I don’t understand the problem people have with GMO crops. All proteins are broken down to amino acids and so genetic changes in a plant cannot affect a person unless the genetic changes are literally creating poisonous substances. Am I missing something?
Between unpredictable ("we've fucked the bees" or kudzu-style) changes to the ecosystem from "magician's apprentices" genetic engineers who understand 1/10000 of what they change, to "DRM" style control of GMO crops, a lot...
The fear some folks have is that you’re introducing new DNA and therefore changing the fitness model for a crop. Crops aren’t grown in clean rooms and the crop getting out into the wild could cause untold harm to the environment. Either by the crop growing in the wild or cross-pollinating and eventually replacing wild types.
The other issue people have with specific implementations is that big ag uses either sterility of the crop (eliminating #1) or the license agreements to prevent seed saving, effectively creating DRM for our food crops. This changes crop seeds from assets you buy once to a subscription model you’re forced to pay over and over for each season.
Finally, the actual execution of many GM changes is simply to make the plants resistant to specific heribicides, fungicides and pesticides. This allows farmers to bathe their fields in these chemicals which of course go on and leach into the environment. Not to mention killing plants, animals and insects in greater and greater quantities, which of course may also harm the bees and other pollinators.
I think #1 can be managed and avoided and in general (potentially through sterility) I’m ok with GM as a technology. However what I’m not ok with is the specific approaches big ag have been using.
At some point environmentalism stopped being rational, and turned into nature-worship. Greens consider GMOs unclean in the same way that Jews and Muslims consider pigs unclean.
1. The original motivation for opposition to GMO was mainly religious I believe ("Don't mess with the creation"), but somehow turned into "GMO is dangerous".
2. While GMO by itself is not dangerous a lot of the things that are done with it are. Roundup is very evil stuff, and GMO made it possible.
3. Another problem is also the business model behind a lot of commercial GMO crops, where the farmer essentially signs away all their rights.
2 and 3 are good reasons to be opposed to a lot of GMO.
Agreed. Genetic modification (outside the lab) has been a mainstay of plant breeding for millennia. And even in a lab environment, it can be a useful and beneficial tool.
Unfortunately, greedy corporations have used this tool to increase profits at the expense of farmers and the general population. And the hippies have reacted to this chicanery with the idea that "all GMO is bad."
But the idea that objecting to corporate misuse of GMO is somehow immoral -- well, you're a right-winger.
The genetic changes are largely to breed a stronger resistance to roundup so that farmers can coat the plants in more plant poison. Some of that poison does stick around through food processing, though I don't know how it affects people
When it's in the fields, it at least seems to be a carcinogen
It's part of a broader anti-science reaction that we need to keep a close eye on as a society. See also antivaxxers, antimaskers, etc.
USA has a serious anti-intellectualism problem (and to be honest a religion problem as well) and this is manifesting as bizarre pushbacks against some of the least harmful of modern inventions.
It's especially ironic because you don't often see these same folks pushing back against car ownership, or micro plastic accumulation from modern consumerism. Instead they advocate against GMO's, vaccines, and sometimes even birth control and abortion... all things that arguably have made the world a far better place.
I hope at some point we can move our country beyond arguing over left vs right politics and start realizing that we have deep national problems stemming from religion and our for profit higher education system. The former for actively promoting ancient morals, ideas, and belief systems, and the latter for putting modern morals, ideas, and belief systems behind a paywall that is out of reach of many Americans.
I didn't downvote, but I'm assuming that suggesting an equivalence between concerns with GMO and being antimask/antivaxx comes off as hyperbolic.
I sometimes have a difficult time separating legit benefits of GMO with shilling or astroturfing, which is unfortunate when trying to have a reasoned discussion.
It’s because they were trying to sound authoritative while presenting an evidence-free narrative which is by some strange coincidence the one favored by a well-funded corporate PR movement. Trying to paint it as anti-science ignores all of the scientists urging caution & regulation, not to mention the other arguments. The antivax and birth control complaints are similarly unfounded - you can find people with any combination of views but that one is not even remotely representative.
As a simple example of an argument which the poster omitted, I know multiple scientists - people who use genetic modification techniques for their work – who are in favor of GMOs conceptually but opposed to Monsanto’s sweeping ownership views (hybridization of GMOs with other crops), broader ecological impacts from increased pesticide usage, or want stricter regulation before things are released into the wild. None of those positions are honestly characterized as anti-science.
Just to be clear I'm opposed to Monsanto as well. I think that Monsanto is likely the company that plans to do some actual evil with GMO. But Monsanto shouldn't be the only face and implementation of GMO. We need way more GMO research right now from a larger number of organizations.
GMO's should be regulated to outlaw things like "plant DRM", but part of that governmental regulation should be active financial encouragement of more GMO research to develop and propagate hardier, more drought and heat tolerant crops so that we still have food as the world faces global warming.
This is why it is a moral issue: the longer we delay and argue about widespread GMO research and propagation the more likely we end up in a world where global warming causes dramatically reduced food availability and variety. The rich will be able to eat food that was grown in climate controlled environments, the poor will either outright starve or adopt a massively simplified and less nutritious diet.
I draw the parallels between anti GMO and anti-vaxxers because in both cases there is a hyper-focus on a few potentially bad outcomes while ignoring the massive upside. Just like anti-vaxxers worry about their kid getting autism or getting a microchip injected into them or getting injected with something harmful, I find a lot of GMO discussions devolve into excessive worry about a few edge cases that either have not happened, rarely happen, or can and should be outlawed.
I think you'll be far more successful in convincing others if you avoid sounding like you're repeating industry talking points. The “anti-science” tack is guaranteed to produce that outcome and by now many other arguments are rather muddied by all of the industry PR which has been unfolding for years.
I agree that we need GMO in our toolbox, as do almost all of the people I know who are hesitant about that, but that's only going to happen through building trust and, importantly, recognizing legitimate arguments and talking about how to address them rather than trying to claim they're not valid.
As an example of a measure I’d like to see for public health reasons, imagine addressing concerns for safety with a federal testing requirement which includes mandatory open data for all tests (no canceling if it’s not looking good) and C-level personal liability and jail time for any attempts to conceal problems or forge results to deter the next VW.
Well I'm not very effective at convincing people because I'm not getting paid to do PR here (well actually I do get paid as a developer advocate to convince people to use AWS... but that's a totally different subject).
But I agree with you, my original comment was not helpful because it got muddied by the broader topic of anti intellectualism, which I have been thinking about a lot recently.
I do think there is a serious societal problem, leading to an almost religious fervor against some modern applications of science. I think that GMO's are one target of it, right alongside vaccines and masks, to the detriment of society. That might be an industry PR talking point, but I don't think that makes it any less true.
I think another aspect of my original comment that upset people is that I expressed anti-religious sentiment in it. I know there are plenty of religious folks in tech, and no doubt many were offended by that. Personally I feel that there are two forces at work here: one is religious leaders de-educating people and the other is higher education failing to educate people well enough because colleges and universities are trying to milk money from folks.
The end result is a society where anti-intellectualism is on the rise: people don't have access to the education to understand masks, vaccines, or GMO's but they do have access to plenty of religious indoctrination that tells them that they'll be alright as long as they do things "the old fashioned / traditional way".
This manifests in so many ways, from benign things like the "Paleolithic diet" based on the idea that it is healthy to eat a diet like that of ancient humans, to harmful stuff like anti-vaxxers. I think it is all stemming from a fear of the future, which makes people want to go back to how things were done in the past.
But it is too late to go back to how things were done in the past. I see us on a tipping point that could go either way: a backslide into conservatism and decline, or a leap forward into higher tech that can help us survive looming climate change. Personally I hope it's the latter.
I take issue with Monsanto and their variously harmful practices (specifically the use of roundup, and suing farmers whose crops got cross-pollinated with nearby patented crops), not with GMO itself. So depending on how you phrase a questionnaire, I might be counted as "anti-GMO" but I'm all about sensible applications of the technology. I think a lot of folks are in this camp, but we get tarred as anti-GMO which makes the conversation divisive and not productive.
I'm against gene patents and applying property rights to life, because it leads to things like this[1]:
> Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), also known as terminator technology or suicide seeds, is the name given to proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by activating (or deactivating) some genes only in response to certain stimuli, especially to cause second generation seeds to be infertile. The development and application of GURTs is primarily an attempt by private sector agricultural breeders to increase the extent of protection on their innovations.
I'm against applying property rights to genes and think terminator genes are a particularly perverse consequence of a regime that treats genetics as private property.
Some other good comments already on changing and introducing new DNA to the world, trying to outsmart nature, and the agribusiness effort to lock farmers in to seeds. Two other things come to mind.
First, biodiversity among crops is essential for food security and ecosystem protection. When you have hectares of crops with the same genetic makeup, not only does that make the system fragile (as another reply hinted at), but it also affects the other species that depend on that crop. Perhaps this is also a complaint against monocropping, which are generally GMO operations. But more genetic diversity strengthens resilience of the crop and the system that supports and coexists among it. Spontaneity in complex systems is good because it protects from colossal crop wipe-outs. It's also the fundamental difference between hybridization and GMO, so don't ever let some jackass from Monsanto say they are merely extending farming practices of genetic modification as old as farming itself.
Second, GMOs are often created to work in tandem with pesticides. So while the genetically modified strawberry might not damage my body, that shit on it will, and that doesn't always come off with a quick rinse in the sink. Pesticide (and herbicide, fungicide, etc.) use also doesn't stop with the target species making a meal out of the crop. It kills anything like it. Case in point is the dramatic decline in pollinators and insects hence bird species[1]. Again, futzing with nature's mechanics is folly because ecosystems rely on vastly complex networks of biomes that are themselves built on complex biodiversities. The truth is that while scientists can analyze insect and bird populations, understanding the complex interplay between many species in biomes is nebulous at best and generally outright opaque. The time it takes for scientists to say "with confidence" that X-->Y-->Z takes years, and even then we're talking about 3 variables and ignoring knock-on effects.
It is high time we learn our lessons and start trying to figure out how to work with nature rather than beat it back. I am always fascinated that HN draws such a brilliant crowd yet many people around here seem convinced that technology's inexorable advances are all we need to solve our problems.
If ingestion of proteins can’t have any effect on your health, I’d like to introduce you to some prions...
I do agree that some GMO fearmongering is overblown. I’m just responding to the claim that ingested proteins can’t be absorbed or have any impact. The gut does break things down but not absolutely 100%. A little does make it into the bloodstream.
Prions via GMO plants are unlikely but foreign or altered proteins causing mysterious and really hard to isolate food allergies in fractions of the population is plausible. These could go undiagnosed for a very long time since GMOs are not labeled or tracked the way drugs or food additives are.
Most of the credible objections to GMOs revolve around their use in tandem with overuse of herbicides and pesticides (e.g. round up ready crops), the potential to impact pollinators, and gene patents and IP lock-in.
Bullshit. This kind of propaganda cheeses me off. What's unscientific is treating the only known biosphere in the entire universe as a petri dish for applications we barely understand and can't contain.
GMO's are all about the money. We can grow all the food and other crops we need without them. Whatever the glowing promises, in practice genetic modifications are used to lock-in farmers to corporate control and profits.
Check out "Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A for a scientifically-grounded real-world example of a profitable farm (in North Dakota) using no GMOs or other artificial inputs.
Farmers have already been pushing the genetic envelope of their crops for thousands of years simply by exerting evolutionary pressure towards bigger, tastier, and more drought tolerant crops. Every time a farmer decided to grow more of the seeds from one healthier looking plant vs the other they pushed the envelope of the plant's genetics a little further.
Look up some examples of what wild corn looked like several hundred years ago, versus how it looked at the start of the 20th century. This was all accomplished using natural processes and evolutionary pressure. Our biosphere has been a petri dish for thousands of years already. The farmers aren't scientists wearing lab coats but they have been modifying our plants' DNA, slowly and surely over thousands of years by propagating accidental mutations.
The problem is that today we are reaching a point where our ecosystem is changing far faster than plants can adjust using 100% natural processes. Temperatures are rising faster than they have in millions of years, and the last time we saw such a dramatic rise in temperature it was accompanied by mass extinctions.
At this rate if we still want to have food in 50 years we absolutely need to do some lab driven genetic modification to add more drought and heat tolerance (among other traits) to our crops. Otherwise we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population.
Your comment is focusing on the worst possible application of GMO, but forgetting about the tremendously good applications of GMO. The solution to the problem is simple: you outlaw the negative applications, and you encourage the positive applications. If we don't get started on this soon then we are looking at a dark future where only the richest can afford to eat like we do today.
> This was all accomplished using natural processes and evolutionary pressure.
1.) That's different than gene splicing in important ways. Personally, I don't like the argument that selection is no better than gene splicing. I don't want to get into the metaphysics of evolution, but i believe chopping and splicing DNA is fundamentally different than human-aided-natural selection.
Even then, I'm not personally against genetic engineering applications, once we have done enough research to know what we're doing. We're constantly discovering new things about how ecosystems work (like the mycelium "wood-wide web" interconnections) so I find it irrational when folks insist that there no possibility of harm to introducing gene-spliced organisms. How can we know? Give it a few hundred years.
My point is that rushing to applications is driven mostly by greed. Monsanto sells the poison and the engineered crops to withstand the poison, so you can add more poison (and Monsanto profits) and you have to buy their now-patented crops, you can't legally keep the seeds and grow your own (and again Monsanto profits.) The GMOs are just a tool to lock in the profits. And we all get to live with the effects of all that poison.
Meahwhile, folks like Gabe Brown are growing plenty of food, turning a profit year after year, without any of that.
2.) The result of agriculture is arguably population growth, resulting (eventually) in our modern anthropomorphic climate change, which might just kill us all (or most of us.) So the jury is out, eh? I mean if the Earth goes the way of Venus then, yeah, agriculture will have turned out to be a bad idea. As in, "we never should have climbed down from the trees in the first place." Not to be a downer, I'm just saying.
> At this rate if we still want to have food in 50 years we absolutely need to do some lab driven genetic modification to add more drought and heat tolerance (among other traits) to our crops. Otherwise we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population.
I know of one geneticist who is breeding (not splicing) tomatoes in such a way as to come up with a super mother tomato plant, where every seed in every tomato on every plant will be a different variety. The idea is you grow a wad of these seeds in your locale and then develop your own "land race" tomato variety adapted to your local conditions. He's doing this in his backyard, no "lab driven genetic modification" needed.
Now that's something in the grey area between pure natural selection and "mad scientist tinkering with God's handiwork", eh? Maybe he will cause some sort of massive natural disaster, some monster (like the Bradford pear[1]), but it's not in the same league as Monsanto's poison-tolerating beans.
> Your comment is focusing on the worst possible application of GMO, but forgetting about the tremendously good applications of GMO.
Like what?
> The solution to the problem is simple: you outlaw the negative applications, and you encourage the positive applications.
That's no solution at all if you can't predict the negative side effects of the applications, eh? The law has no oracle. Everyone involved thought the Bradford pear was a good thing.
> If we don't get started on this soon then we are looking at a dark future where only the richest can afford to eat like we do today.
FWIW, I'm into ecological/regenerative agriculture, and as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. Even the effects of climate change can be mitigated. We don't need GMOs.
> as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well.
and
> we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population.
are not mutually exclusive statements. As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we used to grow them on will be turning into a desert.
Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops. This is a situation where the rich will be able to survive, while the poor suffer.
GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today.
> As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to
being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we
used to grow them on will be turning into a desert.
We can find or develop new drought- and heat-tolerant varieties, like the
tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius)[1].
More importantly, we can alter the climate directly though our patterns
of agriculture and horticulture.[2][3]
> Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous
demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops.
FWIW, there's a very interesting talk about that[4] and one of the take-aways
is that we may well see e.g. Bangladesh unilaterally pursuing
geoengineering solutions, not waiting for international consensus.
> GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best
one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if
we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what
we enjoy today.
I'm not actually against genetic engineering, I just think we should wait
a few hundred years, until we have a better idea of how life works -OR-
some extra-terrestrial biospheres in which to experiment without risking
Earth at all.
In the meantime, I believe we already have all the biological diversity
we need to tackle the coming challenges already, we just have to
recognize and use it.
In any event, the OP is BS propaganda, not science, eh?
[1] "Phaseolus acutifolius, or the Tepary bean, is a legume native to the
southwestern United States and Mexico and has been grown there by the
native peoples since pre-Columbian times. It is more drought-resistant
than the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and is grown in desert and
semi-desert conditions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_acutifolius
[2] "Greening the Desert II"
> This half hour video documents the ongoing work of Permaculture Gurus,
Geoff and Nadia Lawton, in the Dead Sea Valley. It begins with the famous
original 'Greening the Desert' five minute video clip, and then continues
into Part II, a 2009 update to the 2001 original.
> When there’s no soil, no water, no shade, and where the sun beats down
on you to the tune of over 50°C (122°F), the word ‘poverty’ begins to
take on a whole new meaning. It is distinct and surreal. It’s a land of
dust, flies, intense heat and almost complete dependency on supply lines
outside of ones control.
[3] "Regreening the desert with John D. Liu" | VPRO Documentary | 2012
> Liu filmed the Loess-plateau in China. He witnessed a local population
who turned an area of almost the same size as The Netherlands from a dry,
exhausted wasteland into one green oasis.
> I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic
Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well,
there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said,
“have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he
said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?”
I don't think we are disagreeing here, I'm just saying that I see a future where poor people have to rely on tepary beans to survive as pretty dark. We are talking about a wild crop variety that has lower yields, so that could absolutely mean starvation for many at our current population level. There is a lot of inefficient wiggle room in the system, though. Like if we stopped eating so much meat then maybe we could get by on tepary beans if we need to because we wouldn't need to grow so much animal feed. But it would still be a massive decrease in the quality of our diets.
I think geoengineering is something we are going to have to do as well, but I worry that the cost and effort involved will make it into something that benefits only the richest humans. Maybe we successfully geoengineer some areas into ideal crop growing conditions again, but that likely leaves the vast majority of humans still suffering the effects of climate change and eating tepary beans, while a few lucky (and likely wealthy) people in geoengineered areas can live with the same standards that we do today.
Can we say for sure that we fully understand anything?
Heck, even the drugs we take to treat depression end up in fish and amphibians, and fossil fuel 100 years later causes our climate to radically change.
I think that compared to all the risks humans have ever taken, GMOs are ranked on low-risk side of the spectrum.
People have been engineering crops for more than 5,000 years, the only difference is that we can do it now much faster and much more precise.
GMOs have the potential to improve health and reduce food cost significantly. We have to distinguish between the technology and the way the corporations are making use of it
It's funny that the picture in the article is from Monsanto given that we have recently (in the past 2 years) determined that roundup does in fact cause cancer.
It's also funny to note that there was a widespread disinformation campaign (that I personally fell for) paid by Monsanto to spread these kind of talking points. ie equating being anti-gmo with being anti-science. They directly targeted websites like reddit and hackernews with their misinformation.
To put it lightly, this article has aged horribly.
37 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 81.4 ms ] threadThe other issue people have with specific implementations is that big ag uses either sterility of the crop (eliminating #1) or the license agreements to prevent seed saving, effectively creating DRM for our food crops. This changes crop seeds from assets you buy once to a subscription model you’re forced to pay over and over for each season.
Finally, the actual execution of many GM changes is simply to make the plants resistant to specific heribicides, fungicides and pesticides. This allows farmers to bathe their fields in these chemicals which of course go on and leach into the environment. Not to mention killing plants, animals and insects in greater and greater quantities, which of course may also harm the bees and other pollinators.
I think #1 can be managed and avoided and in general (potentially through sterility) I’m ok with GM as a technology. However what I’m not ok with is the specific approaches big ag have been using.
2. While GMO by itself is not dangerous a lot of the things that are done with it are. Roundup is very evil stuff, and GMO made it possible.
3. Another problem is also the business model behind a lot of commercial GMO crops, where the farmer essentially signs away all their rights.
2 and 3 are good reasons to be opposed to a lot of GMO.
https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/PrecautionaryPrinciple.ht...
When it's in the fields, it at least seems to be a carcinogen
USA has a serious anti-intellectualism problem (and to be honest a religion problem as well) and this is manifesting as bizarre pushbacks against some of the least harmful of modern inventions.
It's especially ironic because you don't often see these same folks pushing back against car ownership, or micro plastic accumulation from modern consumerism. Instead they advocate against GMO's, vaccines, and sometimes even birth control and abortion... all things that arguably have made the world a far better place.
I hope at some point we can move our country beyond arguing over left vs right politics and start realizing that we have deep national problems stemming from religion and our for profit higher education system. The former for actively promoting ancient morals, ideas, and belief systems, and the latter for putting modern morals, ideas, and belief systems behind a paywall that is out of reach of many Americans.
I sometimes have a difficult time separating legit benefits of GMO with shilling or astroturfing, which is unfortunate when trying to have a reasoned discussion.
As a simple example of an argument which the poster omitted, I know multiple scientists - people who use genetic modification techniques for their work – who are in favor of GMOs conceptually but opposed to Monsanto’s sweeping ownership views (hybridization of GMOs with other crops), broader ecological impacts from increased pesticide usage, or want stricter regulation before things are released into the wild. None of those positions are honestly characterized as anti-science.
GMO's should be regulated to outlaw things like "plant DRM", but part of that governmental regulation should be active financial encouragement of more GMO research to develop and propagate hardier, more drought and heat tolerant crops so that we still have food as the world faces global warming.
This is why it is a moral issue: the longer we delay and argue about widespread GMO research and propagation the more likely we end up in a world where global warming causes dramatically reduced food availability and variety. The rich will be able to eat food that was grown in climate controlled environments, the poor will either outright starve or adopt a massively simplified and less nutritious diet.
I draw the parallels between anti GMO and anti-vaxxers because in both cases there is a hyper-focus on a few potentially bad outcomes while ignoring the massive upside. Just like anti-vaxxers worry about their kid getting autism or getting a microchip injected into them or getting injected with something harmful, I find a lot of GMO discussions devolve into excessive worry about a few edge cases that either have not happened, rarely happen, or can and should be outlawed.
I agree that we need GMO in our toolbox, as do almost all of the people I know who are hesitant about that, but that's only going to happen through building trust and, importantly, recognizing legitimate arguments and talking about how to address them rather than trying to claim they're not valid.
But I agree with you, my original comment was not helpful because it got muddied by the broader topic of anti intellectualism, which I have been thinking about a lot recently.
I do think there is a serious societal problem, leading to an almost religious fervor against some modern applications of science. I think that GMO's are one target of it, right alongside vaccines and masks, to the detriment of society. That might be an industry PR talking point, but I don't think that makes it any less true.
I think another aspect of my original comment that upset people is that I expressed anti-religious sentiment in it. I know there are plenty of religious folks in tech, and no doubt many were offended by that. Personally I feel that there are two forces at work here: one is religious leaders de-educating people and the other is higher education failing to educate people well enough because colleges and universities are trying to milk money from folks.
The end result is a society where anti-intellectualism is on the rise: people don't have access to the education to understand masks, vaccines, or GMO's but they do have access to plenty of religious indoctrination that tells them that they'll be alright as long as they do things "the old fashioned / traditional way".
This manifests in so many ways, from benign things like the "Paleolithic diet" based on the idea that it is healthy to eat a diet like that of ancient humans, to harmful stuff like anti-vaxxers. I think it is all stemming from a fear of the future, which makes people want to go back to how things were done in the past.
But it is too late to go back to how things were done in the past. I see us on a tipping point that could go either way: a backslide into conservatism and decline, or a leap forward into higher tech that can help us survive looming climate change. Personally I hope it's the latter.
> Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), also known as terminator technology or suicide seeds, is the name given to proposed methods for restricting the use of genetically modified plants by activating (or deactivating) some genes only in response to certain stimuli, especially to cause second generation seeds to be infertile. The development and application of GURTs is primarily an attempt by private sector agricultural breeders to increase the extent of protection on their innovations.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_techno...
First, biodiversity among crops is essential for food security and ecosystem protection. When you have hectares of crops with the same genetic makeup, not only does that make the system fragile (as another reply hinted at), but it also affects the other species that depend on that crop. Perhaps this is also a complaint against monocropping, which are generally GMO operations. But more genetic diversity strengthens resilience of the crop and the system that supports and coexists among it. Spontaneity in complex systems is good because it protects from colossal crop wipe-outs. It's also the fundamental difference between hybridization and GMO, so don't ever let some jackass from Monsanto say they are merely extending farming practices of genetic modification as old as farming itself.
Second, GMOs are often created to work in tandem with pesticides. So while the genetically modified strawberry might not damage my body, that shit on it will, and that doesn't always come off with a quick rinse in the sink. Pesticide (and herbicide, fungicide, etc.) use also doesn't stop with the target species making a meal out of the crop. It kills anything like it. Case in point is the dramatic decline in pollinators and insects hence bird species[1]. Again, futzing with nature's mechanics is folly because ecosystems rely on vastly complex networks of biomes that are themselves built on complex biodiversities. The truth is that while scientists can analyze insect and bird populations, understanding the complex interplay between many species in biomes is nebulous at best and generally outright opaque. The time it takes for scientists to say "with confidence" that X-->Y-->Z takes years, and even then we're talking about 3 variables and ignoring knock-on effects.
It is high time we learn our lessons and start trying to figure out how to work with nature rather than beat it back. I am always fascinated that HN draws such a brilliant crowd yet many people around here seem convinced that technology's inexorable advances are all we need to solve our problems.
[1]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pesticides-have-le...
I do agree that some GMO fearmongering is overblown. I’m just responding to the claim that ingested proteins can’t be absorbed or have any impact. The gut does break things down but not absolutely 100%. A little does make it into the bloodstream.
Prions via GMO plants are unlikely but foreign or altered proteins causing mysterious and really hard to isolate food allergies in fractions of the population is plausible. These could go undiagnosed for a very long time since GMOs are not labeled or tracked the way drugs or food additives are.
Most of the credible objections to GMOs revolve around their use in tandem with overuse of herbicides and pesticides (e.g. round up ready crops), the potential to impact pollinators, and gene patents and IP lock-in.
GMO's are all about the money. We can grow all the food and other crops we need without them. Whatever the glowing promises, in practice genetic modifications are used to lock-in farmers to corporate control and profits.
Check out "Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem with Gabe Brown Part 1, The 5 Tenets of Soil Health" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A for a scientifically-grounded real-world example of a profitable farm (in North Dakota) using no GMOs or other artificial inputs.
Look up some examples of what wild corn looked like several hundred years ago, versus how it looked at the start of the 20th century. This was all accomplished using natural processes and evolutionary pressure. Our biosphere has been a petri dish for thousands of years already. The farmers aren't scientists wearing lab coats but they have been modifying our plants' DNA, slowly and surely over thousands of years by propagating accidental mutations.
The problem is that today we are reaching a point where our ecosystem is changing far faster than plants can adjust using 100% natural processes. Temperatures are rising faster than they have in millions of years, and the last time we saw such a dramatic rise in temperature it was accompanied by mass extinctions.
At this rate if we still want to have food in 50 years we absolutely need to do some lab driven genetic modification to add more drought and heat tolerance (among other traits) to our crops. Otherwise we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population.
Your comment is focusing on the worst possible application of GMO, but forgetting about the tremendously good applications of GMO. The solution to the problem is simple: you outlaw the negative applications, and you encourage the positive applications. If we don't get started on this soon then we are looking at a dark future where only the richest can afford to eat like we do today.
1.) That's different than gene splicing in important ways. Personally, I don't like the argument that selection is no better than gene splicing. I don't want to get into the metaphysics of evolution, but i believe chopping and splicing DNA is fundamentally different than human-aided-natural selection.
Even then, I'm not personally against genetic engineering applications, once we have done enough research to know what we're doing. We're constantly discovering new things about how ecosystems work (like the mycelium "wood-wide web" interconnections) so I find it irrational when folks insist that there no possibility of harm to introducing gene-spliced organisms. How can we know? Give it a few hundred years.
My point is that rushing to applications is driven mostly by greed. Monsanto sells the poison and the engineered crops to withstand the poison, so you can add more poison (and Monsanto profits) and you have to buy their now-patented crops, you can't legally keep the seeds and grow your own (and again Monsanto profits.) The GMOs are just a tool to lock in the profits. And we all get to live with the effects of all that poison.
Meahwhile, folks like Gabe Brown are growing plenty of food, turning a profit year after year, without any of that.
2.) The result of agriculture is arguably population growth, resulting (eventually) in our modern anthropomorphic climate change, which might just kill us all (or most of us.) So the jury is out, eh? I mean if the Earth goes the way of Venus then, yeah, agriculture will have turned out to be a bad idea. As in, "we never should have climbed down from the trees in the first place." Not to be a downer, I'm just saying.
> At this rate if we still want to have food in 50 years we absolutely need to do some lab driven genetic modification to add more drought and heat tolerance (among other traits) to our crops. Otherwise we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population.
I know of one geneticist who is breeding (not splicing) tomatoes in such a way as to come up with a super mother tomato plant, where every seed in every tomato on every plant will be a different variety. The idea is you grow a wad of these seeds in your locale and then develop your own "land race" tomato variety adapted to your local conditions. He's doing this in his backyard, no "lab driven genetic modification" needed.
Now that's something in the grey area between pure natural selection and "mad scientist tinkering with God's handiwork", eh? Maybe he will cause some sort of massive natural disaster, some monster (like the Bradford pear[1]), but it's not in the same league as Monsanto's poison-tolerating beans.
> Your comment is focusing on the worst possible application of GMO, but forgetting about the tremendously good applications of GMO.
Like what?
> The solution to the problem is simple: you outlaw the negative applications, and you encourage the positive applications.
That's no solution at all if you can't predict the negative side effects of the applications, eh? The law has no oracle. Everyone involved thought the Bradford pear was a good thing.
> If we don't get started on this soon then we are looking at a dark future where only the richest can afford to eat like we do today.
FWIW, I'm into ecological/regenerative agriculture, and as long as people have access to land and seeds we can eat well. Even the effects of climate change can be mitigated. We don't need GMOs.
[1]
Have you read the Sacred Cow or watch the doc yet? Great stuff! I’m glad this information is slowly starting to spill into the mainstream.
and
> we are looking at a future with at best greatly reduced food variety for the vast majority of the population, and at worst outright starvation for large portions of our population.
are not mutually exclusive statements. As global warming progresses, a lot of the seeds that we are used to being able to grow aren't going to grow anymore, and the land that we used to grow them on will be turning into a desert.
Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops. This is a situation where the rich will be able to survive, while the poor suffer.
GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today.
We can find or develop new drought- and heat-tolerant varieties, like the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius)[1].
More importantly, we can alter the climate directly though our patterns of agriculture and horticulture.[2][3]
> Within 50 years there's going to be mass migrations and tremendous demand for the land that is still viable for growing crops.
FWIW, there's a very interesting talk about that[4] and one of the take-aways is that we may well see e.g. Bangladesh unilaterally pursuing geoengineering solutions, not waiting for international consensus.
> GMO definitely isn't the only solution, and it may not even be the best one but it is one field that we need to deeply investigate and try out if we want our species to survive with a similar standard of living to what we enjoy today.
I'm not actually against genetic engineering, I just think we should wait a few hundred years, until we have a better idea of how life works -OR- some extra-terrestrial biospheres in which to experiment without risking Earth at all.
In the meantime, I believe we already have all the biological diversity we need to tackle the coming challenges already, we just have to recognize and use it.
In any event, the OP is BS propaganda, not science, eh?
[1] "Phaseolus acutifolius, or the Tepary bean, is a legume native to the southwestern United States and Mexico and has been grown there by the native peoples since pre-Columbian times. It is more drought-resistant than the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and is grown in desert and semi-desert conditions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_acutifolius
[2] "Greening the Desert II"
> This half hour video documents the ongoing work of Permaculture Gurus, Geoff and Nadia Lawton, in the Dead Sea Valley. It begins with the famous original 'Greening the Desert' five minute video clip, and then continues into Part II, a 2009 update to the 2001 original.
> When there’s no soil, no water, no shade, and where the sun beats down on you to the tune of over 50°C (122°F), the word ‘poverty’ begins to take on a whole new meaning. It is distinct and surreal. It’s a land of dust, flies, intense heat and almost complete dependency on supply lines outside of ones control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VGHoxpYlWQ
[3] "Regreening the desert with John D. Liu" | VPRO Documentary | 2012
> Liu filmed the Loess-plateau in China. He witnessed a local population who turned an area of almost the same size as The Netherlands from a dry, exhausted wasteland into one green oasis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI
[4] Dr. Gwynne Dyer – Geopolitics in a Hotter World – UBC Talk Transcribed (Sept. 2010) https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geo... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY
> I talked–actually, the head of the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies about this (you didn’t even know that existed, did you?). Well, there is one, it’s quite serious–run by a General, bright guy. I said, “have you heard about geoengineering?” and he smiled–seraphically–and he said, “Mmm. Yes. Your question?”
> And I asked...
I think geoengineering is something we are going to have to do as well, but I worry that the cost and effort involved will make it into something that benefits only the richest humans. Maybe we successfully geoengineer some areas into ideal crop growing conditions again, but that likely leaves the vast majority of humans still suffering the effects of climate change and eating tepary beans, while a few lucky (and likely wealthy) people in geoengineered areas can live with the same standards that we do today.
I think that compared to all the risks humans have ever taken, GMOs are ranked on low-risk side of the spectrum. People have been engineering crops for more than 5,000 years, the only difference is that we can do it now much faster and much more precise.
GMOs have the potential to improve health and reduce food cost significantly. We have to distinguish between the technology and the way the corporations are making use of it
Anyone who is busy worrying about the morality of other people’s diet needs a hobby.
It's also funny to note that there was a widespread disinformation campaign (that I personally fell for) paid by Monsanto to spread these kind of talking points. ie equating being anti-gmo with being anti-science. They directly targeted websites like reddit and hackernews with their misinformation.
To put it lightly, this article has aged horribly.