The Impossibility of Growth

[Sava]

We need more herbicide resistant crops, with a wider range of herbicides that have herbicide resistant crops, not less.

The benefits of herbicides in general are they allow for growing crops with less (and sometimes no) soil tillage, allow for more yield per unit of area, reduce the amount of mechanical energy used to grow a crop, and are better for soil fertility (less compaction, less erosion/runoff) compared to the alternative (mechanical cultivation). This means cheaper food which is still very important for many people around the world.

There are drawbacks to herbicides; soil contamination, runoff contamination (worst with tilling actually), health issues for workers. But those aren't problems with GMO, since herbicides are used in many other applications. Even when using mechanical tillage herbicides are still likely to be used. Eco-friendly applications like no-till wheat also rely on herbicides.

The main harm right now from Roundup Ready is that since there are only very limited GMO crops with resistances to herbicides, and they mostly are Roundup, this pushes farmers towards using Roundup and growing Roundup Ready crops more than they should. This means lots of corn and soybeans and we're left trying to shoehorn those into products where they probably shouldn't be just because they're so cheap. It also means that farmers are more likely to ignore the science and use soley Roundup on serial cereal crops, leading to increased resistance within pest plant populations, increased pest problems in general, and soil fertility problems.

So to mitigate the harm of herbicide resistant GM crops, what we actually need is accelerated development of herbicide resistant crops and a wider spectrum of herbicides that can be fit into such a system. Then we're more likely to see proper crop and herbicide rotation. This leads to less buildup of any given chemical, less resistant within weed populations so less volume of herbicide used.

More food means more people. You want us to sprint to our demise? Why enable a collapse?

[Sava]

First Sava requires "proof" that industrial production generates garbage.

Now Felch needs "proof" that climate change is hurting the environment.

kthxbye

You are such a nitwit and a coward.

[Fake Boris]

Actually the rate of population growth is decreasing and maybe decreasing faster than it was in the recent past. The biggest danger that confronts us is deflation.

So what were people waiting for in the Neolithic?

[Sava]

You literally wouldn't exist without modern agriculture. That's enough reason to hate it.

[Fake Boris]

It's pretty amazing to see people would deny the correlation between population growth and industrial productivity. I had honestly never figured I would have this discussion with allegedly rational college graduates.

[Geronimo]

It's pretty amazing to see people would deny the correlation between population growth and industrial productivity. I had honestly never figured I would have this discussion with allegedly rational college graduates.

I know. It's obviously the case that the more wealthy a country is and the more successful it is at extracting and consuming resources, that the more that wealthy population breeds like bunnies and the larger their family sizes become. Any casual inspection will reveal this. I wonder if any of these doubters have ever visited a third world country and seen for themselves the tiny family sizes and astonishing prevalence of adults who choose to have no children in those places? There is a reason the population of the third world remains so small and is falling so far behind the burgeoning population sizes we see mushrooming in the first world.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Oncle might have meant there's a correlation between population size and industrial output. I'm surprised alleged philosophers can't communicate clearly.

[N35t0r]

There is a correlation between agricultural productivity and industrial output though. That's what brought forth the industrial revolution. But population size didn't have much relation.

[Sava]

It's pretty amazing to see people would deny the correlation between population growth and industrial productivity. I had honestly never figured I would have this discussion with allegedly rational college graduates.

Nobody is doing that.

We're attacking you because you don't support your bull**** assertions. Every time you are challenged, you run away.

So run away.

[Elok]

I'm surprised alleged philosophers can't communicate clearly.

No, you're not. Liar.

[Kidlicious]

So what were people waiting for in the Neolithic?

Aren't you a prof? Or was that aggy? Try direct communication.

[Aeson]

Fine, but who spoke of tillage?

It's the alternative to no-till. Since no-till is reliant on herbicides, and GM presents the best possibility for future no-till crops, wanting to do away with herbicides and GMO either means you want more people starving/malnurished ... or that we till more than we are (or would have to in the future).

The opposite of intensive is extensive.

Yes. Reducing yield per unit of area makes farming less intensive ... which means more area has to be farmed to get the same level of output.

Which is a stupid thing to do... which is why extensive agriculture is only done in regions where intensive farming would be difficult to impossible.

Extensive agriculture tends towards meats and grains. I don't know why you think chopping down the rest of the world's forests to open up more pastures and/or plant more wheat is such a good idea? Grains aren't very good from an ecological standpoint, or nutrition one (when grains are such a huge portion of diets). Meats are horrible from an ecological standpoint as you just take all the bad part of grains and multiply by 4. (GM meat slabs in the future will be awesome though. We'll dump in green waste and harvest bacon and methane from it. Science! **** ya!)

The "benefit" of extensive agriculture is that it requires less labor. but labor is the one resource that we're bursting at the seems with. So yah, you're going in exactly the wrong direction.

The only way to avoid soil erosion is GMO. Sure!

It's the avenue with the most potential ... other than mass starvation or nuclear powered greenhouses. (One of those things would be good as it's the very pinnacle of intensive agriculture given our current technological level.)

This is wrong at a more fundamental level. Given the current system of incentives, production increases result in greater capital that is used to further expand production. In other words practically all efficiency gains go to additional resource extraction.

Increasing yield per unit of area decreases area necessary to be cultivated for any given level of demand for that output.

[Aeson]

Technological development is made possible by food surpluses.

So why do you want to destroy food surpluses?

[N35t0r]

Nah, we should just stop producing half of what we produce, then everybody will just eat right and nobody will starve. Food prices will very definitely not go up.

[Aeson]

More food means more people. You want us to sprint to our demise? Why enable a collapse?

More food means fatter people. People will get so fat they can't get their penis out of their fat fold and into the vagina hidden in their SO's fat folds. PROBLEM SOLVED