and test all the food and water for a price, and let people pay to buy clean food through your corporation. Start a non profit, and let people donate time and money to setting up labors. Start a state wide FDA like government program, and let the state level FDA handle the food security and water security of the state. You can call it the (state) environmental protection agency. You can have food and water security as top issues for congressmen who are trying to get elected.
You know, we should be talking about this, we all agree, Democrat or Republcian that we need clean food and clean water. This is not a political issue or a partisan issue. This issue is the type of issue that can only be solved on the local level, as it is not a national issue. So what do you want to do? Discuss solutions but stop complaining.
Look, it's the publics fault for not electing state and local governments to handle their own food security. The public may not be able to stop Walmart or another company from coming into their backyard and selling them food, but food and water security are the only issues we universally care about.
Gay marriage? Thats a special interest group. Affirmative action? That's an issue from the 60s-70s-80s. Womens rights/abortion? That's an issue for women to deal with since it's their body.
The one issue we all agree on is security, and we have NO food and water security. What idiots we are for having security in the form of military, and having guns all over, but none of us have state or local representitives willing to set up a state level food and water regulation program?
I don't think you can federalize food and water because it's good and water. I don't think it's the federal governments job to control the food we put into our stomaches, and I think the majority of people on Slashdot, if not the majority on planet earth, will agree that government is far too big. Go for food security first. You don't want viruses and bird flu in your food? Call your state senator, call the Republican congressman or the Governor, and tell them you demand localized food and water security. Ask for a local FDA like program, and if they won't start one, then start a non profit to secure the food.
The only thing I can say is, this is an issue of food security. What food security do we have? Little to none. The reason? Because food and water security should be a local issue.
It is horribly inefficient to ship food when you can buy it locally. It is also inefficient to have a national FDA when you can have each individual state handle it's own food and water security. So I don't know what the purpose of the FDA is at this point other than being another big government program. Why must we nationalize everything? Big federal government isnt always better.
Food and water security are perhaps the only two issues that every human on the global universally agrees on. Let's face it, government is too big. Food and water regulation should be handled on the local level. The FDA is just one of those massive government programs from the old era.
It's only a matter of time before the Supreme court reverses the decision. If the Supreme court supports the decision then the program will continue in secret. No news here, move along.
Every self is a part of something else. A self is a member of a family, which is a citizen of a state or country, which is also a member of a species, a church, a club or fraturnity, or anything else a person connects to. So a person is more than just a self, and no self is truly independent, we are inter-dependent on other selves, our habitat, other life and other entities. Of course a selfish individual may act like the universe revolves around them.
Not even close! They say "war is a failure of politics" but in reality war is a tool of politics that has shaped both the evolution of our species and it's countless "failed" civilzations. The problem now is that there are no civilizations that are isolated from each other and a group of five powerfull and competing nations are ruling the roost. If it hasn't already happened, there will soon be "nowhere to hide".
You are correct, we live in a global society now. We have a sorta global government. We have a global economy, and we have global security. We have superpowers, but the superpowers fund and take certain functions in a global system. It's not like it was where, for example, America would be in competition with the world, now America influences China, India, and all other countries it does business with, and the military is more like the stick. The EU, for whatever reason, as far as I know, does not have the sort of military might, or political capital that America has. What the EU does have right now is public opinion, and image.
What I worry about is, America does not seem to be putting America first. Yes we need oil, yes the economy is most important, and I admit the economy is boosted because of the war, but the problem is, we are gainining financial capital and losing social capital. Financial capital from short term boosts, arent as valueable as social and political capital which can allow for long term alliances. If the American economy slows down or if China and Europe speed up, what are we supposed to do?
Are you saying that this is all about entitlement? "Now if people get upset about trees, what will be the reaction to dwindling oil (and therefore fertilizer!!!) supplies, do you think the "five veto's" will share nicely with each other when they can't even fertilize their own crops? I realise one must live in hope or life becomes literally "hopeless", but ignoring politics will not make political problems go away."
I never said people do not have a right to make money, but seriously, we can always invent new ways to make money without destroying the earth. What you are saying is that people who are in established industries feel they are entitled to their job security and money even at the expense of cutting down the last tree or contributing to an energy crisis? Self interest is something we all have but how is this rational?
I'm not sure politics work the way we think. There are global politics and globalized corporations. Globalized families and power is globalized. This means that while two countries may not disagree, it's ultimately just groups of families and factions. These families and factions are global in scope, so if you are right and France disagrees, it means a lot more than politics, this would be EXTREMELY bad news for global order.
We break it down into countries, but ultimately, something is happening. I can see the forces building up, and no one really knows what for. France does not want to be involved and I'm not surprised, and I don't have a clue where Italy stands. When you start with the global politics, you are speaking of countries, but in general, while those other countries have very powerful econmies, America is the global police force and world military power. This happened because other countries willingly underfunded their own military forces to fund the American military. The result is, when America says go, the world listens.
There is a chance that Democrats could take the house. I think everyone see's that. I don't think Democrats can take the Senate. If Republican don't get elected it won't have anything to do with the war. If Republicans arent elected it will be because it's the Democrats turn to be elected. The war will continue no matter who is elected because the war is already in motion now. The Democrats would fight the war just as Republicans would, with a few differences, perhaps we'd look better to the international community, and perhaps we'd follow the geneva convention, but believe me, the situations we are in now cannot be stopped. It's set in motion in the sorta way that it you can't just drop what you are doing in the middle of battle. We have to finish whatever it is we started in the middle east, if you look at the state the middle east is in now, we don't really have much of a choice now, we have to stablize it. The only difference is, Democrats would most likely have UN support.
I don't think it matters if you vote for a Democrat or a Republican. There are conservative Democrats and conservative Republicans. The agenda is conservative because the Democrats and Republicans follow the same agenda, a conservative agenda. Do you really believe that there is some conservative global conspiracy? Groups of individuals from all parties all around the world are in agreement. Thats politics.
The majority of Democrats agree with the agenda and not the methods. Hilary Clinton is for the war, and so is John Kerry, they disagree on the methods. Most citizens are for the war, for Isreal, and for America, and we simply disagree on the cultural issues and methods.
I believe you when you say we are at war with fundamentalist muslims. You look at Isreal and what is going on in the middle east, and you can see that.
The question is, if we are at war, why don't we name these people, put them on the FBI's most wanted list, and enlist every citizen in this country to get to work to capture or kill the "terrorists"? I mean when we cannot even define who the terrorists are how exactly can we win, or even know how to fight the war on terror in a way which isnt self defeating?
Fighting, without precision, is like whack a mole, and it can go on for decades. What is the point when we can capture all the terrorists? If terrorist is defined as militant islam, then the war is against militant islam, but if we have a war on terror, the phrase alone generates confusion. I'm not saying Democrats would do better or worse, but can we at least define the enemy and who we are fighting against?
By the way, moderates don't get elected usually because moderates don't crave power and arent as driven or aggressive usually. It's the extreme left and extreme right, or in general the extremes that usually seek office. Most everyone in this country agrees that we are at war with militant islam, and no one has ever disputed this, not the moderates, not the extreme left, or the extreme right. The dispute is in the way we are fighting it. If we destroy the house trying to stop the person from breaking into our house, in the end it does not feel like we are winning or won. Are we winning the war on terror? How exactly is a terrorist defined? If it a war against militant terrorists because theres plenty of terrorists who hate America and most arent muslim. Are we at war with only the muslim terrorists? Are we at war with the ideology of terrorism? Unless we can actually figure out what we are at war with and actually enlist the masses into fighting it, the result is people are at war with a queston mark. The results of the war are also a question mark. We don't even know if we are progressing. Do we feel safer?? We can't really rely on feelings, where are the facts?
We need strength, but we need the sorta strength that unites the country, and we need the sorta communication that everyone can understand. As things are right now, about 60-70 percent of the country don't know whats going on. That is a huge huge percentage. The people who do know whats going on, will go along with it because theres not many other options once the country is involved in it. But what exactly is the goal?
If it were true that people only want to be around others who "look" like themselves and not people who "are" like themselves. This would mean the internet should be segregated right? Where is Slashdot black? Slashdot asian? I don't see a segregated internet at all.
Second, you go to the workplace, and you see all races in the same office working together, so what stops then from playing together? If it isn't racism, people should be able to play with the people they work with. And no I do not think people go out of their way to be among those who look like them, that is actually a portion of blacks, whites, and asians who choose to segregate themselves most likely out of racism. I'm not going to say that only whites are racist, people are racist and all races have racists. At the same time all races have people who arent racist, and often it depends on what you are taught.
It does not help when the parents of most blacks and asians were taught in the past that certain parts of town were for whites only. Sure some kids today don't think in a segregated way, but lets be serious, just because segregation ended in the 80s, doesnt mean that it's going to magically erase from everyones minds.
Racism still exists, I think everyone knows it, it's impossible to try to claim it does not exist after watching hurricane Katrina. I mean even the most naive of naive person, after seeing that, they know racism exists. I do not think people go around deliberately trying to only make friends from one race unless they have racist thinking in the first place and view people who look different as a different species, or as alien. Do some blacks view some whites as alien? Yes. Do some whites view blacks as alien? Yes. Do some asians view blacks and whites as alien? Yes. This has nothing to do with race, race is just a word to provide the excuse for exclusionary behavior. Within races there are gangs, you cannot wear the color red or blue in some places, so does this mean gang members view people outside of their tribal gang as alien and of a different "race"? Yes.
This is tribalism at core, and racism on the surface. Assume for a moment that white were the only race on earth, assume all other races vanished, and there are just white. Lets see you'd have the different hair colors to seperate with, so the blondes would view themelves as the true whites, in specific the blonde talls. So once again you'd have races, and it would start all over again. Racism is just a word, it's really a worldview, and at the core, it's just an emotion, a feeling, people are making decisions based on a feeling they get when they glance at someone. The feeling is "Ew, I don't like how this person looks, keep it away from me!".
What makes you think people judge similar to themselves based on skin color? Just because someone tells you how to think does not mean you must believe in it. If I said you had to pick your friends based on hair color, and that blondes were the most valueable, would you willingly give up all your friends and only talk to blondes? Sure some people would do this, but I think the average human just wants to have friends and they dont really care what the friend looks like. People are friends with dogs and cats, and you are telling me that people don't want to sit next to another human because that human has different hair or skin?
If race is real, why does race only apply to skin color? It's only a matter of time before skinny and fat become races. It's only a matter of time before the talls stop talking to the shorts, and the smart stop talking to the dumb. It's only a matter of time before race is redefined, and thats my point, something like race has no definition, it's a religious term that can be reinterpreted and redefined forever. Disabled people arent of the same race right? So people with autism are a different race? Are depressed people of a different race? What about people who can't read? Are they going to become the new blacks? What about people who don't like calculus, are they going to be the new blacks?
Do you see, black as a race only exists to act as an opposite to white, and it has to be this way simply so white can exist as a race. If black does not exist, race will still exist, it just wont be based on skin color anymore. So when we have designer babies and genetically modfied people, the class will decide the race most likely. Make your money now or be black in the future, and thats if we arent replaced by robots or wiped out by science.
Race did not exist until people invented it. Most people get killed by people of the same race, thats how well people get along with their race. People get along better with people of other races than with their own.
Just because someone looks like you does not mean you will relate to them. A rapist or serial killer might look like your clone, but does this mean you'll be best friends with their person? A person of a different race on the other hand might have the same interests as you, and the same values, does this mean you will not be able to relate to them just becaue they don't look like a physical clone?
What you don't seem to understand is the world is very intergrated, it's just not intergrated in the way you think. Racism does still exist, and intergration would be a lot easier if people werent taught that "race" were real, but hey people are taught Jesus Christ was white, and God is male. Race is religion at this point, you can believe in it if you want to, but if you take a genetics class in college, you'll see that you'll have people who look the exact same as you but who are genetically your opposite. In fact I'm sure you've more people who look look exactly like you who you can't stand, than people who look different from you who you can't stand. The fact is, science has dispoved race, and not only disproved race but also proven through stem cell research that race is now a selectable option. So humanity should just pick a race and then design all babies to look like clones, or accept racial diversity, but racism serves no real purpose.
The overpopulation point is a good point however, the main problem of over-population has little to do with poor or rich and everything to do with the fact that if there is no future, more people being born doesnt change anything.
So while we have plenty of food, we don't really have a plan. By the way, I don't have a pet.
Also, I cannot pull free money out of my pocket to just travel to whatever paradise you are asking me to travel to. I'm a college student, I'm supposed to be worried about the future. How exactly can you end up in college in the first place if you don't care about your future?
I highly doubt Adam Smith invented capitalism as a suicide weapon. I highly doubt that Einstien invented atomic energy to help us wipe ourselves out faster. I highly doubt any of the great minds and thinkers invented what they invented to speed up our demise.
The equation is simple, it's not even about religion. You just have to be selfish and rational enough to protect the machine itself that you depend on. Let's start with capitalism, so we are a capitalist society, but capitalism was not designed to be about quick money, it was designed to control the human species, in the way that you train your pet by giving it a prize or a toy. Humans required tools like capitalism, religion, and even drugs, to prevent us from wiping ourselves out a long time ago. Religion, money, drugs and other things like this, gave people something to fight over. The problem now is we are on the verge of running out of "things" to fight over on the group level.
There have always been people who were rational enough to know that yes, we have absolute freedom, but at the same time, by being enlightened enough to know that freedom there are responsibilities along with it. People have forgotten the basic responsibility and logic behind civilization. Do we exist to worship and serve money, or does money exist to make our lives better? A rational person would know, that while money can buy material things, true wealth is social wealth. The wealth you gain by having friends, a family, and a community. Today, community doesnt exist anymore, and while there are tribes today, most people are born into these "groups" and don't really know the people they are grouped up with. You might be born into a racial group and be surrounded by people you have nothing in common with and who you don't like, but who happen to look like you. You might be born into a religious group, and be surrounded by people who all worship the same God as you, but who don't recognize free will. You might be in a situation where you are just born at a certain time period and get labeled generation X, Y, Z or whatever, and you might have nothing in common with that group besides the fact you were born at the same time. Let's not forget astrological signs, yeah you'll meet people who have your sign, born no the same day, look the same, go to the same church, and who you can't stand. What has changed is that people don't know each other anymore, they just know groups. Sure it's always been a clique based world, and it's always been tribal, and but it seems that we lack a group conciousness, a human conciousness. We are self aware as individuals, even as countries, races, or religions, but we have absolutely no self awareness on the species level. We don't really protect our own habitat, or our collective future, or our food, our water, our biodiversity, or anything else that might actually matter 100-200 years into the future.
There are millions who are truly conscious, who can feel the world as well as rationally calculate it, but this is so rare that it does not make much of a difference when billions just want to work and consume with no real concept of what they are working to build, destroy, etc. A lot of people have children, the first question to ask is what world will your children inherit? If you don't have children, what world will humanities children inherit? If you don't know, or don't care, there is a good chance humanity will go extinct simply because no one cares about the children. It's really as simple as that. If we don't care about our kids, we don't care about the future, and if we don't care about the future, well, thats not really rational. In chess, in programming or a lot of things, sometimes the quick easy solution, leads to more problems. Often people just say, well if we play chess like we play checkers, we can take more pieces quick. Often they will think we if we just take the queen at the start of the game we will win. Often people think that if they make decisions quicker, that it's better than thinking it all through, but in reality,
I'm not saying people were more rational in the past, it's just in the past rational thinking was encouraged. I'm not sure I can say rational thinking is encouraged today. Rational thought is something people either are taught, or learn the hard way. Today, a youth cannot afford to make the kinda mistakes that our parents might have made. A degree is required now just to survive.
In the past I'm not saying we were more rational, but I can say in the past our culture was more rational at least. We always had a world with a select few enlightened rational thinkers, and then you had everyone else. The difference now is, somehow, we ignore rational thinking in favor of what feels good. Some of the situations the world is in don't make any rational sense whatsoever, and only make sense if you feel it.
In the past, slavery was rational, cruel, but very rational. Today we are doing things that don't benefit us in any percieveable way. I do not see how pollution helps anyone, I do not see how certain situations benefit anyone, and if they do benefit anyone it will be the temporary type benefits that only increase the value of the moment at the expensive of the value of the future. I'm just wondering, is this what is in humankind, or the earths best interest? No one seems to even ask that anymore, people don't seem to think long term. I'm not saying people 100 years ago all thought long term either, but these days even the smartest people seem to be worrying about what happened on American idol.
You argue how terrible it is that the rich don't help the poor, but then you say it's not the US's responsibility to help poor countries. There is moral responsibility, and the US does respond to such responsibility in the form of food, medical, and economic aid to the tune of several billion dollars per year.
I do believe in helping the poor, through the church, not through the government. I do not believe the government is designed for helping people or to help the poor. I think the church is designed for this. There are faith based initiatives, and even in places such as Africa, our current President has set aside billions for those who are willing to convert to Christianity.
He's a candidate not because he is black, but because he is actually from Congo. I don't see how you relate him to blacks from the inner city that we don't listen to, Kashala was foreign born, well educated, and financially well off (hes thrown over 100k of his own money towards hid bid). I actually do research, maybe you should realize the difference between race and national background.
If you know anything about how national building works, or have watched how we handle oprations in Iraq, it's always a good idea to have American citizens in other countries. Yes this man was technically born in the Congo, but he is certainly an American, his friends are all American, and he was educated in America. I do think national backround matters for a role such as President, but just being born in the Congo is a very low standard. The point is, not everyone who will be building the Congo has to be "from" the Congo just like not everyone in Iraq has to be a true "Iraqi", all that matters is that they look, speak and act like they are from the Congo or Iraqi. Once again, I say for intelligence and business related purposes you need Americans, meaning black people born in America, in the Congo. I'm not talking about average Americans from the inner city, I'm talking about the educated kind, in fact you know exactly what I'm talking about, I don't know why you act so naive. How do you expect us to know whats going on in the Congo if we don't have anyone reporting to us whats going on? How do you expect the Congo to form any business relations if black Americans arent involved? There is almost no chance of the Congo doing business with Europe, and even if they did it would not be the same. I'm talking about globalizing Africa, and that means you need real American citizens in Africa, this should be obvious if your goal is to stablize the Congo.
Books, movies, music, are almost always backed by a company or rich individual; distribution is not free. The quiet desperate pleas of poor are heard only through the megaphone of mass media.
Music is distributed by many black owned record labels. Spike Lee makes plenty of movies, he's rich sure, but I never said all rich people don't care. I don't consider the mass media to be so inter-connected, I think there are independent films and the independent media, and I think there is the mass media. The mass media will not make a depressing film because it's not profitable, but the independent media will make anything. It does not really take a lot of money ot make a film in Africa, the labor is much much cheaper.
Revolutions occur all the time. Sometimes dramaticly, sometimes more subtly. The people of China are becoming more wealthy, more educated, and in time they will begin to demand more rights. As I said before, those who fight for rights aren't the ones with nothing, they are the ones who have something to lose (the upper and middle classes). Fidel Castro will eventually die in Cuba, the Saudi Royal family is seeing dissention for its relationship with the US. In democratic countries, every election is a micro-revolution. Have you noticed how the US has changed (for the worse IMO) with increased executive power and religious agendas being moved forward.
The US is exactly how our leaders want it to be. If you want to call it a revolution
Slashdot Mirror
If you want to protect your food, protect it.
Power has nothing to do with this. All humans must eat food.
First, no one forces you to buy food from unknown places. Second, nothing stops you from testing your food. Third, if you want to test your food and buy locally, you can. Businessmen and people who profit don't care about you, it's not a surprise is it? You care about yourself right? Protect your food security and don't expect people in the food industry or federal government to do it.
Instead of expecting the food industry to do it. Simply create the food security industry and do it yourself. Sell the magazine, I'll buy it, and I think most people here would buy it. Slashdot could test the food privately and release the results to the subscribers of this site. People want to know, and there is plenty of money in that. Let's thank the FDA, the Avian Flu, and MadCow disease for creating the new food security industry.
Stop consuming long enough to test before you eat. If you are a consumer with a big brain, then figure out ways to organize and test what you consume. Why should you rely on the FDA? Why should you rely on big government?
If you want to protect your food and water, protect your food and water. Nothing short of actually doing it will make it so. Asking for protection means you don't really want it. Demand protection from your congressmen or and senators in your state. This is a local issue, a state issue, and your state senate, and city mayor, along with those CEO friends of yours and church leaders, all can join in and decide to protect the food and water. You do not have to buy your food from Walmart and McDonalds. You do not have to let these corporations get away with selling bad food if you test the food and water yourself. If you suspect it has bird flu, test it and find out, take it to the lab and see. Go to the resturant or the super market, buy the food and test it under the microscope. If you want to get paid to do it, ask your mayor or governor for a grant, and if they say no then ask your church or CEO friend to invest. The money is there for this, as this is the one issue everyone agrees on.
Mad Cow, Avian Flu, what next? The pork pox? Then you have the pesticides. Look, do something or keep eating your burgers. If you want to know about pesticides, here is a site
http://www.panna.org/
Pesticide Network of North America
You really have no excuse here.
Let me explain, every word on the labels could be faked, because you have no way to know or trust the labeling unless you know who tested the food. You need to let the private sector handle it, set up a corporation that goes into super markets and tests food. Start the food testing corporation, and run lab tests on food for a profit. Sell the results through a magazine format.
The point is, there are many many business oppurtunities in the food security industry. You can make more money securing the food than you can selling it.
The food industry is not responsible for testing your food, or for your food security. It's your responsibility to test your food and handle your food security, LOCALLY. If you want to secure your food, YOU start the food security corporation. You get the venture capital, and YOU start the busienss that tests food. YOU elect senators and congressmen who will give you a statewide food/water/environmental security agency. You start the food and water security industry.
Stop blaming other corporations, and do it yourself. It's your food, it's your security, and the state government exists to protect stuff like food and water, so if it isn't, it's your fault for not establishing the organization to do it.
Organize and secure your food and water, or continue to eat dirty food. Labels aren't good enough, this is a security issue.
This is the type of move, that I suppose, helps libertarians who don't want big government anyway. If you look at the issue from a point of view of "big government = bad". The FDA is flexing it's muscle.
Here is the question, do we want real food security or not? Do you want real water security or not?
If you want food and water security, this is a non-partisan issue. You need to work locally, and statewide to create your own food and water regulation agency. Different people from different states eat different foods. You cannot nationally food security, it's impossible, and it's always a local issue, all the way down to consumers reading labels, and then to local networks providing the safety information.
To all of you so called scientists who want to claim this food and genetically modified foods are safe. Prove it is safe, lets test it publically, through the state agencies, and post the test results all over the internet. Let's lab test everything randomly by going to a supermarket and testing stuff in a lab to see exactly how safe it is. We already know Coke is deadly, people in India proved that, and through tests like putting coins and watching it, we can see how deadly it is. So ok Slashdotters, if you care about your health, start a private yet open source style food testing lab. Let us subscribe to it, and then send us the results of your tests in a magazine. You can profit, and we will get the knowledge we need as consumers. This will work until the state governments or the voters decide to tell their congress people to actually create a localized version of the same thing.
What do you all think? Anyone going to do it or are you all just the type of people to talk and complain? It's your food and water, you can clean it yourself or you can continue eating dirty.
This is why big government is bad. Soon you won't even be able to choose your food. Look, you need to have food secrity, and we all look like freakin idiots when we discuss national security for big corporations, all the while we don't have any clean food and water. The main thing we need to focus on are
1. Food security
2. Water security
3. Environmental security
You need clean food. You need clean water. You need clean air. You need to get your food locally, it supports your local economy, and you know who grew it. You need to have the state, and private corporations testing the food and water, and you should not rely on the federal government. Start a business if you are a business man, and test all the food and water for a price, and let people pay to buy clean food through your corporation. Start a non profit, and let people donate time and money to setting up labors. Start a state wide FDA like government program, and let the state level FDA handle the food security and water security of the state. You can call it the (state) environmental protection agency. You can have food and water security as top issues for congressmen who are trying to get elected.
You know, we should be talking about this, we all agree, Democrat or Republcian that we need clean food and clean water. This is not a political issue or a partisan issue. This issue is the type of issue that can only be solved on the local level, as it is not a national issue. So what do you want to do? Discuss solutions but stop complaining.
Look, it's the publics fault for not electing state and local governments to handle their own food security. The public may not be able to stop Walmart or another company from coming into their backyard and selling them food, but food and water security are the only issues we universally care about.
Gay marriage? Thats a special interest group. Affirmative action? That's an issue from the 60s-70s-80s. Womens rights/abortion? That's an issue for women to deal with since it's their body.
The one issue we all agree on is security, and we have NO food and water security. What idiots we are for having security in the form of military, and having guns all over, but none of us have state or local representitives willing to set up a state level food and water regulation program?
I don't think you can federalize food and water because it's good and water. I don't think it's the federal governments job to control the food we put into our stomaches, and I think the majority of people on Slashdot, if not the majority on planet earth, will agree that government is far too big. Go for food security first. You don't want viruses and bird flu in your food? Call your state senator, call the Republican congressman or the Governor, and tell them you demand localized food and water security. Ask for a local FDA like program, and if they won't start one, then start a non profit to secure the food.
The only thing I can say is, this is an issue of food security. What food security do we have? Little to none. The reason? Because food and water security should be a local issue.
It is horribly inefficient to ship food when you can buy it locally. It is also inefficient to have a national FDA when you can have each individual state handle it's own food and water security. So I don't know what the purpose of the FDA is at this point other than being another big government program. Why must we nationalize everything? Big federal government isnt always better.
Food and water security are perhaps the only two issues that every human on the global universally agrees on. Let's face it, government is too big. Food and water regulation should be handled on the local level. The FDA is just one of those massive government programs from the old era.
Focus on food security.
It's only a matter of time before the Supreme court reverses the decision. If the Supreme court supports the decision then the program will continue in secret. No news here, move along.
Every self is a part of something else. A self is a member of a family, which is a citizen of a state or country, which is also a member of a species, a church, a club or fraturnity, or anything else a person connects to. So a person is more than just a self, and no self is truly independent, we are inter-dependent on other selves, our habitat, other life and other entities. Of course a selfish individual may act like the universe revolves around them.
Not even close! They say "war is a failure of politics" but in reality war is a tool of politics that has shaped both the evolution of our species and it's countless "failed" civilzations. The problem now is that there are no civilizations that are isolated from each other and a group of five powerfull and competing nations are ruling the roost. If it hasn't already happened, there will soon be "nowhere to hide".
You are correct, we live in a global society now. We have a sorta global government. We have a global economy, and we have global security. We have superpowers, but the superpowers fund and take certain functions in a global system. It's not like it was where, for example, America would be in competition with the world, now America influences China, India, and all other countries it does business with, and the military is more like the stick. The EU, for whatever reason, as far as I know, does not have the sort of military might, or political capital that America has. What the EU does have right now is public opinion, and image.
What I worry about is, America does not seem to be putting America first. Yes we need oil, yes the economy is most important, and I admit the economy is boosted because of the war, but the problem is, we are gainining financial capital and losing social capital. Financial capital from short term boosts, arent as valueable as social and political capital which can allow for long term alliances. If the American economy slows down or if China and Europe speed up, what are we supposed to do?
Are you saying that this is all about entitlement?
"Now if people get upset about trees, what will be the reaction to dwindling oil (and therefore fertilizer!!!) supplies, do you think the "five veto's" will share nicely with each other when they can't even fertilize their own crops? I realise one must live in hope or life becomes literally "hopeless", but ignoring politics will not make political problems go away."
I never said people do not have a right to make money, but seriously, we can always invent new ways to make money without destroying the earth. What you are saying is that people who are in established industries feel they are entitled to their job security and money even at the expense of cutting down the last tree or contributing to an energy crisis? Self interest is something we all have but how is this rational?
I'm not sure politics work the way we think. There are global politics and globalized corporations. Globalized families and power is globalized. This means that while two countries may not disagree, it's ultimately just groups of families and factions. These families and factions are global in scope, so if you are right and France disagrees, it means a lot more than politics, this would be EXTREMELY bad news for global order.
We break it down into countries, but ultimately, something is happening. I can see the forces building up, and no one really knows what for. France does not want to be involved and I'm not surprised, and I don't have a clue where Italy stands. When you start with the global politics, you are speaking of countries, but in general, while those other countries have very powerful econmies, America is the global police force and world military power. This happened because other countries willingly underfunded their own military forces to fund the American military. The result is, when America says go, the world listens.
There is a chance that Democrats could take the house. I think everyone see's that. I don't think Democrats can take the Senate.
If Republican don't get elected it won't have anything to do with the war. If Republicans arent elected it will be because it's the Democrats turn to be elected. The war will continue no matter who is elected because the war is already in motion now. The Democrats would fight the war just as Republicans would, with a few differences, perhaps we'd look better to the international community, and perhaps we'd follow the geneva convention, but believe me, the situations we are in now cannot be stopped. It's set in motion in the sorta way that it you can't just drop what you are doing in the middle of battle. We have to finish whatever it is we started in the middle east, if you look at the state the middle east is in now, we don't really have much of a choice now, we have to stablize it. The only difference is, Democrats would most likely have UN support.
I don't think it matters if you vote for a Democrat or a Republican. There are conservative Democrats and conservative Republicans. The agenda is conservative because the Democrats and Republicans follow the same agenda, a conservative agenda. Do you really believe that there is some conservative global conspiracy? Groups of individuals from all parties all around the world are in agreement. Thats politics.
The majority of Democrats agree with the agenda and not the methods. Hilary Clinton is for the war, and so is John Kerry, they disagree on the methods. Most citizens are for the war, for Isreal, and for America, and we simply disagree on the cultural issues and methods.
I believe you when you say we are at war with fundamentalist muslims. You look at Isreal and what is going on in the middle east, and you can see that.
The question is, if we are at war, why don't we name these people, put them on the FBI's most wanted list, and enlist every citizen in this country to get to work to capture or kill the "terrorists"? I mean when we cannot even define who the terrorists are how exactly can we win, or even know how to fight the war on terror in a way which isnt self defeating?
Fighting, without precision, is like whack a mole, and it can go on for decades. What is the point when we can capture all the terrorists? If terrorist is defined as militant islam, then the war is against militant islam, but if we have a war on terror, the phrase alone generates confusion. I'm not saying Democrats would do better or worse, but can we at least define the enemy and who we are fighting against?
By the way, moderates don't get elected usually because moderates don't crave power and arent as driven or aggressive usually. It's the extreme left and extreme right, or in general the extremes that usually seek office. Most everyone in this country agrees that we are at war with militant islam, and no one has ever disputed this, not the moderates, not the extreme left, or the extreme right. The dispute is in the way we are fighting it. If we destroy the house trying to stop the person from breaking into our house, in the end it does not feel like we are winning or won. Are we winning the war on terror? How exactly is a terrorist defined? If it a war against militant terrorists because theres plenty of terrorists who hate America and most arent muslim. Are we at war with only the muslim terrorists? Are we at war with the ideology of terrorism? Unless we can actually figure out what we are at war with and actually enlist the masses into fighting it, the result is people are at war with a queston mark. The results of the war are also a question mark. We don't even know if we are progressing. Do we feel safer?? We can't really rely on feelings, where are the facts?
We need strength, but we need the sorta strength that unites the country, and we need the sorta communication that everyone can understand. As things are right now, about 60-70 percent of the country don't know whats going on. That is a huge huge percentage. The people who do know whats going on, will go along with it because theres not many other options once the country is involved in it. But what exactly is the goal?
If it were true that people only want to be around others who "look" like themselves and not people who "are" like themselves. This would mean the internet should be segregated right? Where is Slashdot black? Slashdot asian? I don't see a segregated internet at all.
Second, you go to the workplace, and you see all races in the same office working together, so what stops then from playing together? If it isn't racism, people should be able to play with the people they work with. And no I do not think people go out of their way to be among those who look like them, that is actually a portion of blacks, whites, and asians who choose to segregate themselves most likely out of racism. I'm not going to say that only whites are racist, people are racist and all races have racists. At the same time all races have people who arent racist, and often it depends on what you are taught.
It does not help when the parents of most blacks and asians were taught in the past that certain parts of town were for whites only. Sure some kids today don't think in a segregated way, but lets be serious, just because segregation ended in the 80s, doesnt mean that it's going to magically erase from everyones minds.
Racism still exists, I think everyone knows it, it's impossible to try to claim it does not exist after watching hurricane Katrina. I mean even the most naive of naive person, after seeing that, they know racism exists. I do not think people go around deliberately trying to only make friends from one race unless they have racist thinking in the first place and view people who look different as a different species, or as alien. Do some blacks view some whites as alien? Yes. Do some whites view blacks as alien? Yes. Do some asians view blacks and whites as alien? Yes. This has nothing to do with race, race is just a word to provide the excuse for exclusionary behavior. Within races there are gangs, you cannot wear the color red or blue in some places, so does this mean gang members view people outside of their tribal gang as alien and of a different "race"? Yes.
This is tribalism at core, and racism on the surface. Assume for a moment that white were the only race on earth, assume all other races vanished, and there are just white. Lets see you'd have the different hair colors to seperate with, so the blondes would view themelves as the true whites, in specific the blonde talls. So once again you'd have races, and it would start all over again. Racism is just a word, it's really a worldview, and at the core, it's just an emotion, a feeling, people are making decisions based on a feeling they get when they glance at someone. The feeling is "Ew, I don't like how this person looks, keep it away from me!".
What makes you think people judge similar to themselves based on skin color? Just because someone tells you how to think does not mean you must believe in it. If I said you had to pick your friends based on hair color, and that blondes were the most valueable, would you willingly give up all your friends and only talk to blondes? Sure some people would do this, but I think the average human just wants to have friends and they dont really care what the friend looks like. People are friends with dogs and cats, and you are telling me that people don't want to sit next to another human because that human has different hair or skin?
If race is real, why does race only apply to skin color? It's only a matter of time before skinny and fat become races. It's only a matter of time before the talls stop talking to the shorts, and the smart stop talking to the dumb. It's only a matter of time before race is redefined, and thats my point, something like race has no definition, it's a religious term that can be reinterpreted and redefined forever. Disabled people arent of the same race right? So people with autism are a different race? Are depressed people of a different race? What about people who can't read? Are they going to become the new blacks?
What about people who don't like calculus, are they going to be the new blacks?
Do you see, black as a race only exists to act as an opposite to white, and it has to be this way simply so white can exist as a race. If black does not exist, race will still exist, it just wont be based on skin color anymore. So when we have designer babies and genetically modfied people, the class will decide the race most likely. Make your money now or be black in the future, and thats if we arent replaced by robots or wiped out by science.
Race did not exist until people invented it. Most people get killed by people of the same race, thats how well people get along with their race. People get along better with people of other races than with their own.
Just because someone looks like you does not mean you will relate to them. A rapist or serial killer might look like your clone, but does this mean you'll be best friends with their person? A person of a different race on the other hand might have the same interests as you, and the same values, does this mean you will not be able to relate to them just becaue they don't look like a physical clone?
What you don't seem to understand is the world is very intergrated, it's just not intergrated in the way you think. Racism does still exist, and intergration would be a lot easier if people werent taught that "race" were real, but hey people are taught Jesus Christ was white, and God is male. Race is religion at this point, you can believe in it if you want to, but if you take a genetics class in college, you'll see that you'll have people who look the exact same as you but who are genetically your opposite. In fact I'm sure you've more people who look look exactly like you who you can't stand, than people who look different from you who you can't stand. The fact is, science has dispoved race, and not only disproved race but also proven through stem cell research that race is now a selectable option. So humanity should just pick a race and then design all babies to look like clones, or accept racial diversity, but racism serves no real purpose.
The overpopulation point is a good point however, the main problem of over-population has little to do with poor or rich and everything to do with the fact that if there is no future, more people being born doesnt change anything.
So while we have plenty of food, we don't really have a plan. By the way, I don't have a pet.
Yes I worry, I worry because no one else is.
Also, I cannot pull free money out of my pocket to just travel to whatever paradise you are asking me to travel to. I'm a college student, I'm supposed to be worried about the future. How exactly can you end up in college in the first place if you don't care about your future?
I highly doubt Adam Smith invented capitalism as a suicide weapon. I highly doubt that Einstien invented atomic energy to help us wipe ourselves out faster. I highly doubt any of the great minds and thinkers invented what they invented to speed up our demise.
The equation is simple, it's not even about religion. You just have to be selfish and rational enough to protect the machine itself that you depend on. Let's start with capitalism, so we are a capitalist society, but capitalism was not designed to be about quick money, it was designed to control the human species, in the way that you train your pet by giving it a prize or a toy. Humans required tools like capitalism, religion, and even drugs, to prevent us from wiping ourselves out a long time ago. Religion, money, drugs and other things like this, gave people something to fight over. The problem now is we are on the verge of running out of "things" to fight over on the group level.
There have always been people who were rational enough to know that yes, we have absolute freedom, but at the same time, by being enlightened enough to know that freedom there are responsibilities along with it. People have forgotten the basic responsibility and logic behind civilization. Do we exist to worship and serve money, or does money exist to make our lives better? A rational person would know, that while money can buy material things, true wealth is social wealth. The wealth you gain by having friends, a family, and a community. Today, community doesnt exist anymore, and while there are tribes today, most people are born into these "groups" and don't really know the people they are grouped up with. You might be born into a racial group and be surrounded by people you have nothing in common with and who you don't like, but who happen to look like you. You might be born into a religious group, and be surrounded by people who all worship the same God as you, but who don't recognize free will. You might be in a situation where you are just born at a certain time period and get labeled generation X, Y, Z or whatever, and you might have nothing in common with that group besides the fact you were born at the same time. Let's not forget astrological signs, yeah you'll meet people who have your sign, born no the same day, look the same, go to the same church, and who you can't stand. What has changed is that people don't know each other anymore, they just know groups. Sure it's always been a clique based world, and it's always been tribal, and but it seems that we lack a group conciousness, a human conciousness. We are self aware as individuals, even as countries, races, or religions, but we have absolutely no self awareness on the species level. We don't really protect our own habitat, or our collective future, or our food, our water, our biodiversity, or anything else that might actually matter 100-200 years into the future.
There are millions who are truly conscious, who can feel the world as well as rationally calculate it, but this is so rare that it does not make much of a difference when billions just want to work and consume with no real concept of what they are working to build, destroy, etc. A lot of people have children, the first question to ask is what world will your children inherit? If you don't have children, what world will humanities children inherit? If you don't know, or don't care, there is a good chance humanity will go extinct simply because no one cares about the children. It's really as simple as that. If we don't care about our kids, we don't care about the future, and if we don't care about the future, well, thats not really rational. In chess, in programming or a lot of things, sometimes the quick easy solution, leads to more problems. Often people just say, well if we play chess like we play checkers, we can take more pieces quick. Often they will think we if we just take the queen at the start of the game we will win. Often people think that if they make decisions quicker, that it's better than thinking it all through, but in reality,
I'm not saying people were more rational in the past, it's just in the past rational thinking was encouraged. I'm not sure I can say rational thinking is encouraged today. Rational thought is something people either are taught, or learn the hard way. Today, a youth cannot afford to make the kinda mistakes that our parents might have made. A degree is required now just to survive.
In the past I'm not saying we were more rational, but I can say in the past our culture was more rational at least. We always had a world with a select few enlightened rational thinkers, and then you had everyone else. The difference now is, somehow, we ignore rational thinking in favor of what feels good. Some of the situations the world is in don't make any rational sense whatsoever, and only make sense if you feel it.
In the past, slavery was rational, cruel, but very rational. Today we are doing things that don't benefit us in any percieveable way. I do not see how pollution helps anyone, I do not see how certain situations benefit anyone, and if they do benefit anyone it will be the temporary type benefits that only increase the value of the moment at the expensive of the value of the future. I'm just wondering, is this what is in humankind, or the earths best interest? No one seems to even ask that anymore, people don't seem to think long term. I'm not saying people 100 years ago all thought long term either, but these days even the smartest people seem to be worrying about what happened on American idol.
You argue how terrible it is that the rich don't help the poor, but then you say it's not the US's responsibility to help poor countries. There is moral responsibility, and the US does respond to such responsibility in the form of food, medical, and economic aid to the tune of several billion dollars per year.
I do believe in helping the poor, through the church, not through the government. I do not believe the government is designed for helping people or to help the poor. I think the church is designed for this. There are faith based initiatives, and even in places such as Africa, our current President has set aside billions for those who are willing to convert to Christianity.
He's a candidate not because he is black, but because he is actually from Congo. I don't see how you relate him to blacks from the inner city that we don't listen to, Kashala was foreign born, well educated, and financially well off (hes thrown over 100k of his own money towards hid bid). I actually do research, maybe you should realize the difference between race and national background.
If you know anything about how national building works, or have watched how we handle oprations in Iraq, it's always a good idea to have American citizens in other countries. Yes this man was technically born in the Congo, but he is certainly an American, his friends are all American, and he was educated in America. I do think national backround matters for a role such as President, but just being born in the Congo is a very low standard. The point is, not everyone who will be building the Congo has to be "from" the Congo just like not everyone in Iraq has to be a true "Iraqi", all that matters is that they look, speak and act like they are from the Congo or Iraqi. Once again, I say for intelligence and business related purposes you need Americans, meaning black people born in America, in the Congo. I'm not talking about average Americans from the inner city, I'm talking about the educated kind, in fact you know exactly what I'm talking about, I don't know why you act so naive. How do you expect us to know whats going on in the Congo if we don't have anyone reporting to us whats going on? How do you expect the Congo to form any business relations if black Americans arent involved? There is almost no chance of the Congo doing business with Europe, and even if they did it would not be the same. I'm talking about globalizing Africa, and that means you need real American citizens in Africa, this should be obvious if your goal is to stablize the Congo.
Books, movies, music, are almost always backed by a company or rich individual; distribution is not free. The quiet desperate pleas of poor are heard only through the megaphone of mass media.
Music is distributed by many black owned record labels. Spike Lee makes plenty of movies, he's rich sure, but I never said all rich people don't care. I don't consider the mass media to be so inter-connected, I think there are independent films and the independent media, and I think there is the mass media. The mass media will not make a depressing film because it's not profitable, but the independent media will make anything. It does not really take a lot of money ot make a film in Africa, the labor is much much cheaper.
Revolutions occur all the time. Sometimes dramaticly, sometimes more subtly. The people of China are becoming more wealthy, more educated, and in time they will begin to demand more rights. As I said before, those who fight for rights aren't the ones with nothing, they are the ones who have something to lose (the upper and middle classes). Fidel Castro will eventually die in Cuba, the Saudi Royal family is seeing dissention for its relationship with the US. In democratic countries, every election is a micro-revolution. Have you noticed how the US has changed (for the worse IMO) with increased executive power and religious agendas being moved forward.
The US is exactly how our leaders want it to be. If you want to call it a revolution
Congo American