Why isn't this piracy?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Admiralty law.

As long as we are discussing th intricacies of Admiralty law if you caught people trying to illegally board your ship and shot them, would it be murder?

[Q Classic]

What's wrong with People for Eating Tasty Animals?

nothing, my friend, nothing.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Yes, of couse, Luddnik - movements are better served when the most attention is given to the shrillest and most irrational speakers, because instead of "ignoring" the movement, the loons manage to utterly discredit it themselves.

If a movement ditched anyone who someone was annoyed by, the movement would cease to exist before it even got started. The whole point is that they are going against the status quo and challanging convention - of course people are going to be annoyed by them, hate them, call them names, call them irrational, ect... That's the expected reaction by any movement becuse if they didn't recieve that, then a 'movement' wouldn't be neccisary.

[child of Thor]

Another way to put it is would you want MS to control food production, like how much your country would have to pay to get its seeds?

The GM debate to me is about control - who controls/decides who's going to starve or not. So its actualy a debate about freedom. I think the big companies(mostly but not exclusively in America) have a hidden agenda that goes beyond the scientific benifits.......

Controling the worlds food production would make you even richer than if you controlled the oil

GM is evil

justified Piracy is good (in the intrests of world freedom against terror )

[Q Classic]

see, there's a difference between being an effective and vocal member of a movement, and being stupidly controversial to the point of alienating potential members.

peta has that problem what with their chicken-to-jews comparisons, or their whoring out women to get others to be vegetarian. greenpeace has this problem with "protests" like these. the conservatives have this problem with people like michael savage and ann coulter.

[Q Classic]

Another way to put it is would you want MS to control food production, like how much your country would have to pay to get its seeds?

The GM debate to me is about control - who controls/decides who's going to starve or not. So its actualy a debate about freedom. I think the big companies(mostly but not exclusively in America) have a hidden agenda that goes beyond the scientific benifits.......

Controling the worlds food production would make you even richer than if you controlled the oil

GM is evil

except this is a silly argument, imho. the problem here isn't the gm food. the problem is the fact that the system as it stands allows something that could be considered by its very existence "open source" (anybody can modify it, everybody has a copy of it...) is being forced into a patent regime where specific people control it.

why shun a technological advance because of a stupid social system?

gm foods are not the evil. it's the fact that megacorps can patent something that you shouldn't be able to patent.

[child of Thor]

True but when you live in a world where MegaCorps decide the law - its a simple choice to me, i wont support their acts of terror against the human race

but i will support acts of Piracy or even general law breaking, when the cause is a just one - no matter how misguided or badly thought through.

Americans understand about freedom - i dont understand why they seem so surprised by the anti GM food movement in europe, its about a fundemental freedom of all humans, to be able to feed themselves? when you take that away what you have in effect is a world of slaves

[Q Classic]

again, it's not the gm food. it's not the science behind it that we should be protesting. it's the corporate system as it stands.

and that's funny, coming from europe, with your nations instituting a software patent regime.

[Arrian]

How does GM food = "people not being able to feed themselves."

Sorry, this is not a debate I've been involved in before, so I need to be brought up to speed.

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
As long as we are discussing th intricacies of Admiralty law if you caught people trying to illegally board your ship and shot them, would it be murder?

It would at least be a triable issue. Absent some evidence of intent on the boarder's part, there's no absolute right to kill boarders. The question is how did they get on board without being repelled in some other fashion? Certainly there's a right to resist unlawful boarding, and if the means of resistance are reasonable in view of the threat, I don't see a problem if a boarder or two accidentally went in the drink, etc.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by General Ludd



If a movement ditched anyone who someone was annoyed by, the movement would cease to exist before it even got started. The whole point is that they are going against the status quo and challanging convention - of course people are going to be annoyed by them, hate them, call them names, call them irrational, ect... That's the expected reaction by any movement becuse if they didn't recieve that, then a 'movement' wouldn't be neccisary.

It's not a question of "anyone who someone was annoyed by"

It's a question of "people who are so far out on the fringe, and so stridently, hysterically vocal compared to the rest of us, that they undermine the movement and alienate a large number of potential supporters."

[Solomwi]

Q Cubed, tell me more about this whoring of vegetarian chicks...

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Arrian
How does GM food = "people not being able to feed themselves."

Sorry, this is not a debate I've been involved in before, so I need to be brought up to speed.

-Arrian

well this is exactly a point in case - many people do not know what GM food is, they think its just scientificaly enhanced to be pest resistant etc, and so do not understand the GM backlash from some countries, thinking it just superstitous nonsense etc. You could do a quick google to get up to speed - i found one link mostly relevant to the uk here .

Its not perfect, but it has some info and links to stuff related to GM food.

In a nutshell GM food/crops cannot reproduce themselves(like natural crops/plants can).
So each season of growing you need to purchase new seed from a company that sells them. There is a possibility that introducing these types of crops into an enviroment can cause a sort of inter breeding with the native speices of crop, that in turn may evolve into a non-reproducing speices(something happend like this with Maize in south america a little while ago).

Once we as the people on this planet can no longer grow our own food without having to ask for it from some company - we will be slaves.

I'm being over the top deliberately - the general lack of concern over this needs some highlighting

And to bring it back on topic : Greenpeace pirated the ship as it was in the waters of a country(Wales) that has voted to keep itself GM free.

Anymore news on the stand off - i cant find anything over here - which is a bit odd

[General Ludd]

PETA does not undermine the animal rights movement... it's practicaly it's only mouthpiece! People who say "I would be more understanding of their cause if they wheren't so disagreeable" are not at all interested in their movement, and wouldn't be regardless. They just don't want to hear about it. And that's what activism is about - making people hear it wether they want to or not, otherwise the issue would just fade away into obscurity.

[Q Classic]

i call bull**** on peta's being the only mouthpiece. the humane society does a lot of the same things, and hell--it's actually responsible, too, seeing as i don't see peta running any animal shelters for their pets (oh, i mean, "animal companions").

and guess what? the humane society doesn't compare the plight of chickens to the plight of jews. the humane society doesn't tell kids to drink beer instead of milk. the humane society doesn't tell people to not donate to the march of dimes.

people who care about animals generally also care about people too, and when you have a group like peta shrilly telling people to not help, or potentially harm, their fellow man to conceivably in a remote way help animals...

tell me that doesn't alienate people.