Giant Gobs of Crazy and the EFCA

[bobby 55]

The trick with 'safe GMO' is in making sure the traits conferring non-standard chemical dependency REMAIN LINKED to all the other traits you're worried about infusing the non-GMO genepool with, which given they're separate genes, and that plants are notoriously promiscuous, what with all their crazy viruses and bacteria and such swapping DNA out and putting new stuff back in, is quite hard to guarantee.

Yeh, didn't they bugger up a wheat crop in Asia a year or two ago or was that something else entirely,i.e. not related to your post?

[chris the cynic]

As for the safety of GMO.... yes I suppose it is better to let thousands of africans starve every (insert time period lesser than year here) than to trust some people whose jobs it is to make sure there are no risks to GMO...

Pretty sure that is a false dichotomy.

And really there are easy solutions to the risk of spreading, including but not limited to; infertility, dependence on chemical not found in nature or using you know, greenhouses.

At the moment farmers of non-GM crops are finding that their crops are getting DNA from GM crops. Since they are not authorized to sell the GM crops they are not allowed to sell any of the effected crops. Worse still they usually have to prove in court that the GM DNA got into their crops accidentally or else they'll be charged with stealing (or patent infringement, or whatever the hell it's called.)

If you have the resources and manpower to build enough greenhouses to house all of the GM-crops necessary to feed all of Africa, please build said greenhouses. When you've finished with those you can move on to building greenhouses to house all of the rest of the GM-crops.

Also, you can be pretty sure DDL knows what he's talking about here.

Speaking of Africa, we have genetically modified organisms now, why are people still starving in Africa? You made it sound like GMOs would have stopped that.

[Jcelios]

I mean that they don't really have anything to do with darwin... Do I really need to clarify this further?

Possibly. I can be kind of dumb sometimes.

(for the record, when I think darwinism I think of the philosophical one)

Darwin didn't invent Philosophical Darwinism. But evolution is a big part of philosophical materialism and philosophical materialism is a big part of Philosophical Darwinism. So can it really be said that Philosophical Darwinism has absolutely nothing to do with Darwin?

I've spent so much time around Creationists now that when I first hear "Darwinism" I immediately think of the creationist pejorative.

[Jaedar]

Speaking of Africa, we have genetically modified organisms now, why are people still starving in Africa? You made it sound like GMOs would have stopped that.

I don't know, we ain't got enough? We ain't altered them enough? And I don't think greenhouses are a good solutions, it was just an example.

GM DNA got into their crops accidentally or else they'll be charged with stealing (or patent infringement, or whatever the hell it's called.)

This is more of a problem with the legal system, than GMO, you shouldn't be able to patent living organisms, or genes imo.

[Jcelios]

Or this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroup_bias

And now I have to run off, work is calling .

I agree with you and christhecynic that this is probably better then Out-group homogeneity bias.
What originally enamored me about Out-group homogeneity bias was this line:
"individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups."
I saw DDL as seeing Right leaning people as either crazy or not crazy and then seeing Left leaning people in more detailed and varied classifications. This could still be accurate or not. I'm not sure. But it does require a lot of assumptions about DDL's thinking that are probably unjustified on my part.

[Jcelios]

The trick with 'safe GMO' is in making sure the traits conferring non-standard chemical dependency REMAIN LINKED to all the other traits you're worried about infusing the non-GMO genepool with, which given they're separate genes, and that plants are notoriously promiscuous, what with all their crazy viruses and bacteria and such swapping DNA out and putting new stuff back in, is quite hard to guarantee.

Is that horizontal gene transfer?

Which is why we need to start researching for real now in controlled environments before starvation becomes an even more serious problem. and really what you say DDL, is just as applicable to current plants as it is right now . I mean it is about as likely that a regular plant will go haywire as it is a GMO one, in fact the GMO one may be less likely since you would probably infuse it with antibacterial things and such.
I'm obviously not an expert on GMO, but I would say that it is our most viable option to support human(and animal) populations, because when food gets scarce, people start wars.
Edit: this thread is now approaching warp 10

Unfortunately I don't think it's as simple as: better GMO = more food = more people fed. Not that you directly said that. But it's an impression I got.

There is enough arable land in India to feed the entire world even going into the future for a time. The problem with starving nations is more of a physical infrastructure and economical failing then a "not enough food in the world to go around" issue. Future GMO crops can obviously still greatly help in those situations but it can't be the only solution and it won't solve the problem entirely. Especially now when we have African nations denying GMO crop technology again on the basis of fear and ideology.

It reminds me of those charities that simply hand out food to starving people in poor countries. Thats all nice and good but it's not going to fix the problem. Their still going to be starving again a week from now and their children are going to starve and their children's children are going to starve unless the country it's self is fixed. I sometimes wonder if instead of spending money on feeding as many people as possible that more future suffering could be prevented by instead spending the money on getting the countries' government back in order or some such thing. The reality is we probably should have enough resources to do both.

Oh and greenhouses won't solve the problems with GMO crops. Thats pretty crazy considering the amount and size of green houses that would be necessary.

What I think the real big honking false dichotomy here is the "GMOs have to be perfect or we shouldn't use them at all" attitude of the anti-GMO crowd. Instead of doing a risk-benefit/cost-benefit analysis or even trying the slightest attempt at problem solving they simply latch onto any problem with GMOs they can find say "look! look! GMO R TEH DEVIL!!!!!"
A lot of the time they'll point to an issue that isn't even applicable every single type of GMOs and try and use that as an excuse to completely toss out the entire concept of GMOs... huh?

[DDL]

Facism, dude! Srsly!

No, I view both sides as lunatics, certainly, but I simply wasn't thinking of PETA loonies and AntiGMO loonies as left wing, which as has been pointed out is possibly my inherent bias (as a facist, ofc). Still, it's almost as if...they're too crazy to be...any wing. I certainly don't view GMO crops or animal testing as being particularly right wing activities, thus rabid opposition to them doesn't immediately grab me as leftie.

If you see what I mean.

And yes, the whole corporate aspect of GMO crops is the most worrying aspect. The idea that some random AIR BORNE bacterium could grab DNA from a GMO crop, move on, and insert it into a non GMO crop, and now SOME COMPANY OWNZ UR SHIT....is wrong. And let's be honest, there isn't a lot of onus on the company to prevent this, coz..hey, they get ur shit lol.


But I do believe GMO crops are necessary for human survival in anything close to its current form. High-salinity-compatible rice, for example, would be incredibly incredibly useful. We just need to work out a way to get around the legal shit (or wait for the patents to expire).


Also, for the record, I LOVE this aspect of OTP. I am old enough and self-aware enough to appreciate having flaws I am oblivious of pointed out to me. Sometimes it's good to think "shit yeah: I'm entirely wrong/biased/an idiot".

EDIT: walton..er...jcelios, yes it is.

[Jaedar]

There is enough arable land in India to feed the entire world even going into the future for a time

Are you sure about this? I mean we not only have to consider enough food, we also must consider that people want to eat varied food (I.E not just potatoes ) And meat especially is expensive in terms of area. What I mean to say is; it isn't just about enough good, it's about variety and quality of it as well. I don't mean to discredit you or your sources, but I think they may be wrong, or have ignored some aspects of the problem.

Also, for the record, I LOVE this aspect of OTP. I am old enough and self-aware enough to appreciate having flaws I am oblivious of pointed out to me. Sometimes it's good to think "shit yeah: I'm entirely wrong/biased/an idiot".

I love it as well, I am young enough to realise my rashness and lets face it; ignorance sometimes clouds my judgement. But I am never biased

[DDL]

Well, meat is basically idiotic in terms of efficiency, and if we're talking raw "can we produce enough food to feed the world fairly easily", then I expect Jcelios is on the mark. This is not the same as "can we feed the world and make them HAPPY about it", or even (and more importantly) "can we produce enough food to feed the world AND DISTRIBUTE IT", to which the answers are both (I suspect) no.

Ultimately though: choice between potato and nothing? It's gonna be the potato. Even if you hate potatoes.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

Sometimes it's good to think "shit yeah: I'm entirely wrong/biased/an idiot".

LOL.. Well not unless its someone smug on the other end rubbing it in your face. Then all you can do is either bend over and take it or counter smear

[Jcelios]

A little over half of India's land area is arable:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/agr_a ... nd-of-area

Considering the size of india that is a truly huge area of potential farm land.
Covering half of India in crops is admittedly absurd, there would be other concerns (irrigation, living space, waste space etc.) that would thwart this.

Specifically the "India has enough land to feed the entire world" claim was something I picked up from a World Issues class I took last year. I can't find it now but I believe it was well sourced. I know I'm a bad scholar.

[justanotherfan]

Aside from the GMO stuff, Jon Stewart had a good line the other night that works with this thread. I have to paraphrase from memory though. "When Obama watches the news, does he sigh a lot? [edit point] Often people will ask if the people have lost faith in the president. I think this is the first time where our approval rating in his eyes could go down. He expects a lot of us, and he has to watch people screaming "He's a socialist, going to kill grandma"...do you think he'll impeach us?"

The new legislation is incredibly modest. People are embarrassing themselves, screaming nonsense.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

Covering half of India in crops is admittedly absurd, there would be other concerns (irrigation, living space, waste space etc.) that would thwart this.

Problem is that the Indian sanitation laws are sub-standard.. in most cases compared to third-world countries- which became the corner stone of the film Slum Dog Millionaire. The biggest problem I see with this is that Australia would ban all food coming in from India due to quarantine- we're extremely strict on what we let in, a lot of Imports from India usually don't make it through customs.

Would you like a majority of the worlds food produced there?.. cause I think its better left to a first world country with laws and standards- that and I feel that India would easily exploit its position in the world. (such as invading Pakistan)

Also Australia produces a large quantity of the worlds food too. But the droughts caused a massive problem for us a few years back- they seem to be going away though- this year has been so damn wet.

[Jcelios]

Well I did say "Etc."

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

They could fix it however if they improved the quality of life there.. its just India is such a corrupt country it'll never happen- the Rich are Uber rich and the Poor are Uber poor.

I think Russia has the biggest landmass of them all.. its just too cold and too communist.