shiajun said:
Dude, seriously? You decry Bob for oversimplying a complex issue, which is fine, but you do it arguing with a tone that implies you have all the info.
Wrong on all counts. I decry Bob for
lying -- it was, like, at the top of the post -- and decry him for
claiming to simplify an issue by saying things about it that are manifestly untrue. I never claim to have all the info, merely that he was nigh-deliberately wrong. Your analysis is inaccurate -- reread the post.
shiajun said:
Guess what? To me, a scientist actually in the field to genetic engineering, and a little into transgenic plant development, you look the same way.
That's nice. To me, having worked in both the sciences and politics, hearing someone who's probably from industry obscure the issue makes you look like part of the problem. To each his own.
shiajun said:
They are like Wal-Mart in a certain way.
Wow, that's misleading. While Wal-Mart is certainly a noxious company due to a variety of anti-union and anticapitalistic pratcices, saying that the problem with Monsanto is that it's like Wal-Mart completely misses the dramatic challenges to law and politics that Monsanto represents. Transformation of patent law into a legal sword harms both biotechnological research and puts, conceivably, billions at risk. It's a ludicrously horrible example of political corruption -- it may well be the most potent example, given the industry's successful pillaging of property it it cannot conceivably own. If we're all children, fine, I guess one can say is that the respective companies do naughty things, but the similarities end there.
shiajun said:
Their science, however, is much more solid than what you've been allowed to know since a lot of the protocols are trade secrets.
You protest too much.
I never questioned their ability to use science to advance their agenda -- that's all that can be taken from your ambiguous use of the word "science." I claimed, straight-out, that the company has no concern and has taken nothing close to sufficient measures to protect the environment from ecological damage. We know this because the company actually uses ecological damage
as a strategy for theft. Contaminating native stocks is not a bug, it's a feature.
shiajun said:
Do you actually know how long it takes from the idea of introducing x or y thing into a crop to it reaching the supermarket?
Yes. Do you know how inappropriate it is to tranform patent law into a scheme that covers biotechnology? Do you know the kind of profits you can garner through destroying and capturing and patenting native, milennia-old foodstocks and forcing small farmers to grow only from your own seed? Is there a reason why your irrelevant facts were introduced here?
shiajun said:
Before you go out and say that "Monsanto and allies" have no controls and do no testing please familiarize yourself with the actual process of creating GM crops.
Maybe you should dismiss your own bias and reread the post. Given the risks involved, industry controls are wholly inadequate; saying that they have said controls is making a completely unsupported assumption. Namely that the industry is concerned with issues besides its own profit margin. Experiments, and therefore their controls, are used by Monsanto to ensure that its products will be profitable for Monsanto, not to ensure that the products will be safe for the environment at large. Not only isn't that the case, we know as a matter of law that they profit when they do not bother with such experiments.
shiajun said:
It takes LONGER than developing pharmaceuticals. . .
So what?
shiajun said:
. . .and you know, it's not regulated by the FDA. The department of agriculture is in charge of that.
Again, so what? It
should be under the perview of the FDA. That's the point. (As it stands, the FDA does have influence over these entities, but it "regulates" in the same way that a well-paid and competent hooker "punishes" a john.) In the same way cigarettes were kept free from FDA regulation due to sheer bribery, our bureaucracies can't even claim proper jurisdiction. In effect, you're claiming that "things shouldn't be better because they're already horrible."
shiajun said:
You think they skimp on controls and tests, etc, etc, to cut down costs?
No, I
know that the point of their tests is to ensure the wealth of their respective companies, not to protect anyone else. You are, again, making unfounded assumptions. The problem is Monsanto is using a U.S. model of legal responsibility: the burden of proof is on the plantiff to show environmental harm, as opposed to, say, Germany, where the company creating an environmental problem is assumed to bear its legal responsibility. As such, Monsanto has no real reason to bother with experimentation that would do nothing but give it knowledge that would ultimately
increase its liability.
shiajun said:
(snip). . . any slip up opens the door to huge legal backlash in lawsuits, loss of patents and HUGE economical set backs.
Wrong -- for the umpteenth time, contamination can actually increase their wealth. You begin with the assumption that Monsanto cares for the people it's robbing, a completely incoherent assumption that is nonetheless commonly found in people that work for people that rip others off for a living.
The companies aren't run by stupid people. They're run by bad people.
