Why GM crops are vital

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I hear Pepsi One is decent but I can't bring myself to drink a Pepsi Cola.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Geronimo
I suppose if CoT ever has a health problem he'll alter his lifestyle in some way in response. It sounds as if maybe he's just continuing to avoid any changes in his habits not because he knows of anything wrong with those changes but because his good fortune to date has now left him afraid to try anything new. Doesn't sound like much of a way to live but he seems happy enough with it.

well i have developed a slightly dodgey knee over the years........but that was before i ate at McD's - so i cant blame that
New stuff i like - junk stuff i dont. Its just something that has done atleast 3 generations of my family quite well. My Grandparents used to walk me into the ground when i was a teenager!(and how i grumbled) Still i owe a huge debt to my grandfather - he's the real greenfingers in the family, and still grows the majority of his veg even now, all organicaly raised.

I suspect some of you think i'm just a luddite who is happy living in a mud hut eating dirt? Which is my fault for the tennacity in which i've tried to fight the 'worried about GM' corner

I'm not that extreme - i've never destoyed a crop of GM here in the uk(but have known about it happening). Science is a cool thing, and i'm convinced it holds the key to our success as a speicies, as long as its used well and wisely. And thats about it.

And for notyoueithers example of the kind of stuff GM needs to get well away from if its ever going to be seen as anything other than a corporate bully - very prepared to put profit in the way of responsible scientific practices.

Currently its along way from looking like doing so

[child of Thor]

A kinda related article, in that its some proof of the human overpopulation of the planet:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4584572.stm

the quote

"Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental "footprint", the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero.

Only the lack of the individual can bring it down to nothing."

hints at something disturbing i feel

Maybe using GM to help feed the starving/poor people is not what should be done - we need less people Time to barcode the haves and not worry about the have nots?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by child of Thor
A kinda related article, in that its some proof of the human overpopulation of the planet:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4584572.stm

the quote

"Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental "footprint", the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero.

Only the lack of the individual can bring it down to nothing."

hints at something disturbing i feel

Maybe using GM to help feed the starving/poor people is not what should be done - we need less people Time to barcode the haves and not worry about the have nots?

That's putting the cart before the horse. We want to preserve the environment so it can serve us. Certainly we don't want to eliminate us to serve the environment! We know what our own interests are but the ecosystem, if it has any interests in any meaningful sense it's not sharing them with us, so for all we know it may not want to be preserved.

Destruction of irreplacable bits of the environment

Encouraging mass human starvation "to reduce the human environmental 'footprint'"

[Geronimo]

ok this post probably is more at home here than the other thread

Originally posted by child of Thor


well you need to check out Sava's quote after mine - i think he was quoting me for the confused 'loves computers/hates silicon temptress' man i am!

I wrote those lines in a robot thread.

What i like about the space projects is that i really really believe we need to get to other planets and colonise them before we screw this one up and kill all life.

And also money and resoureces spent on space stuff is less money and resources spent on divising wonderfull new sophisticated and extra lethal ways of killing ourselves.

Space exploration
Computers=anti human

I've been stuck at that for 20 odd years


BBC article on the success of those rovers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4577518.stm

My take is that unless humans decide we want to kiss practically all of the amazing diversity and beauty of the ecosystem goodbye, we will indeed have to largely remove human civilization from the planet. I do not however believe we have much time in which to get started on this and so I advocate a crash course approach to bootstrap us to the level where we can do this before countless species are gone forever while we are still too primitive to have even identified them all.

I think if luddites had their way with the world, it would only raise malcontent in the world to such a point that a huge reactionary anti-luddite movement would arise that would just resume willful environmental destruction but this time with a society that had an ingrained antipathy towards all environmentalist concerns.

The problem is that if you look closely at all of the pre-industrial lifestyles, they all sucked massively in comparison to the lifestyles of people living in wealthy industrialised countries. The ideal of such wealthy industrialised lifestyles has entered the entire human cultural subconscious and in the wake of a successful luddite campaign of economic sacrifice it would become idealised as a sort of lost eden. People can't forever tolerate squalor and poverty when they feel there is someone to hand to blame for it.

The only course available is to spend more on understanding the environment, take advantage of the coming flattening of human population growth, and not delay in begining to build the crude foundation of the infrastructure that will be needed to make space activity eventually economically tenable. We simply can't take our time on this because we don't have any time. No matter what we do will will end up kicking ourselves in the future for having been so slow to deal with it.

We are currently way too primitive to rest on our laurels and try to conserve what we have and we have lost too much of our collective 'innocence' (ignorance) to successfully go back to the somewhat smaller ecological footprint we had when we spent hundreds of thousands of years driving mammoths and other interesting megafauna extinct as hunter gatherers. Don't forget that ecological footprint not only covers space but time. A go slow approach may reduce the area of our impact but it will increase it's duration by slowing technological progress.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Geronimo
ok this post probably is more at home here than the other thread


My take is that unless humans decide we want to kiss practically all of the amazing diversity and beauty of the ecosystem goodbye, we will indeed have to largely remove human civilization from the planet. I do not however believe we have much time in which to get started on this and so I advocate a crash course approach to bootstrap us to the level where we can do this before countless species are gone forever while we are still too primitive to have even identified them all.

I think if luddites had their way with the world, it would only raise malcontent in the world to such a point that a huge reactionary anti-luddite movement would arise that would just resume willful environmental destruction but this time with a society that had an ingrained antipathy towards all environmentalist concerns.

The problem is that if you look closely at all of the pre-industrial lifestyles, they all sucked massively in comparison to the lifestyles of people living in wealthy industrialised countries. The ideal of such wealthy industrialised lifestyles has entered the entire human cultural subconscious and in the wake of a successful luddite campaign of economic sacrifice it would become idealised as a sort of lost eden. People can't forever tolerate squalor and poverty when they feel there is someone to hand to blame for it.

The only course available is to spend more on understanding the environment, take advantage of the coming flattening of human population growth, and not delay in begining to build the crude foundation of the infrastructure that will be needed to make space activity eventually economically tenable. We simply can't take our time on this because we don't have any time. No matter what we do will will end up kicking ourselves in the future for having been so slow to deal with it.

We are currently way too primitive to rest on our laurels and try to conserve what we have and we have lost too much of our collective 'innocence' (ignorance) to successfully go back to the somewhat smaller ecological footprint we had when we spent hundreds of thousands of years driving mammoths and other interesting megafauna extinct as hunter gatherers. Don't forget that ecological footprint not only covers space but time. A go slow approach may reduce the area of our impact but it will increase it's duration by slowing technological progress.

And how do the GM principles of ****ing with the food chain fit in to those ideals?

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by Geronimo

edit.....

I think if luddites had their way with the world, it would only raise malcontent in the world to such a point that a huge reactionary anti-luddite movement would arise that would just resume willful environmental destruction but this time with a society that had an ingrained antipathy towards all environmentalist concerns.

edit....

but we would never let that happen. everyone knows scientists(and Politicians) are wimpy geeks that rely on other peoples muscles to keep their power.

We would use our muscle power to forever keep the threat of any such technologicaly hopeful rebellion where it belongs - inside their big brained minds and skinny wimpy bodies



...i'm kinda joking by the way and enjoying the Planet of the Apes reference your comment bought up

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by child of Thor


but we would never let that happen. everyone knows scientists [...] are wimpy geeks that rely on other peoples muscles to keep their power.

You rely on your muscles. I'll nuke you.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by child of Thor
A kinda related article, in that its some proof of the human overpopulation of the planet:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4584572.stm

the quote

"Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental "footprint", the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero.

Only the lack of the individual can bring it down to nothing."

hints at something disturbing i feel

Maybe using GM to help feed the starving/poor people is not what should be done - we need less people Time to barcode the haves and not worry about the have nots?

if we want less people, we should educate 3rd world women. You can deal with Malthusian problems without advocating genocide.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


if we want less people, we should educate 3rd world women. You can deal with Malthusian problems without advocating genocide.

exactly - as china has shown, its possible to control 'human nature' if the worry is relevant. It was a weird article on the bbc still i think he was trying to highlight the problems we will face over overpopulation in the near future - and kinda being dramatic to get his point across.

I certainly hope so anyway - really having to suggest 'we need less people' at whatever cost isn't a comfortable one.

[child of Thor]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


You rely on your muscles. I'll nuke you.

with what - you wont have any nukes

[child of Thor]

and to get back on topic(my fault i think!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4605398.stm

an interesting article and although it doesnt specificaly mention GM, i think in context to the dangers of GM its a really sensible move to do this now(would have been nice 20 years ago as well) while we still can. I love scandinavia

[JohnT]

I thought you were leaving.

[child of Thor]

soon - 2.5hrs more and i'll be done plauging the concsience of the wicked+ unwise

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


if we want less people, we should educate 3rd world women. You can deal with Malthusian problems without advocating genocide.

Or rather, we could deal with food problems without GM crops.