GMO's

[Orcris]

With the March Against Monsanto going on, I thought I'd start a discussion on genetically modified foods.

I hate Monsanto, and I'm sure most of you agree with that, but I have nothing against GMO's in general. I don't find anything inherently wrong with food being "unnatural." Almost all the food we eat has been genetically modified. It's just been done by humans over thousands of years instead of in a lab over a few months. Once the Revolution happens, I won't have any issue with people modifying foods. They can feed people more easily, and they could e modified to be more nutritious or taste better. What are your opinions on GMO's, comrades?

[helot]

Technically, genetic manipulation in one form or another has occured for thousands of years now however that's just selective breeding, it is fundamentally different to direct genetic manipulation. Having said that genetic engineering has the potential to be far more accurate in the altering of genes than selective breeding. The problem with GM is how its used. I oppose it under capitalism. It's far easier to manipulate the genes through GM in order to screw people over than through selective breeding.

[Asmo]

If this place is like most other forums you've opened a huge can of worms.
I support the concepts behind genetic modification, but I do not support them as they are currently used. We could be using GMOs to produce fuel and electricity (like those really cool algae lamps), to grow hardier food in hungry countries, to stem deforestation, to combat rising greenhouse gas concentrations, medicine, or for all kinds of scientific research, however the technology is being used to patent genetic code and to generate higher profits by making crops resistant to pesticides without regard for the environmental impact such chemicals have. In a communist society we may even use genetic modification on ourselves to create people more resilient to disease, or maybe able to freeze and thaw without major organ damage, like many frogs, for purposes of long-distance space travel or a viable cryogenic process.

[Skyhilist]

We don't need GMOs. Here's why:

-They're a waste of time and energy. Without GMOs, there's already enough food to feed 10 billion+ people. The problem is uneven distribution if resources, which is a symptom of capitalism. GMOs aren't magically going to make that go away, nor have they. People aren't starving less now under capitalism because of them.

-GMOs that are pesticide resistant tend to increase the use of pesticides in many cases, which is bad for the environment.

-GMOs lower biodiversity, which is never a good thing.

-We don't know all the health effects yet. Why take te chance?

-Finaly, GMO companies are some of the evilest fucking entities around. This is the only thing that would change if we for some reason decided to use GMOs after capitalism. The case against GMOs is still strong though. We just don't need them.

Just buy organic, honestly. Most GMO foods you'd personally buy probably come from half way around the world anyways, which means a horrible carbon footprint.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Other - if in the future we can genetically modify organisms for a clear benefit without any negative consequences, I'm all for it. in it's current state however, I dont support it for reasons explained above.

[Turinbaar]

I was wondering what the republican position is on Monsanto and others like it. I found an article that traces Monsanto history to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital. Romney is the reason why Monsanto is the giant that it is today. Their Bovine growth hormone was considered so dangerous that it was banned by Starbucks and Walmart of all places.

http://www.thenation.com/article/169885/mitt-romney-monsanto-man#

[B5C]

I support the science of GMO. GMO has a ton of benefits for mankind. We can develop food which can grow faster, much more ammounts, and grow in areas which is hard to grow crops. Which will feed people. Also modify food for growth in space when we are able to colonize the solar system.

We are developing GMO to replace fossil fuels. Also with a growing and more richer population we are having right now. We can less burden on fishing. For example we are making salmon that are able to grow faster and bigger than wild salmon. That would help save salmon populations from over fishing. GMOs can save forests by growing more in less land.

The problem with GMO right now is how it is use in Capitalism. Everyone should have access to GMOs as a benefit of humankind and not for capitalists. GMO can be benefit as long it is respected and not abused. GMO are an benefit of science and it can be good for mankind.

More info:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2013/04/12/why-organic-advocates-should-love-gmos/#.UaMEwdg4G1w

Leading Environmental Activist’s Blunt Confession: I Was Completely Wrong To Oppose GMOs:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/03/mark_lynas_environmentalist_who_opposed_gmos_admit s_he_was_wrong.html

GMO Opponents are the left's version of Climate change deniers:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_scien ce_to_scare_people_.html

Here are studies of GMO that are not funded by GMO produces and they are independent:
http://www.biofortified.org/genera/studies-for-genera/independent-funding/

I recommend watching this video:
yzTECVk8tVU

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

We don't need GMOs. Here's why:

-They're a waste of time and energy. Without GMOs, there's already enough food to feed 10 billion+ people. The problem is uneven distribution if resources, which is a symptom of capitalism. GMOs aren't magically going to make that go away, nor have they. People aren't starving less now under capitalism because of them.

Just because we produce enough food, doesn't mean there aren't other reasons for employing GMOs, like sub-optimal soil conditions and climate. If we want to retain our ability to grow massive quantities of food in the face of global climate change, then GMOs are a powerful tool for that.


-GMOs that are pesticide resistant tend to increase the use of pesticides in many cases, which is bad for the environment.

Not all GMOs are pesticide resistant, so this isn't an argument against GMOs in general.


-GMOs lower biodiversity, which is never a good thing.

How do they do that, exactly?


-We don't know all the health effects yet. Why take te chance?

Why should there be any health effects? DNA from food doesn't become part of us, it is broken down by digestive processes.


-Finaly, GMO companies are some of the evilest fucking entities around. This is the only thing that would change if we for some reason decided to use GMOs after capitalism. The case against GMOs is still strong though. We just don't need them.

I beg to differ. All companies are "evil", it's just that some are better at hiding that fact than others.

There's a lot of things we don't "need", but that's hardly a basis to oppose them.


Just buy organic, honestly.

How about fuck no?

Organic food is produced in an inefficient manner, sold at a huge mark-up to gullible middle-class types with more money than sense, and serves to push up the prices of conventional foods by the simple fact of taking up more space and time to produce less food more slowly.

If you want organic food, grow it yourself.


Most GMO foods you'd personally buy probably come from half way around the world anyways, which means a horrible carbon footprint.

Organic food can just as easily be carted across the world onto the plate of some smug git who's willing to pay twice as much for organic brown rice that tastes exactly the same as non-organic.

Here's another possibility that might just blow your mind - it's entirely possible to combine genetic modification with organic farming practices. Indeed, if you can genetically engineer a crop so that it requires less fertiliser, such a combination makes sense!

It would certainly do much to break the false dichotomy between self-serving agribusiness on the one hand and the self-serving "whole foods" business on the other.

[Djoko]

In my country there is a fuss about GMO. My current opinion is that is much better to eat GMO with very little or no pesticides than to eat "natural" food that is full of pesticides.

Arguments counter GMO are in my opinion feeble.

[Skyhilist]

Just because we produce enough food, doesn't mean there aren't other reasons for employing GMOs, like sub-optimal soil conditions and climate. If we want to retain our ability to grow massive quantities of food in the face of global climate change, then GMOs are a powerful tool for that.

Climate change won't make there be suddenly no fertile land. The fertile areas will just change from what they are now (note this isn't an argument against the seriousness of climate change). Northern Canada, for example should become fertile as temperatures continue to increase. Plus you also have to consider that earth has a population carrying capacity for humans, which we may have even already overshot. By the time we saw global warming having enough impact to change (on a global scale) where we had to grow our food, the population would most likely have stablized or gone down. Given that we can feed almost twice as many people as currently live on the world today (and billions more if we cut down on meat consumption), I find it hard to believe that we'd need to resort to GMOs. Plus, I still haven't seen it proven that they're actually feeding more people.


Not all GMOs are pesticide resistant, so this isn't an argument against GMOs in general.

Most are though, which is still problematic. Plus, do you really think a society eager to pursue GMOs who just "redo" the vast majority of them so they couldn't facilitate ecological destruction via pesticides?


How do they do that, exactly?

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21257.cfm


Why should there be any health effects? DNA from food doesn't become part of us, it is broken down by digestive processes.

That's a bad argument because it depends on what you view as adequate for food. Many who oppose GMOs don't view them as adequate for food because there haven't been enough adequate studies done on the health effects yet. It really has nothing to do with genetic material though. Toad poison is also composed of a genetic material but I wouldn't want to eat that either. Similarly, GMOs tend to contain things such as Bacillus thuringiensis genes (a toxic bacteria). If that doesn't make you not want to eat something before sufficient studies have been done on the synergistic health effects, the. I don't know what would. Even genes inserted that are harmless I'm their native organisms might have this effect when combined with the organism they're inserted into. We really don't know the synergistic effects really well.



I beg to differ. All companies are "evil", it's just that some are better at hiding that fact than others.

I wouldn't say that. I think some small business and co-ops aren't always "evil" necessarily although obviously misguided. It's not really a logical assumption to say that the amount of evil is uniform throughout the corporate world.


There's a lot of things we don't "need", but that's hardly a basis to oppose them.

In this case it's a perfectly good basis. GMOs aren't any better for you so why spend extra energy modifying them and risking all kinds of various things when we don't need to?


How about fuck no?

Organic food is produced in an inefficient manner, sold at a huge mark-up to gullible middle-class types with more money than sense, and serves to push up the prices of conventional foods by the simple fact of taking up more space and time to produce less food more slowly.

You sound pretty arrogant right here. Inefficient manner, seriously? Organic foods are the type of manner that foods grow in that's evolved over millions of years, unlike GMOs which are brand new. And also your premise that they're too expensive is hypocritical. When I said GMOs wouldn't solve the problem of unequal distribution inherent in capitalism you ignored this and seemed to assume we would be living under socialism when GMOs were produced but suddenly when it switches to organic foods it's back to capitalism again. There are plenty of places where you can find cheap, organic foods though if they're grown locally. When organic foods are more expensive it's not a problem with the foods themselves but with the nature of capitalism. So this isn't really an argument against organic. But yes, of course organic can also come from half way around the globe, but it's much easier to find locally usually and therefore has a better carbon footprint.[/QUOTE]


If you want organic food, grow it yourself.

Yes, that is also a perfectly viable option.



Here's another possibility that might just blow your mind - it's entirely possible to combine genetic modification with organic farming practices. Indeed, if you can genetically engineer a crop so that it requires less fertiliser, such a combination makes sense!

Again, seems extraneous for the reasons I already mentioned above.

Also, one point I forgot to mention. Evolution has been occurring for hundreds of millions of years to make plants the way that they are today. Humans on the other hand have been on the earth for a comparatively minuscule time period. compared to that, GMO technology has been on the earth for an even more minuscule time period. Nature already rewards the most favorable traits, and has done so over hundreds of millions of years. How arrogant of us to think that we, as humans who can't even solve our own problem half the time, can some how improve on something that nature has been producing for hundreds of millions of years, with a technology that's been around less than a century. It's just stupid, really.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Climate change won't make there be suddenly no fertile land. The fertile areas will just change from what they are now (note this isn't an argument against the seriousness of climate change). Northern Canada, for example should become fertile as temperatures continue to increase.

Climate change won't lead to any difference in light levels at higher latitudes, meaning that growing seasons in Northern Canada will be correspondingly shortened, which will impact on the quantity and quality of food produced.


Plus you also have to consider that earth has a population carrying capacity for humans, which we may have even already overshot. By the time we saw global warming having enough impact to change (on a global scale) where we had to grow our food, the population would most likely have stablized or gone down. Given that we can feed almost twice as many people as currently live on the world today (and billions more if we cut down on meat consumption), I find it hard to believe that we'd need to resort to GMOs.

Since future world population estimates vary from 5 billion to 28 billion by the year 2100, it would be foolish to ignore the potential of GMOs.

As for cutting down on meat consumption - good luck getting people to go along with that, since the incidence of meat consumption typically increases with wealth.


Plus, I still haven't seen it proven that they're actually feeding more people.

Well, we won't find out if we abandon GMOs, will we?


Most are though, which is still problematic. Plus, do you really think a society eager to pursue GMOs who just "redo" the vast majority of them so they couldn't facilitate ecological destruction via pesticides?

Then oppose GMOs modified in such a manner, not GMOs as a whole. Otherwise it's as irrational as opposing medical technologies because they can be used for cosmetic purposes, or can only currently be afforded by the rich.


http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21257.cfm

It's hard to take such criticisms without a large grain of salt when organic farmers have been spraying Bacillus thuringiensis (http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/) on their crops for decades. GMOs just cut out the biochemical middleman by having the plants produce the Bt toxin endogenously.


That's a bad argument because it depends on what you view as adequate for food. Many who oppose GMOs don't view them as adequate for food because there haven't been enough adequate studies done on the health effects yet.

We already know the health effects of consuming genetically modified organisms, because we've been doing it for millennia now. Except that now we have more precise and powerful tools with which to do so.


It really has nothing to do with genetic material though. Toad poison is also composed of a genetic material but I wouldn't want to eat that either.

Because toad poison is toxic to humans, while GMOs aren't.


Similarly, GMOs tend to contain things such as Bacillus thuringiensis genes (a toxic bacteria). If that doesn't make you not want to eat something before sufficient studies have been done on the synergistic health effects, the. I don't know what would.

I'll steer clear of organic food, then.


Even genes inserted that are harmless I'm their native organisms might have this effect when combined with the organism they're inserted into. We really don't know the synergistic effects really well.

Except that shutting down entire avenues of research is a shitty method of risk assessment. When widespread automobile ownership resulted in cities cloaked in smog, research into internal combustion engines helped to solve the problem by producing catalytic converters designed to scrub motor exhaust fumes. Since air is like food in that it is consumed by everyone, legislation was also put into force which banned specific practices like burning coal within city limits, rather than just a blanket ban on internal combustion engines being issued.


I wouldn't say that. I think some small business and co-ops aren't always "evil" necessarily although obviously misguided. It's not really a logical assumption to say that the amount of evil is uniform throughout the corporate world.

The only difference I see is one of magnitude. They're all exploitative.


In this case it's a perfectly good basis. GMOs aren't any better for you so why spend extra energy modifying them and risking all kinds of various things when we don't need to?

Because your definition of "need" is clearly different to mine. I say that industrial society needs all the agronomic tools available at its disposal to ensure a secure food supply, including genetic modification.


You sound pretty arrogant right here. Inefficient manner, seriously? Organic foods are the type of manner that foods grow in that's evolved over millions of years, unlike GMOs which are brand new.

Untrue. Organic crops have been subject to selective breeding techniques for millennia, and are deployed in conditions just as unnatural as any conventional farm. Wheat isn't native to Iowa.

Besides, that has nothing to do with efficiency in terms of weight of crop per hectare. Indeed, since natural selection doesn't happen for our benefit, it's no surprise that more "natural" methods have lower yields.


And also your premise that they're too expensive is hypocritical. When I said GMOs wouldn't solve the problem of unequal distribution inherent in capitalism you ignored this and seemed to assume we would be living under socialism when GMOs were produced but suddenly when it switches to organic foods it's back to capitalism again. There are plenty of places where you can find cheap, organic foods though if they're grown locally.

Most people live in cities, so this simply isn't an option for the majority. Given also that communism requires an advanced industrial base to exist, it won't be an option for most people under communism either.


When organic foods are more expensive it's not a problem with the foods themselves but with the nature of capitalism. So this isn't really an argument against organic. But yes, of course organic can also come from half way around the globe, but it's much easier to find locally usually and therefore has a better carbon footprint.

The problems with GMOs are also down to capitalism. I find it supremely irritating that campaigners pick up on predatory practices and the patenting of our common biological heritage to demonise GMOs when they should be attacking the system that encourages such practices.


Yes, that is also a perfectly viable option.

For people with the time and the access to suitable land, sure. Most people aren't in that situation, however.


Again, seems extraneous for the reasons I already mentioned above.

What about that much-vaunted synergy of yours? Surely combining GM with organic techniques will be more powerful than either on their own?


Also, one point I forgot to mention. Evolution has been occurring for hundreds of millions of years to make plants the way that they are today. Humans on the other hand have been on the earth for a comparatively minuscule time period. compared to that, GMO technology has been on the earth for an even more minuscule time period. Nature already rewards the most favorable traits, and has done so over hundreds of millions of years. How arrogant of us to think that we, as humans who can't even solve our own problem half the time, can some how improve on something that nature has been producing for hundreds of millions of years, with a technology that's been around less than a century. It's just stupid, really.

It's not stupid at all. In fact it is very sensible, because natural selection cares not one wit for human welfare, so any good that arises from it is entirely incidental, rather than intentional. With selective breeding and other forms of genetic modification, we don't have to wait millions of years for the dice-rolls of nature to come up in our favour.

[Althusser]

If it's in the hands of the people, I'm fine with it.

Some of those anti-GMO people remind me of those apolitical anti-nuclear energy types. Who needs 'em?

[B5C]

Why we use GMOs? Because natural selection or artificial selection through breeding is too damn slow for our benefit.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Like with any other scientific development, we cannot trust the capitalists to use it in a responsible manner. As comrades have pointed out, most of what we grow and eat has been genetically modified in the more time-tested manner. I think this is like nuclear energy. Nothing wrong with it if used responsibly, but that is not possible under capitalism. Basically, it is not our job to create food/energy policies for the bourgeoisie. We need to focus on issues that are relevant to fostering revolution. This issue is a little like global warming. My primary concern is that there will be very rapid global warming indeed when the imperialists start deploying nuclear weapons on a large scale.

[Quail]

I'm not against GMOs in principle, but I am against GMOs as they exist under capitalism.

[Skyhilist]

NoXion, my rebuttals to your points aren't in any particular order.

First of all, anyone with sunlight can grow plants. They can, for example, be grown by filling large bags up with dirt with small holes in them and planting seeds in those bags and then exposing them to sunlight (I've seen this done firsthand and it works). There are also many places in cities actually where it's possible to have gardens. But even if it weren't, people could still get relatively local food from only tens of miles away.

Selective breeding is much different from GMOs. Selective breeding favors certain genes that are already naturally occurring in an organism. GMOs take genes that aren't natural to that organism (that it hasn't ever evolved over millions of years of evolution, which is all about symbiotic relationships and the survival of life on earth as a whole) and inserts them. Completely different. It's not a "more efficient way" to selectively breed.

Canada was only one example; there will be plenty of areas that become more or less agriculturally viable as time goes on. Also, in Canada, only long-day plants would suffer. Short-day plants (which do better with more darkness) would in fact do better.

Not all organic farmers use the bacillus toxin that I mentioned.", but even if they did it wouldn't matter. i oppose it in all applications, but at least with organic foods it gets washed off (in theory, for the most part) instead of literally being incorporated into a par of your food.

When you alter the genetic makeup of something you also have to consider that you're changing the genetic makeup of an entire ecosystem. GMO crops tend to be dominant and can in effect serve as invasive species, killing off native wildlife as well.

Alright some of the figures that would fit within that range are ridiculous. We won't get anywhere near 28 billion and practically no one thinks that. If the human population could grow indefinitely, then maybe. But look how fucked up the planet is when it's only got 7 billion people. Having anywhere near 4 times that amount would obviously exceeding earth's carrying capacity for humans, which is typically estimated at about 10 billion or so (sometimes less even). Regardless, if we had more people, we'd also have more people involved in agriculture anyways, so the number we could feed would be much above the estimated 12 billion that it is now.

You're also mistaken in terms of meat consumption. Obviously developed nations consume more. But, in the last few decades the percent of vegetarians and vegans in the developed world has more than doubled and is continuing to grow exponentially. Under socialism, everyone would be educated and therefore would have the chance to a good education, and would be more aware of the sustainability of eating at a lower trophic level. This will only increase the number of people that we can feed exponentially.

You also mentioned how abandoning scientific research on GMOs would be a bad decision. I agree. My position is based on what we currently about GMOs. I'm not saying we should cease research.

You said also that unlike toad venom GMOs aren't toxic. You really can't draw this conclusion in the long run. Maybe eating fish has had it's health risks and benefits analyzed, and maybe celery has too. But has the same been done for celery with fish genes inserted into it? You'd have to do this for every single GMO crop before declaring them same for consumption. It's an enormous waste of energy and frankly, not worth it. We're not running out of food without GMOs. It's the distribution of resources that's fucked. Even if we did some how magically reach 28 billion, trying to use mechanisms to artificially raise human carrying capacity is only going to screw up the environment even more, just as it has in the past.

[Skyhilist]

Also, one more thing that I've realized I'd neglected to mention. You've already acknowledged the problems with GMOs under capitalism. So it would seem that essentially what you're arguing for is the use of GMOs under socialism/communism. But what you fail to realize is that estimates of the world's future population assume that capitalism has not been defeated. After all, overpopulation is a symptom of capitalism. Under socialism/communism, overpopulation wouldn't be a problem like it is under capitalism, or at least would be a comparator insignificant problem. This means that we wouldn't have crazy numbers like 15+ billion people. So because of this, we'd still have enough to feed everyone without GMOs had socialism been achieved. This makes GMOs an extraneous addition, even under socialism.

[smellincoffee]

I am against genetic manipulation primarily because of the power it gives those who do the manipulating. I understand why a company would want to protect the resources it dumped into this kind of tampering by barring those who buy the product voluntarily from saving seeds and getting more product "free", but when Monsanto's ilk prosecutes farmers whose crops were involuntarily contaminated by tampered genes, and bars them from saving their own seeds -- the essential practice of agriculture -- that is an outrage. I am against GMO food in general because it discourages seed-saving, which destroys self reliance. I also distrust the amount of energy and care that has to be invested in it: the system hardly seems resilient, and the 21st century will not be kind to systems that cannot adapt.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

NoXion, my rebuttals to your points aren't in any particular order.

First of all, anyone with sunlight can grow plants. They can, for example, be grown by filling large bags up with dirt with small holes in them and planting seeds in those bags and then exposing them to sunlight (I've seen this done firsthand and it works). There are also many places in cities actually where it's possible to have gardens. But even if it weren't, people could still get relatively local food from only tens of miles away.

Not all of us have the time or inclination to tend to plants, and it's a step backwards for us all to return to farming.


Selective breeding is much different from GMOs. Selective breeding favors certain genes that are already naturally occurring in an organism. GMOs take genes that aren't natural to that organism (that it hasn't ever evolved over millions of years of evolution, which is all about symbiotic relationships and the survival of life on earth as a whole) and inserts them. Completely different. It's not a "more efficient way" to selectively breed.

Why is something better simply because it is naturally occurring? That's a fallacy, you know. Natural evolution and chance mutations do not happen with our welfare in mind. In fact they don't happen with anything in mind at all, because they are wholly unthinking processes unlike human research.


Canada was only one example; there will be plenty of areas that become more or less agriculturally viable as time goes on. Also, in Canada, only long-day plants would suffer. Short-day plants (which do better with more darkness) would in fact do better.

I don't think we should be taking chances on which parts of the world will turn out better agriculturally.


Not all organic farmers use the bacillus toxin that I mentioned.", but even if they did it wouldn't matter. i oppose it in all applications, but at least with organic foods it gets washed off (in theory, for the most part) instead of literally being incorporated into a par of your food.

If it's good enough for organic farmers, why ain't it good enough for you?


When you alter the genetic makeup of something you also have to consider that you're changing the genetic makeup of an entire ecosystem. GMO crops tend to be dominant and can in effect serve as invasive species, killing off native wildlife as well.

Which is why all the untended green spaces have been overrun with GMO corn. Wait, they're actually overrun with brambles and nettles. My mistake.


Alright some of the figures that would fit within that range are ridiculous. We won't get anywhere near 28 billion and practically no one thinks that. If the human population could grow indefinitely, then maybe. But look how fucked up the planet is when it's only got 7 billion people. Having anywhere near 4 times that amount would obviously exceeding earth's carrying capacity for humans, which is typically estimated at about 10 billion or so (sometimes less even). Regardless, if we had more people, we'd also have more people involved in agriculture anyways, so the number we could feed would be much above the estimated 12 billion that it is now.

Carrying capacity is partly a function of technology. Since we're not entirely sure how future technology is likely to develop, I don't how you can so easily limit what the future population numbers are likely to be.


You're also mistaken in terms of meat consumption. Obviously developed nations consume more. But, in the last few decades the percent of vegetarians and vegans in the developed world has more than doubled and is continuing to grow exponentially.

It's clear you don't know what exponential growth is, let alone if current trends are likely to continue. I personally think the market for self-righteous vegetarians and vegans is approaching saturation point.


Under socialism, everyone would be educated and therefore would have the chance to a good education, and would be more aware of the sustainability of eating at a lower trophic level. This will only increase the number of people that we can feed exponentially.

Or they could put that education to use to improve meat production. It's what I would do.


You also mentioned how abandoning scientific research on GMOs would be a bad decision. I agree. My position is based on what we currently about GMOs. I'm not saying we should cease research.

Why don't I believe you?


You said also that unlike toad venom GMOs aren't toxic. You really can't draw this conclusion in the long run. Maybe eating fish has had it's health risks and benefits analyzed, and maybe celery has too. But has the same been done for celery with fish genes inserted into it? You'd have to do this for every single GMO crop before declaring them same for consumption.

Why? We know that celery and fish are relatively harmless. I notice that you aren't advocating the same level of insanely paranoid "caution" for any other area of human endeavour.


It's an enormous waste of energy and frankly, not worth it. We're not running out of food without GMOs. It's the distribution of resources that's fucked. Even if we did some how magically reach 28 billion, trying to use mechanisms to artificially raise human carrying capacity is only going to screw up the environment even more, just as it has in the past.

Even if populations don't significantly increase, our ability to feed that population may be affected by things such as climate change. So it's not a waste, far from it.


Also, one more thing that I've realized I'd neglected to mention. You've already acknowledged the problems with GMOs under capitalism. So it would seem that essentially what you're arguing for is the use of GMOs under socialism/communism. But what you fail to realize is that estimates of the world's future population assume that capitalism has not been defeated. After all, overpopulation is a symptom of capitalism. Under socialism/communism, overpopulation wouldn't be a problem like it is under capitalism, or at least would be a comparator insignificant problem. This means that we wouldn't have crazy numbers like 15+ billion people. So because of this, we'd still have enough to feed everyone without GMOs had socialism been achieved. This makes GMOs an extraneous addition, even under socialism.

There is no such as "overpopulation", that's a neo-Malthusian canard. There are however such things as unequal distribution, insufficient production, and poor resource management.