Organic software and open source food

[Benno]

Do you agree or disagree with the following analogy:


"Genes is to nature what source code is to software. Organic food is to my nutrition what open source software is to my user experience. Monsanto is to agriculture what Microsoft is to the information age. P2P/filesharing is compared to selective breeding and Monsantos terminator gene / annual new seeds to Microsofts server downloads."

I would highly appreciate any reasonings. Why do you disagree or agree?

By the way: I already got an article on Che-Lives E-Zine: Ecology beyond biology (http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=31) which deals with all of this ;-)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Organic food is more akin to using an abacus.

Destroying intellectual copyright laws, and taking GMOs out of the hands of corporations, and putting them into the public domain is much more "Open Source-Esque".

[leftist resistance]

:huh: :huh: :huh: ....(scratch head)

[Benno]

Originally posted by Virgin Molotov [email protected] 29 2004, 01:13 AM
Organic food is more akin to using an abacus.

Destroying intellectual copyright laws, and taking GMOs out of the hands of corporations, and putting them into the public domain is much more "Open Source-Esque".
Hello... you're on Deviantart.com too, aren't you!?

There's an important difference: Hacking genes is inherently more risky, as we have no way to foresee the full consequences. Organic agriculture is doing things in nature's own way. BUT plant biology is developing low risk methods for manipulating genes, that organic agriculture may adopt in the future.

But you're right about the other major problem with current genetically modified crops: They are a tool for corporate power. Which of course is bad. The corporations are very willing to run the risk of destroying nature, farmers shouldn't be.

[Vallegrande]

Yeah and the businesses have a way of slipping under the noses of the food inspectors in order to say their product is this or that. Such as, some foods can say they dont have trans fats, but they really do because the inspectors didn't catch it, you see? This same method is applied for other things, such as organic products. They can say they are organic, but they only have to be 75% organic to say they are. They have ways of getting around those fuckers!!

[Latifa]

The analogy does not make sense.