> The problem with GMO is that it's basically a vendor lock-in scheme for agribusiness giants. It's not a good engineering solution to the real food problems we face.
GMO isn't that, Monsanto is that, and the fucked up patent system is like that.
This is like creationists saying they dislike evolution, when they really mean they dislike abiogenesis, but accept everything else about evolutionary theory.
But why is Monsanto pursuing GMO? What problem are they really trying to solve? It's not a problem of food supply. It's a problem of getting greater control and higher profits out of a saturated market.
What's good for a single business is often not good for the general public.
I am listening - but I'm also educating. "Open and generous" covers both sides. I've been studying this issue for a long time - I first got involved with hunger issues when I was a kid, and later as a young adult during the Ethiopian famine.
Years of study have convinced me that the general train of thought expressed here is wrong - and have given me a theory for a reason that so many smart people are wrong about it. The wrong idea, imho, is the idea that hunger comes from insufficient food production, and that exotic technology (GMO) will solve the production problem, thus ending hunger. I think this is wrong on both counts.
The reason so many people here believe something I find obviously wrong is because of basic technofetishism. We love "science". We love exotic technology. And we want to believe exotic technology can make the world better, because it so often has. So people are starting by jumping to a conclusion (GMO is good, because science!), and working backwards to a problem they imagine it can solve (hunger). But that's not critical thinking. That's wishful thinking.
Problems first. Figure out what the actual problems are, and why we have them. Apply the Five Whys.
I regret to inform you that there is a word for what you are engaging in, and it is not a member of the set ["listening", "educating"]. Your ardor suggests something else entirely.
I am disquieted that someone who professes to care as deeply as you seems to have failed to grasp the positions of those with whom they disagree. You have caricatured those who disagree with you as technofetishists who believe MORE PRODUCTION solves all things, incapable of seeing beyond what might be done with the newest technotoy. Whereas you know better and emerge to enlighten the benighted.
I have seen this pattern before. It seems to repeatedly emerge in activists of all stripes. I wish you the best of luck.
Okay, so I'm listening. You argue that I have caricatured those I disagree with as mere technofetishists (to be fair, I've also characterized most anti-GMO arguments as Luddite).
If the argument for GMO crops is not that more production will solve the hunger problem, then what is the intent? And do you believe this represents the majority of pro-GMO arguments?
Please, understand that I love being proven wrong. If I can be convinced to change my mind on something I care about, I'm smarter for it. But it requires more than telling me I'm wrong. Tell me what's right.
Ah okay good, I'm mostly just responding to the folks who think GMOs are bad because of how Monsanto abuses intellectual property rights surrounding them.
I don't think GMOs are bad. I do think they don't solve actual problems the world faces, and introduce new problems (including but not limited to Monsanto's intellectual property abuses).
What I want to see is more focus on eating local, more decentralization of the food supply, and for people to care more about what they eat - as an aesthetic and moral experience. It's about health, and quality of life, and freedom, none of which are enhanced by loading another round into Monsanto's chamber.
"Actual problems" is a weasel phrase, I don't really know what to do with it. How are you defining "actual problems"?
And can we please separate Monsanto from GMOs? They're two entirely separate things.
It reminds me a bit of creationists who claim they don't accept evolution, when in reality what they don't accept is abiogenesis. Natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow, are not really on their minds.
It may be easier to say "GMOs don't solve actual problems", but it's just not true (bananas are supposed to have seeds, for example -- are you saying bananas aren't useful?), and bleeds your argument dry of rationality, over the course of the conversation, because it pulls focus away from the actual issue, and that's the fucked up way Monsanto is using GMOs to bully people out of their livelihood (and in some cases, their lives).
Actual problems... hunger and malnutrition. Obesity and diabetes. Food deserts. Increasing concentration of the food supply in the hands of powerful megacorporations. Loss of biodiversity. Farmers trapped in cycles of crippling debt. Dislocated workers. Desertification. Governments largely under control of financial interests.
That's a start.
(ps: Bananas are not GMO. Seedless bananas and other fruits are the result of selective breeding, not laboratory alteration. Also, look up the history of the once-dominant Gros Michael banana for what happens when you rely on uniform planting of genetic clones.)
Selective breeding is GMO, and why does GMO have to solve any of those problems?
That's like saying we shouldn't have professional sports because they don't solve obesity.
What I'm generally getting at is the hate for GMO is unfounded. It's like hating a screwgun or hammer when your contractor messes up building your kitchen.
GMO isn't that, Monsanto is that, and the fucked up patent system is like that.
This is like creationists saying they dislike evolution, when they really mean they dislike abiogenesis, but accept everything else about evolutionary theory.