The damn hippies are at it again...

Troubleshooter · 03-02-2005, 01:31 PM

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb030205.shtml

Attack of the Killer Crops?
Activists still trying to scare poor farmers with bad science
Ronald Bailey

Activists are again trying to frighten poor people in developing countries by claiming the U.S. is poisoning them with genetically modified food. Never mind that 280 million Americans have been eating biotech-enhanced crops for nearly a decade with zero evidence that it has caused anyone so much as a sniffle or a bellyache.

Friends of the Earth tested samples of corn and soybean distributed both commercially and as aid to several Central American countries, to see if they contained genetically modified varieties. They really needn't have bothered, since it's public knowledge that 85 percent of U.S. soybean acreage and 45 percent of its corn are sown in biotech crop varieties that are resistant to pests and herbicides. What would be surprising is if they found no genetically enhanced corn or soybeans in food shipments from the States. The activists merely went through the motions of testing the crops to place a scientific façade on their latest biotech scare.

...snip...

The world's poor farmers recognize this, even if the anti-biotech activists who claim to speak for them don't. Thousands of poor Indian farmers nearly rioted in 2002 when the Indian government, spurred on by activists, was poised to destroy the genetically modified pest-resistant cotton they had planted. Faced with this farmer revolt, the Indian government backed down. The subsequent crops of biotech cotton performed spectacularly, boosting yields as much as 80 percent, reducing pesticide use by 70 percent and increasing farmers' cotton-related income fivefold.

jaguar · 03-02-2005, 01:43 PM

ah reason, that bastion of unbiased discussion. There are a number of issues with GE crops. Particularly for 3rd world farmers one of the most serious is that it makes them entirely beholden to corporations like Monsanto, seed cannot be saved, they become entirely dependant. As for the no side effects....there's been some interesting cases over time, modifications of production of growth hormone in fish caused massive deformities and behaviour changes, modified yeast for alcohol production suddenly started producing toxins. Most of the techniques used in GE are, compared to the complexity of the systems they are modifying, rudimentary and companies like Monsanto have proven themselves to be distinctly caviller about environmental safety. Good things can and may comes out of GE but there are very notable dangers, pretending there are no downsides or risks is no better.

Troubleshooter · 03-02-2005, 02:02 PM

Oh I know. It's just that it's so much fun to pick on the hippies.

Until more GE crops get out there for testing, as well as so other companies can study (or reverse engineer) them it's going to be hard to have concrete, legitimate study.

jaguar · 03-02-2005, 02:05 PM

well I didn't expect any better from the beloved Reason either, I'm with you that far. It's easy enough to have a study, there's plenty around, most risks are species dependant, some might not be noticeable for a long time, time will tell.

BigV · 03-02-2005, 02:46 PM

Hey TS:

Have you noticed trends like this? I went into a Best Buy this holiday season and I saw a nice little inkjet printer for less than $10!! Wow, I thought. That's a twentieth of what I would/could have paid a year or so earlier for comparable technology. Neato!

As I checked out a little more, I learned that the ink refills were more than $40 and would last for only a couple of reams of paper. So owning one of these beasts meant that my upfront costs were spectacularly low, but the ongoing care and feeding costs were much higher. (I guess I should have bought 20 of the printers and scavenged the ink cartridges...another story) The manufacturers were protecting their investment.

How about this: the new Napster compares $10,000 to have a new ipod full of songs to $15 for a flash mp3 gadget with the same quantity of music. How can they do it? Well, it turns out you only rent the music, and the $15 is an ongoing monthly subscription fee. You're not buying the music, just paying to listen to it, certainly a different spin on the conventional thoughts about portable music.

These are just two examples where a company takes an idea for a product or service and ac-sen-chu-ates the positive and eliminates (rather, hides in plain sight) the negative. You want color print? Buy me. You want to roll with the Rolling Stones? Buy me. In both cases the real cost comes later. Yah, I know, caveat emptor. Fine, point taken. But these are well established business models, for things that are clearly discretionary. But things like soybeans and cotton do not fall into such categories.

When a company makes the investment, major investment, in a product technology like GM crops, it has a corporate imperative to seek a return on that investment. When that imperative is obscured and ingnored by the glare and blare of the front-end benefit, (70% increase in crop yields, 20,000 songs for $15, etc) I see a conflict coming, this kind of conflict. And this and this and this.

I tried not to compare this to a drug dealer and have conceded to my baser instincts. "Hey man, first taste is free!" Just today I saw an ad for "Bad Credit Refinancing of Second Mortgages--4 offers in 60 seconds". What about America's long term (no end in sight) petro-chemical dependency issues? Don't get me started on Global Warming... This whole behavior of low cost, low pain right now -- high cost, high pain later is pervasive and NOT in our long term best interest.

I do not want to curse our future generations with the prospect of being enslaved to the corporations that could/should/would withhold their daily bread. That is Not Right.

Don't misunderstand me, I am no luddite (although I have on sunny summer days been inexplicably unable to find batteries for the kid's GameBoy or the PS/2's power adapter...) There are real, tangible, desirable benefits to most technological advances. Unsurprisingly, that's why they call it Progress. But to march onward without consideration of what lies ahead is not progress, it's just mileage. To discard inconvenient data, to ignore context and disregard consequences while pressing the technical accelerator to the marketing metal is like riding along with Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. You might not crash and burn right away, you will need clean drawers right away, but you've got to stop and let someone who can see take over the driver's seat if you want to get safely to your destination.

Schrodinger's Cat · 03-02-2005, 07:47 PM

Well - in the face of that -

I was merely going to add the comment that GE crops often result in monoculture. Instead of growing several different strains of rice, for example, the third world farmer grows only one - the latest and greatest GE species. That's nice until a pathogen outsmarts the scientists (yes, viruses are smarter than scientists as anyone who has the flu can attest).

If a disease sweeps through an agricultural crop where farmers are growing different strains, some varieties will prove more resistant than others and the entire food supply will not end up being wiped out. However, if you are growing only one variety of a grain and your neighbors are only growing that variety and, in fact, your entire country is growing that one same variety, you are pratically begging to become the center of attention for the next famine relief effort.

russotto · 03-04-2005, 09:50 AM

Monocultures aren't caused by or restricted to GE. Neither is non-viable seed. Modern hybrids produced the old-fashioned way result in the same issues.

Not that Monsanto (or whoever owns the GE crop division now) isn't a bastion of corporate evil. They ARE the people who bought a Supreme Court decision which says that if some of their pollen gets on your crop and results in fertile offspring, you're violating their patent.

xoxoxoBruce · 03-04-2005, 08:48 PM

The only hope for the third world is to develop pancake trees so the natives can pick fresh pancakes and tap syrup from the trunk.

OnyxCougar · 03-06-2005, 03:33 PM

In regards to BigV's post....

I was watching TV the other day and saw an advertisement for a home loan that said it could "cut mortgage payments in half!"

Upon freezing the picture (viva la DVR) I read the fine print.

It's an interest only loan. Yes, the average home owner pays $1200 a month, and $600 of that is interest. With their loan program, you only pay the interest, and then, when you want to, you pay on the principal.

I wonder how many people bought into that?

richlevy · 03-06-2005, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

I wonder how many people bought into that?

Hopefully someone with a good lawyer who could sue the pants off the company. I do not consider myself overly litigious, but companies like that who deliberately mislead deserve to be thrown to the sharks...er...lawyers.

lookout123 · 03-06-2005, 10:31 PM

i don't know the ad you are talking about, but int. only loans are not new. or bad, for the right individual. if you plan on paying a home off and living in it for many years, move along, this isn't the loan for you. but if you aren't planning on being there more than 3-5 years (which is about average) and you have the discipline to save the difference between an amortized loan and an int only loan, then it is a very useful tool. YMMV.

there is no way to get tricked into this loan unless you are just brain dead. there are so many disclosures within your loan process that it would truly take a world class moron to not understand the difference.

wolf · 03-07-2005, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

In regards to BigV's post....

I was watching TV the other day and saw an advertisement for a home loan that said it could "cut mortgage payments in half!"

Daytime non-major network TV is full of ads for shady propositions. A few that I remember from my enjoyment of judge shows (Judy, Joe Brown, and Mathis, in case you were wondering) include: "we'll insure everyone" high risk, low payout, high cost automobile insurance, phone plans through private phone companies that charge about twice what the regular local carrier does, business/techical/medical assistant/truck driving schools that promise to take your money but can't guarantee you'll actually have any skills upon "graduation," personal injury lawyers, high interest short term loans that use your car as collateral and typically result in repossession of your car, and a variety of get rich quick work from your home scams, and of course, the Popeil Rottisserie, and the latest in unusable kitchen gadgets.

Trilby · 03-07-2005, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolf

...the Popeil Rottisserie, and the latest in unusable kitchen gadgets.

So...you couldn't get yours to work, either, eh???

Undertoad · 03-04-2005, 09:17 PM

Monsanto are also responsible for a version of Roundup that they spray on little Colombian children and make them sick.

xoxoxoBruce · 03-05-2005, 01:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Monsanto are also responsible for a version of Roundup that they spray on little Colombian children and make them sick.

And ford is responsible for the truck that ran over my Aunt's cat.

03-02-2005, 01:31 PM	#1
Troubleshooter The urban Jane Goodall Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Florida Posts: 3,012	The damn hippies are at it again... http://www.reason.com/rb/rb030205.shtml Attack of the Killer Crops? Activists still trying to scare poor farmers with bad science Ronald Bailey Activists are again trying to frighten poor people in developing countries by claiming the U.S. is poisoning them with genetically modified food. Never mind that 280 million Americans have been eating biotech-enhanced crops for nearly a decade with zero evidence that it has caused anyone so much as a sniffle or a bellyache. Friends of the Earth tested samples of corn and soybean distributed both commercially and as aid to several Central American countries, to see if they contained genetically modified varieties. They really needn't have bothered, since it's public knowledge that 85 percent of U.S. soybean acreage and 45 percent of its corn are sown in biotech crop varieties that are resistant to pests and herbicides. What would be surprising is if they found no genetically enhanced corn or soybeans in food shipments from the States. The activists merely went through the motions of testing the crops to place a scientific façade on their latest biotech scare. ...snip... The world's poor farmers recognize this, even if the anti-biotech activists who claim to speak for them don't. Thousands of poor Indian farmers nearly rioted in 2002 when the Indian government, spurred on by activists, was poised to destroy the genetically modified pest-resistant cotton they had planted. Faced with this farmer revolt, the Indian government backed down. The subsequent crops of biotech cotton performed spectacularly, boosting yields as much as 80 percent, reducing pesticide use by 70 percent and increasing farmers' cotton-related income fivefold. __________________ I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle

03-02-2005, 01:43 PM	#2
jaguar whig Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 5,075	ah reason, that bastion of unbiased discussion. There are a number of issues with GE crops. Particularly for 3rd world farmers one of the most serious is that it makes them entirely beholden to corporations like Monsanto, seed cannot be saved, they become entirely dependant. As for the no side effects....there's been some interesting cases over time, modifications of production of growth hormone in fish caused massive deformities and behaviour changes, modified yeast for alcohol production suddenly started producing toxins. Most of the techniques used in GE are, compared to the complexity of the systems they are modifying, rudimentary and companies like Monsanto have proven themselves to be distinctly caviller about environmental safety. Good things can and may comes out of GE but there are very notable dangers, pretending there are no downsides or risks is no better. __________________ Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain

03-02-2005, 02:02 PM	#3
Troubleshooter The urban Jane Goodall Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Florida Posts: 3,012	Oh I know. It's just that it's so much fun to pick on the hippies. Until more GE crops get out there for testing, as well as so other companies can study (or reverse engineer) them it's going to be hard to have concrete, legitimate study. __________________ I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle

03-02-2005, 02:05 PM	#4
jaguar whig Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 5,075	well I didn't expect any better from the beloved Reason either, I'm with you that far. It's easy enough to have a study, there's plenty around, most risks are species dependant, some might not be noticeable for a long time, time will tell. __________________ Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Twain

03-02-2005, 02:46 PM	#5
BigV Goon Squad Leader Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Seattle Posts: 27,063	Hippie rebuttal Hey TS: Have you noticed trends like this? I went into a Best Buy this holiday season and I saw a nice little inkjet printer for less than $10!! Wow, I thought. That's a twentieth of what I would/could have paid a year or so earlier for comparable technology. Neato! As I checked out a little more, I learned that the ink refills were more than $40 and would last for only a couple of reams of paper. So owning one of these beasts meant that my upfront costs were spectacularly low, but the ongoing care and feeding costs were much higher. (I guess I should have bought 20 of the printers and scavenged the ink cartridges...another story) The manufacturers were protecting their investment. How about this: the new Napster compares $10,000 to have a new ipod full of songs to $15 for a flash mp3 gadget with the same quantity of music. How can they do it? Well, it turns out you only rent the music, and the $15 is an ongoing monthly subscription fee. You're not buying the music, just paying to listen to it, certainly a different spin on the conventional thoughts about portable music. These are just two examples where a company takes an idea for a product or service and ac-sen-chu-ates the positive and eliminates (rather, hides in plain sight) the negative. You want color print? Buy me. You want to roll with the Rolling Stones? Buy me. In both cases the real cost comes later. Yah, I know, caveat emptor. Fine, point taken. But these are well established business models, for things that are clearly discretionary. But things like soybeans and cotton do not fall into such categories. When a company makes the investment, major investment, in a product technology like GM crops, it has a corporate imperative to seek a return on that investment. When that imperative is obscured and ingnored by the glare and blare of the front-end benefit, (70% increase in crop yields, 20,000 songs for $15, etc) I see a conflict coming, this kind of conflict. And this and this and this. I tried not to compare this to a drug dealer and have conceded to my baser instincts. "Hey man, first taste is free!" Just today I saw an ad for "Bad Credit Refinancing of Second Mortgages--4 offers in 60 seconds". What about America's long term (no end in sight) petro-chemical dependency issues? Don't get me started on Global Warming... This whole behavior of low cost, low pain right now -- high cost, high pain later is pervasive and NOT in our long term best interest. I do not want to curse our future generations with the prospect of being enslaved to the corporations that could/should/would withhold their daily bread. That is Not Right. Don't misunderstand me, I am no luddite (although I have on sunny summer days been inexplicably unable to find batteries for the kid's GameBoy or the PS/2's power adapter...) There are real, tangible, desirable benefits to most technological advances. Unsurprisingly, that's why they call it Progress. But to march onward without consideration of what lies ahead is not progress, it's just mileage. To discard inconvenient data, to ignore context and disregard consequences while pressing the technical accelerator to the marketing metal is like riding along with Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. You might not crash and burn right away, you will need clean drawers right away, but you've got to stop and let someone who can see take over the driver's seat if you want to get safely to your destination. __________________ Be Just and Fear Not. Last edited by BigV; 03-02-2005 at 02:57 PM. Reason: messed up title

03-02-2005, 07:47 PM	#6
Schrodinger's Cat Macavity Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: A Black Box Posts: 157	Well - in the face of that - I was merely going to add the comment that GE crops often result in monoculture. Instead of growing several different strains of rice, for example, the third world farmer grows only one - the latest and greatest GE species. That's nice until a pathogen outsmarts the scientists (yes, viruses are smarter than scientists as anyone who has the flu can attest). If a disease sweeps through an agricultural crop where farmers are growing different strains, some varieties will prove more resistant than others and the entire food supply will not end up being wiped out. However, if you are growing only one variety of a grain and your neighbors are only growing that variety and, in fact, your entire country is growing that one same variety, you are pratically begging to become the center of attention for the next famine relief effort. __________________ Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity, He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. - T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

03-04-2005, 09:50 AM	#7
russotto Professor Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 1,788	Monocultures aren't caused by or restricted to GE. Neither is non-viable seed. Modern hybrids produced the old-fashioned way result in the same issues. Not that Monsanto (or whoever owns the GE crop division now) isn't a bastion of corporate evil. They ARE the people who bought a Supreme Court decision which says that if some of their pollen gets on your crop and results in fertile offspring, you're violating their patent.

03-04-2005, 08:48 PM	#8
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	The only hope for the third world is to develop pancake trees so the natives can pick fresh pancakes and tap syrup from the trunk. __________________ The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump.

03-06-2005, 03:33 PM	#9
OnyxCougar Junior Master Dwellar Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Kingdom of Atlantia Posts: 2,979	In regards to BigV's post.... I was watching TV the other day and saw an advertisement for a home loan that said it could "cut mortgage payments in half!" Upon freezing the picture (viva la DVR) I read the fine print. It's an interest only loan. Yes, the average home owner pays $1200 a month, and $600 of that is interest. With their loan program, you only pay the interest, and then, when you want to, you pay on the principal. I wonder how many people bought into that? __________________ Impotentes defendere libertatem non possunt. "Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

03-06-2005, 10:31 PM	#11
lookout123 changed his status to single Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Right behind you. No, the other side. Posts: 10,308	i don't know the ad you are talking about, but int. only loans are not new. or bad, for the right individual. if you plan on paying a home off and living in it for many years, move along, this isn't the loan for you. but if you aren't planning on being there more than 3-5 years (which is about average) and you have the discipline to save the difference between an amortized loan and an int only loan, then it is a very useful tool. YMMV. there is no way to get tricked into this loan unless you are just brain dead. there are so many disclosures within your loan process that it would truly take a world class moron to not understand the difference. __________________ Getting knocked down is no sin, it's not getting back up that's the sin

03-04-2005, 09:17 PM	#14
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Monsanto are also responsible for a version of Roundup that they spray on little Colombian children and make them sick.

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