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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It is kind of understandable from a standpoint that's not simply anti-intellectual. How many times in the past have we struck upon a wondrous invention only to learn later that "Oh shit, this causes some disastrous long-term consequences?" Asbestos comes readily to mind on that one.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
But that's not really a good argument at all, given how many examples of progress have not bitten us in the ass and we still use to this day.
The fear of GM Os is just another example of the Appeal to Nature fallacy. Especially considering most modern crops are not at all natural. They are the result of generations of selective breeding.
edited 1st May '18 6:55:12 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedAs far as vaccines go, I have a bad feeling that the anti-vaccine movement will never go away between misguided celebrity spokespeople and parents needing something to blame autism on.
Trump himself is an anti-vaxxer, to no one's surprise.
DDT and CF Cs are other good examples of technology created with a good purpose and that were genuinely useful, but also had horrific side effects that weren't immediately clear. However, GM Os don't run the same kinds of risks. The one concern I've heard is that they might crossbreed with wild plants, but that could presumably happen with non-GM Os, too.
And now Team Orange is preparing for the possibility that Mueller might subpoena Trump himself.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/politics/trump-lawyers-showdown-special-counsel/index.html
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In some cases, such as the American Chestnut, that could actually be desirable.
There's a lot of untapped potential in combining traditional crossbreeding methods, and genetic engineering, to increase blight resistant. Once a blight resistant genetically engineered tree is approved, the next step would be crossing it with traditional crossbred stock, to hopefully create an even more blight resistant strain.
edited 1st May '18 7:31:06 PM by megaeliz
GM Os could be very helpful in fighting human and animal diseases - like helping inoculate frogs against that horrible fungus that's decimating their populations in the wild.
Was a cause ever found for whatever was killing off bees?
Edit: Ugh, double post. No idea why that happened.
edited 1st May '18 7:18:43 PM by Raptorslash
GM Os could be very helpful in fighting human and animal diseases - like helping inoculate frogs against that horrible fungus that's decimating their populations in the wild.
Was a cause ever found for whatever was killing off bees?
Edit: Ugh, double post. No idea why that happened.
edited 1st May '18 7:18:43 PM by Raptorslash
The USA Greens don't really care about winning. It's vainglorious political theatre. They don't want to win because then they would actually have to deliver on their bullshit.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the USA Green Party. Hell, the Green Parties of other nations (who btw aren't exactly that great either) don't like the USA Green Party.
edited 1st May '18 7:27:35 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
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Of course they are, it's in their contract as useful idiots to the enemies of progress. They need to oppose or help oppose everything that could make the world better.
I despise the US Green Party, they're the personification of the worst of the fringe Left and fringe environmentalists. They're just so terrible.
edited 1st May '18 7:30:56 PM by Fourthspartan56
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangThe Democrats have internalized a lot of what the Greens wanted back when they were just an environmentalist pressure group. I mean, look at what Ralph Nader was calling for back in 1973, and compare that to Democratic platforms from 2012-2018 — most of it is there. It isn't so much that the Green Party has failed, it's actually that they've succeeded a little too well. They managed to carve out a niche within the Democratic Party that caters to them, and because of that there was a void that got filled by the nature quacks, the anti-science Left, the homeopaths, etc. that no mainstream party catered to. The Greens that want to enact meaningful change and concrete policy still exist — they're all Democrats now.
edited 1st May '18 7:32:12 PM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."The thing about anti-science idiots is that they take a starting point as an endpoint. Mom tended to have a lot of the Liberal Idiot in her brain pattern, though she was usually reasonable once told the facts. (Having direct access to her helped.)
"Will this fuck us up down the road?" is always a good question to ask. But to them, "We don't know if this might fuck us up down the road" means "we shouldn't even consider it," instead of David Brin-esque principles of controlled experimentation and reversibility. I mean, "don't let a new GMO out into the wild until the FDA gives a go-ahead" is reasonable so long as the FDA can be trusted. But the anti-science left tend to forget that "until," or else reflexively assume that the FDA is a corrupt rubber stamp for Corporate Evil.
And that attitude also harms possible positive, legitimate uses of that technology, such as attempting to bring back the American Chestnut, which we all agree would be an undeniable positive.
As I said, the best shot at bringing it back is to cross traditional cross-bred and genetically engineered stock, to try to create the most blight resistant tree we can.
and another advantage of modern Genetic Engineering, is that it's actually less disruptive than traditional hybridization.
This wheat gene produces an enzyme called oxalate oxidase (Ox O), which detoxifies the oxalate that the fungus uses to form deadly cankers on the stems. This common defense enzyme is found in all grain crops as well as in bananas, strawberries, peanuts and other familiar foods consumed daily by billions of humans and animals, and it’s unrelated to gluten proteins.
We’ve added the Ox O gene (and a marker gene to help us ensure the resistance-enhancing gene is present) to the chestnut genome, which contains around 40,000 other genes. This is a minuscule alteration compared to the products of many traditional breeding methods. Consider the techniques of species hybridization, in which tens of thousands of genes are added, and mutational breeding, in which unknown mutations are induced. Genetic engineering allows us to produce a blight-resistant American chestnut that’s genetically over 99.999 percent identical to wild-type American chestnuts.
edited 1st May '18 7:51:10 PM by megaeliz
Libertarians are very selective about the kinds of science they support, too, especially if it's science that gets in the way of corporations.
Penn and Teller, for example, painted environmentalists as a whole with the "anti-progress alarmists" brush, and went after them on the same show where they went after phony psychics, UFO cultists, and creationists. They seemed fine with evolution, but environmentalism and climate science were "bullshit". Secondhand smoke research and gun control were treated the same way.
edited 1st May '18 7:44:17 PM by Raptorslash
It was said that the smoking episode was an Old Shame where the data was paid off by Tobacco companies. I can't imagine the gun control episode has aged well either, although I don't think outright repealing the Second Amendment isn't the most direct solution to gun violence.
What I got from the Global Warming/Recycling episodes was that certain types of recycling are more effective than others, and it's not like we're not doing something when it comes to landfills. Still, better reduce the amount of landfills when we can because we can't exactly accommodate for the amount of trash we'd produce recklessly.
edited 1st May '18 7:47:36 PM by RainingMetal
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.While we're on the subject of Libertarians, let's look at the videogame industry. Here we've got a near perfect example of an industry that has had almost no regulations on it. For all the complaints about videogame violence, the government hasn't actually done much to regulate the industry. It's a Libertarian fantasy come true.
And look what's happening now. AAA game publishers have abused monetization schemes for years. Bullshit DLC, microtransactions, loot boxes which are gambling in all but name (and Belgium at least recently declared they were gambling)...the game industry has gotten away with all of it because the government hasn't done anything about this and consumers have for years let it happen. Partly because a lot of the people in government know little about tech in general and even less about videogames. Only recently has there been any backlash.
But what about indie developers, you might ask? Oh boy. That's a hot mess too thanks to no regulation or basic quality control. For every good indie game out there, there's dozens of shitty asset-flips and blatant cash grabs. Just take a gander at Steam Direct some time.
The videogame industry is a near perfect example of Libertarian politics and the flaws in relying wholly on the free market.
edited 1st May '18 7:48:49 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedFor all the complaints about regulations taking jobs away, and how oppressive the government is for putting them in place, there is an inherent problem in letting companies and private individuals regulate themselves - they won't.
It's in the collective interest of everyone to preserve resources so people can have access to them for a long time, but it's in an individual person (or corporation)'s self-interest to take as much as they can get away with for as long as possible. From their perspective, if they don't do it, someone else will. And with everybody acting in their own percieved self-interest, the resource dries up fast.
Corporations cannot be trusted to regulate themselves because it is not in their interest to do so. Their goal is to make money, as much of it as possible, and things like environmental, worker, and consumer protections cut into profits.
In an interview Rod Rosenstein gave today in honor of Law Day, at about 45:51, a reporter asks Rosenstein about his reaction to how certain members of the Freedom Caucus have filed articles of Impeachment against him, and his reaction is interesting.
He actually starts laughing, and calls them out for not even being able to not leak their own drafts, and refusing to put their names on it, because they were to afraid to own up to it, and then said this:
“I think they should understand by now that the Department of Justice is not going to get extorted. We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law, and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job.”
Extorted is a strong word, particularly by a DOJ Attorney. It's hard to believe he used it casually.
edited 1st May '18 8:17:19 PM by megaeliz
Democrats' Horrible 2018 Senate Map Couldn't Have Come At A Better Time
Although contrary to what you might be thinking, this is arguing in favor of Democrats chances. Basically what it comes down to is the Dems often have a disadvantage in the Senate (though usually not this bad) and have routinely over performed except in a few specifics years that were especially good for Republicans. So in way, it's a bit "lucky" this is the worst map for them in years, if for nothing else to minimize chances of loses.
And this is a problem...how, exactly? Yeah, Sturgeon's Law is a thing in the indie scene since non-AAA games don't have to go through any kind of curation. Bad reviews banish the worst of the crap to the bottom, good games build a developer a fandom.
Indeed, in the age of Steam and Penny Arcade, video games are in most cases showing the idealized Libertarian response to AAA-milking and shovelware. The Horse Armor DLC flopped, most shovelware games get a few sales with scathing reviews on Steam that ensure no reception, while other cheap indies provide several hours of entertainment for a buck or two (and at that price, it doesn't have to win Oscars to be a good buy). Meanwhile, tier-two publishers like Paradox look at EA, Activision Blizzard and Square Enix (which still acts like a tier-one even though it's way past its prime) and go "our customers are not going to put up with the kind of bullshit that you can get away with if you're milking a Cash-Cow Franchise" and make money by publishing games people want to buy.
The fly in the ointment is mobile and Facebook gaming, where business models that have nothing to do with entertainment have taken root (the Allegedly Free Game and spyware-disguised-as-a-game). Those do need regulation - but even then, they can be avoided by not being dumb enough to sign up or download.

Creationism has a religion-based origin, from my understanding - but with the suggestion that evolution is connected to other religious conservative bugbears.
I've had the impression that Monsanto has not helped the image of GM Os, but I also think GM Os are not a bad thing and have the potential to do a lot of good.
(I personally feel a bit better about genetically modified plants than animals, though, especially if the way the animal is modified causes it harm.)
edited 1st May '18 6:35:40 PM by Raptorslash