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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It's to the point where I want to reflexively not buy anything labeled "GMO-free".
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Don't be fooled by its seemingly harmless exterior! They will be our doom!
Didn't Neil Young make an entire album about why he hated GM Os?
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I am not really a fan of Strawmanning either way of the GMO debate. I would really like to know when/if they introduce anti-bacterial/anti-insect genetic sequences in a vegetable I am eating, for example, because those can have insane influence - not on human health, but by screwing their ecosystem they grow in. If I can buy something that does not fuck the nature, I prefer to do it.
But it seems that the world is split between hippie yahoos and hand-clasping mad scientists when it comes to GMO.
edited 11th Apr '16 6:53:16 AM by Julep
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Even without having the genes required for the plants to synthesize them themselves, artificially applied pesticides are already doing that - see colony collapse disorder. In any event, Bt
is already one such pesticide. It's quite commonly used in organic farming.
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Most anti-GMO objections that I've heard are about the fear that "Frankenfood" will make us grow third hands or something, not that they out-compete native plants.
And making the plants disease and pest-resistant is sure as hell better than spraying tons of chemicals on them.
edited 11th Apr '16 7:05:21 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Not if the amount of care it takes to maintain a weed-free garden is any indication. Sure, once you plant stuff like bamboo, you're basically condemning your local ecosystem, but otherwise...
edited 11th Apr '16 7:13:31 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Not to mention that there are serious questions about whether GMO and organic farming is actually better for the environment, as those crops often require more and/or more harmful pesticides to grow because the plants can't take advantage of whatever features the genetic modification offers. The benefit of "Roundup ready" GMO crops is that you can just spray Roundup on everything and you're done. If your crop wouldn't survive that, then you might have to use three or four other pesticides that will kill all the weeds you're dealing with without killing your crops at the same time.
Not to mention that for GMO crops to be approved by the FDA at all, they have to be nutritionally indistinguishable from the non-GMO version.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Yeah, the big problem with organic is that they have so many more chemicals sprayed on them. The chemicals that they do use are turning out to be just as bad for humans, and they have much more of an effect on the surrounding plant life. Basically, organic foods are entirely formed from a false idea that if it's "natural" it's healthy. Never mind that cyanide and arsenic are natural.
There's been some evidence that the rise of organic farming contributes a lot to things like colony collapse disorder, and because they require so many more doses of pesticides, they're more likely to poison the land. Also, their pesticides are far less likely to have been tested for their effects on humans.
edited 11th Apr '16 8:49:49 AM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickWhy? So you can reflexively decide not to buy it on the basis of what you heard on TV from Dr. Oz?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

What are they?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman