High Street at Cruelery.com - The Web's Bitter Afterbirth / The Future of Food

sofaking · 2007-10-20 00:47:57

This is insane.

orangeplus · 2007-10-20 00:59:41

What a load of crap.

Sofie, I can't believe you'd post this humorless hippie bullshit.

Are you saying that we shouldn't do genetic engineering? Are there problems to the way it's being done now? sure, there's problems to doing everything new. If you want to say that genetic engineering doesn't have positive effects in people's lives. I say you're wrong.

sofaking · 2007-10-20 01:02:16

You gotta watch it. I know it's long.

orangeplus · 2007-10-20 01:16:59

I have watched it, I saw it years ago. As a documentary it's a mess, it has a central theme, but mixes in tangential issues about agriculture, corporations and subsidies. If it stuck to a single issue in a very complex issue it might find itself persuasive. Instead it throws out constant streams of scaryness and badness to emotionally manipulate you into agreeing with it's premise, ge food = bad. Frankly, I don't buy it. Firstly, they're flat wrong on one issue, the FDA is harder on GE food than any other kind of food available. Problems have happened, ge food has ended up in places it shouldn't have, better controls are needed.

Genetic engineering will happen and it has potentials that we can't even imagine yet. And problems that we cannot imagine yet. Those problems do not mean ge = bad, it just means that we need to be careful with it. Either way it doesn't matter, the cat is out of the bag and it'll never get stuffed back in, grad students can engineer new plants and microorganisms now. 100% of all the insulin produced in the US is made from ge'd strains which has slashed the cost.

As to the tangentials, do away with agricultural subsidies, you'll make me happier, break up the corps, you'll make me happy.

At the end of the day I believe in the axiom that used to be the greeting message at The Well:

We have become as gods, and we might as well get good at it.

sofaking · 2007-10-20 01:20:48

orangeplus wrote:
At the end of the day I believe in the axiom that used to be the greeting message at The Well:

We have become as gods, and we might as well get good at it.

Indeed.

That article was great.

choad · 2007-10-20 01:33:31

orangeplus wrote:
Sofie, I can't believe you'd post this humorless hippie bullshit.

I agree it's humorless, poorly executed and might easily date from 1980, but it's largely accurate, Orange. I can prove that last sentence, too but it's not a happy story and as I say, it's old news. If you're interested, let me know.

opsec · 2007-10-20 01:41:17

One of the legitimate problems is with genetic IP. Big Ag wants to own your seed..

This ain't like Big Sugar's penny a pound.

choad · 2007-10-20 01:49:57

opsec wrote:
Big Ag wants to own your seed..

Big Ag does own your seed. Big Pharma owns your genetics. And big Oil owns them all.

Eat the rich. The poor are tough and stringy.

fnord · 2007-10-20 02:27:03

The Law of Unintended Consequences has already proved to be a bitch. BT corn produces toxic pollen which contains an insecticide. While corn is primarily wind pollinated, bees will gather corn pollen to feed to their larvae. This is one factor in the reduction of honeybee colonies. This pollen also lands on milkweed, a plant of no economic value to humans, but is the food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars. Guess what happens to caterpillars which eat enough of this insecticide? Monarch butterflies are pollinators, so the adults do have economic value to us in addition to being aesthetically pleasing to have around.