Poll: GM food.... wait.... what?

[the_green_dragon]

Think of it this way: A nail and a screw are both fasteners. Yes? A screw is more advanced than a nail. Yes? Do you dive a nail with a screwdriver or a screw with a hammer? No. A nail is not a screw. A screw is not a nail. Anyone who tells you so is woefully misinformed.

Ever hear for a nylon wall anchor? You bash it in with a hammer then screw it in to make sure it's secure.

GM is kind of like that. Why light a fire with flint when they've invented the lighter.

 

[the_green_dragon]

Also, you seem a bit touchy about this whole subject, what with the massive wall of text above.

 

[KILGAZOR]

Since when the fuck does "GM" stand for "Genetically Modified"? And on a gaming forum, of all things. Please explain your obscure acronyms, especially when you're writing an OP.

 

[Superior Mind]

I remember covering this news story a week or so ago.

In my opinion I think concerns about GE food being unhealthy is bollocks. Humans have been genetically engineering food for centuries. Did you know the dominant colour of carrots used to be purple? The thing is now we're that much more efficient at it, what used to take generations of crops now takes only one generation. The fear is that this speed means safety checks haven't been done properly. Really though there's no reasons not to trust the CSIRO's judgement and I don't see how GM food is any more or less risky than any other food.

However a point raised by a Greenpeace rep in an interview caught my interest. She said that the funding for the CSIRO project could be linked back to Monsanto. This interested me due to the huge power Monsanto has over soybean crops. Monsanto engineered a soybean that was resistant to their pesticide product RoundUp. The crop became very popular but due to the patent they had on it, farmers were unable to save their seeds, a regular process in agriculture, and had to buy new seeds from Monsanto all the time so the company could keep making a profit. Any farmer found to be or even suspected of saving their seeds was sued and, due to the financial and legal power of Monsanto, lost every time. This is made worse due to the fact that because of cross-contamination, modified Monsanto soybeans were growing on farms that didn't opt to use them, meaning Monsanto could sue people for 'stealing' their product even if the farmer had no idea about it. This whole mess is outlined far more thoroughly in the documentary Food Inc. which is a good watch.

It would be awful if Monsanto got this same power with wheat crops. I don't think it's right for a corporation to have such control over such a staple food while financially crippling those who produce it. So yeah, if that's Greenpeace's angle then to a certain degree I support them.

But this isn't Greenpeace's angle. With them it's all about man vs. mother nature and fear campaigns about how GM food is unsafe. Sigh.

 

[Ghengis John]

Also, you seem a bit touchy about this whole subject, what with the massive wall of text above.

Eh I'm responding to multiple people. It's not one big rant but a series of small ones. I try to dignify everyone with a response who responds to me and (for the most part) nobody has annoyed me. Still trying to be reasonable, but I'm gonna be perfectly honest, I don't expect it will go over well. I have people telling me you're supposed to hammer in screws. That doesn't inspire confidence that tomorrow I'm not going to find an inbox full of face palms. But I'd like to say thanks for being reasonable yourself Green Dragon, and Alphonse all the way.

Though honestly, on the point of being touchy this purple carrot thing makes me want to cry. Honestly. I just read the post of the guy above me, it's like the 900th time I've seen it. People... sigh. Shame is he's perfectly right about Monsanto.

 

[k-ossuburb]

Fundamentally speaking it is possible to say that genetic engineering as no different than selective breeding; at the most basic level this is fairly accurate, although both techniques are very different in how they achieve their results. With selective breeding, what you're doing is making sure that whatever species you're changing has the traits that you want them to have, genetic modification is just a more efficient and accurate method to achieve the same results.

No it's not. They are not the same thing nor is one simply a more "efficient" and accurate version of the other. This would assume that it was possible to inter-breed a potato and a bacterium or a tomato and a starfish in the first place. Which it is not. You are welcome to try of course. But no amount of mood music will provide you a tomato-starfish progeny.

Forget the screwdriver thing, it's just something I heard on T.V. last night, I don't actually know if it's true or not.

As for it being more efficient, you'll notice I said "fundamentally speaking" in the beginning there, by this I mean "in the broadest sense possible" and in this sense there are parallels you can draw. I know they're not the same process, but they achieve the same goals; refinement of a species to suit a particular need. When I said that it more efficient I meant that as it is, it requires less "steps" to achieve the goal you're after and a lot less time, meaning you get less waste. Hence it is a more efficient process.

 

[Ghengis John]

Forget the screwdriver thing, it's just something I heard on T.V. last night, I don't actually know if it's true or not.

As for it being more efficient, you'll notice I said "fundamentally speaking" in the beginning there, by this I mean "in the broadest sense possible" and in this sense there are parallels you can draw. I know they're not the same process, but they achieve the same goals; refinement of a species to suit a particular need. When I said that it more efficient I meant that as it is, it requires less "steps" to achieve the goal you're after and a lot less time, meaning you get less waste. Hence it is a more efficient process.

As long as you're not going to tell me they're the same thing, we're cool. Same goal though, that I can agree with. That was in fact the whole point of the screw/nail analogy. Seems we're square now.

 

[Nouw]

Moviebob did an excellent video on this. A good amount of food we eat everyday are genetically modified.[sub]According to him anyway.[/sub]The orange carrot for example. That's a modification/mutation.

That aside, they had no right whatsoever to intrude and destroy the property of the facility. Just because they have different viewpoints, ideals and beliefs doesn't mean they're obligated to do something against the opposing people.

They were wrong since they destroyed something that doesn't belong to them.

At the very basics of this situation, this statement sums up why they were in the wrong.

 

[Zenkem]

This is about as smart as people opposing clean coal plants because they'd justify the use of coal. Wait, what was your agenda again?

 

[Ghengis John]

Moviebob did an excellent video on this. A good amount of food we eat everyday are genetically modified.[sub]According to him anyway.[/sub]The orange carrot for example. That's a modification/mutation

Movie bob didn't know Jack about what he was talking about. He characterized anyone with an opposing viewpoint as a medieval peasant, made several outright false statements and allegories and displayed a blind faith in science without considering the very real pitfalls involved with trans genic modification. It's a shame the escapist does not feature a counterpoint article. It's not like I disagree with him on the benefits of GM crops, but some of the arguments he used to defend them should be torn down to promote a proper and balanced understanding.

His video was tantamount to someone stating "global warming gives you Parkinson's disease". To promote an end to global warming. Good message, bad argument, massive ignorance.

 

[Nouw]

Snip

Thanks for clearing that up. So how good/bad is GM then?

 

[kasperbbs]

Greenpeace has nothing to do with peace apparently, they deserve some penis in their holes once they go to jail.

 

[Booze Zombie]

GM foods are actually healthier and more convenient, they grow better, can be made to suffer less from disease, drought et cetera and give a bigger bang for your buck. To say they are bad or evil is idiotic.

Not really, that's just marketing. They turn plants into a patented product and make money from them, it's that simple.

Not a massive fan of running about destroying things like an entitled asshole from the Bullington Club, but people get some strange ideas about what they can do when they think something is wrong.

 

[caz105]

So, I ask you: Was Greenpeace in the right to destroy the crop?

The reason I ask is because my father saw no problems with their actions.

-coder

The long term effects of GM crops have not been tested so you can't really answer that question, enjoy being the whole worlds guinea pigs America (Y).

 

[Ghengis John]

Snip

Thanks for clearing that up. So how good/bad is GM then?

Very good with the proper oversight. There have been a few screw ups already and it's hard to say what to make of terminator crops that die after a season and are infertile. On the one hand they protect against genetic pollution (err... mostly) and on the other they put unreasonable amounts of power into the hands of the companies that make them, because farmers must buy them every year. Even though the crops are infertile though they have managed to effect neighboring crops of rice and soybeans. (whether through pollen exposure or some exposure to the viruses used to modify the original crop's genetic code I couldn't say) And guess what. They made those crops infertile as well. If something like that got out of control in a bread basket like the American Midwest or the Indian Haryana it would be an irrevocable disaster.

There are a few ethical issues as well. A bacterium mixed with a potato is making the potato deadly to a pest that relies on it. Of course it's a pest to us but do we have the right to drive it to extinction? And speaking of extinction there was the case of that GM corn crop that was killing it's pests but also endangered monarch butterflies as well. Transgenic modification has it's own problems as well concerning genetic pollution and can open up new vectors for disease. Want to give a rat the common cold? Give it a few genes from a human. This is already done in labs to give animals human diseases for testing purposes and in controlled conditions is relatively harmless. Because modified crops and livestock would exist out in the field and not in a vacuum there's no telling if they could serve as gateways towards introducing new diseases to unmodified crops or livestock that would be unable to cope with them. As an example of a real concern raised about the mixing of a pig and an earthworm: Pigs can get the common cold. Earthworms cannot. What happens to our soil and the ecosystem if a disease makes the jump to earthworms by the splicing and wipes them out?

I think as a species seemingly unable to check it's own growth we're in for some trouble if we don't get cracking on GM crops. But we have to be mindful of the fact that science is done by people and therefore prone to complications. The profit motive is also too strong at current, often circumventing safety concerns. And if the shape of the future is everyone pays Monsanto for seeds or people starve that's going to be a problem. Before crops are deployed it's essential that they undergo proper testing. That includes observing them in the field for an extended period and checking for unforeseen complications. This lab's purpose was exactly that, so shame on Greenpeace.

 

[Wicky_42]

Sorry, they broke into a building and destroyed someone else's property, and your father can't see a problem with it?

Anyway, GM foods aren't half as bad as people make them out to be. Hell, the practice has (indirectly) been going on as long as farming, with people selecting the traits they want in future generations of crops/animals, and using samples that show those traits to reproduce. Why is it suddenly a problem when we skip a few generations by making that process more direct?

Given a choice between 'we can have more wheat by constantly only reproducing the bigger, faster growing plants over years' or 'we can have more wheat by making the wheat bigger and faster growing RIGHT NOW', I'll take the latter. It won't suddenly turn you into a horrible carcinogenic blob, I assure you.

The issue with GM plants is not that you're increasing the speed at which you can select naturally occurring genes, but that you're moving genes from one species into another, and the potential environmental damage that could occur should the vector for transplanting that gene re-activate and move on to other species. Strains of weeds immune to weed-killers and pests, for example, would not only be annoying to deal with but could also seriously adversely affect the ecosystem.

EDIT: Ok, guy above knows much more than me, good on him :3

The controls and safeguards for containing GM crops and monitoring the spread of pollen and seeds have been proven to be insufficient, and GM crops have been grown adjacent to non-gm crops in the past - basically, the industry has consistently been blasé about the need to assuage fears of shit going wrong and the potentially irreparable damage that that would cause, and once the governing body fails to take responsibility activists step up and take action. This sort of thing could be moderated by thorough testing and honest, open reportage, but there's no money in prolonged tests and at the end of the day that's all these companies care about - fuck the potential consequences if there's a buck buck in it!

 

[Ghengis John]

The issue with GM plants is not that you're increasing the speed at which you can select naturally occurring genes, but that you're moving genes from one species into another, and the potential environmental damage that could occur should the vector for transplanting that gene re-activate and move on to other species. Strains of weeds immune to weed-killers and pests, for example, would not only be annoying to deal with but could also seriously adversely affect the ecosystem.

The controls and safeguards for containing GM crops and monitoring the spread of pollen and seeds have been proven to be insufficient, and GM crops have been grown adjacent to non-gm crops in the past - basically, the industry has consistently been blasé about the need to assuage fears of shit going wrong and the potentially irreparable damage that that would cause, and once the governing body fails to take responsibility activists step up and take action. This sort of thing could be moderated by thorough testing and honest, open reportage, but there's no money in prolonged tests and at the end of the day that's all these companies care about - fuck the potential consequences if there's a buck buck in it!

snip

Just quoted you here because this is an excellent post that I thought you should see, Nouw.

Excellent post btw Winky, this is the kind of discourse that people should be having about GM crops. I think people can only maintain a black or white image of many issues through a lack of understanding and this is one of them. A tip of the hat to you, sir.

 

[Wicky_42]

Excellent post btw Wicky, this is the kind of discourse that people should be having about GM crops. I think people can only maintain a black or white image of many issues through a lack of understanding and this is one of them. A tip of the hat to you, sir.

And to think I was just admiring your post up the page, lol At least there's a few of us here trying to focus on the real GM issues

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Snip

Thanks for clearing that up. So how good/bad is GM then?

Very good with the proper oversight.

And in Australia much of the policy for that oversight would be based on the research and recommendations of the CSIRO.

Because modified crops and livestock would exist out in the field and not in a vacuum there's no telling if they could serve as gateways towards introducing new diseases to unmodified crops or livestock that would be unable to cope with them. As an example of a real concern raised about the mixing of a pig and an earthworm: Pigs can get the common cold. Earthworms cannot. What happens to our soil and the ecosystem if a disease makes the jump to earthworms by the splicing and wipes them out?

That's a huge issue with transgenic GM. HUGE. Anything that can help diseases jump 'species barriers' is something to break out the brown trousers for and transgenic GM turns species barriers into swiss cheese.

And if the shape of the future is everyone pays Monsanto for seeds or people starve that's going to be a problem.

Not for Monsanto shareholders!

 

[Richardplex]

snip

I wasn't trying to imply you were like that, merely that that's the flaw in Greenpeace activists line of thinking. Incredibly badly communicated though, must work on fixing that. For the record, I basically agree with your you say, and it's highly enjoyable to read. Once again, my bad for lack of communication.