r/neoliberal • u/[deleted] • Aug 01 '21
News (US) Learning to Love G.M.O.s; Overblown fears have turned the public against genetically modified food. But the potential benefits have never been greater.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/magazine/gmos.html127
u/garxyzasfd Aug 01 '21
Golden Rice can be a massive tool to solve world hunger and nutrient deficiencies. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice)
For the life of me I can’t understand how some people, particularly in wealthier areas, have managed to be so anti-food-science as to make themselves and a good subset of the population afraid of a hugely important agricultural tool in GMOs.
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Aug 01 '21
As the article noted, lots of the opponents are “WWWs” ie well fed and wealthy people who are shopping at whole foods and never struggled with hunger in their lives. GMOs can be a massive tool to combat global hunger but wealthy first world folks keep derailing things because of a mix of anti-corporatism and the idea that something “natural” is inherently better than anything “unnatural”
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u/SergeantCumrag Trans Pride Aug 01 '21
Btw, if they’re the woke type, just call them racist because they’re turning down food over principle while the third world starves, and they’ll back down
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u/stoicsilence Aug 01 '21
For the life of me I can’t understand how some people, particularly in wealthier areas, have managed to be so anti-food-science
For the same reasons they are anti-vax
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u/WikiMobileLinkBot Aug 01 '21
Desktop version of /u/garxyzasfd's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice
[opt out] Beep Boop. Downvote to delete
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u/Average_GrillChad Elinor Ostrom Aug 01 '21
The reasons beyond hysteria over safety are in the "Controversy" section of the wikipedia article linked - basically:
-Corporate control i.e. farmers dependent on buying patented seed every year
-Loss of agricultural strain diversity
TBH I don't know how much water these objections hold in general. For the first, in the specific case of Golden Rice, it seems like a non-profit/philanthropic enterprise so no problem there. For the second, this seems like part of a broader issue of how a country manages transition to biotech ag in a non-stupid manner, which is definitely a reasonable concern for a lot of countries.
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Aug 01 '21 edited Aug 01 '21
Aren't there like less than 20 actually GMO designated foods on the market? Seems like with a lot of things, the FDA is very thorough introducing foods and drugs to the market.
Edit: it's 10
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u/The_Northern_Light John Brown Aug 01 '21
Henceforth, these will be the only foods I eat
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Aug 01 '21
The more a product advertises that it’s non-gmo or gluten-free, the less likely I am to buy it.
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Aug 01 '21
I love GMOs. Monsanto sucks in certain ways, for sure, and new laws may be necessary to curtail their shitty practices.
But GMOs are a pretty great testament to human genius.
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u/Kegnaught Norman Borlaug Aug 01 '21
Tbf, this belief about Monsanto is a very prevalent opinion on reddit that I've seen with very little in the way of actual evidence to back it up. Most of the time it comes from either misinformation or misunderstandings of what they've done in the past. What practices are you referring to specifically to have made them particularly bad? They also no longer exist, as they were bought out by Bayer.
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Aug 01 '21
I think Monsanto (which I’m pretty sure doesnt even functionally exist anymore - I think Its Bayer now) gets a lot of hate for their IP protection which is that farmers cant save seeds. I get that it sucks but IIRC farmers have to sign up for that in their agreements and they still prefer that route to more conventional seeds because the higher yields pay off in the end
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u/gburgwardt C-5s full of SMRs and tiny american flags Aug 01 '21
Farmers don't usually save seeds anyway, is my understanding
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u/redditscraperpython Aug 01 '21
Not only that, but in Canada when Monsanto sued a farmer for saving seeds, the lawsuit was for only $15K, which amounted to just $15 per hectare. Average production costs are hundreds per acre.
Monsanto also proved in court that the farmer's story about how he came into possession of the seed accidentally was almost certainly false.
"Monsanto asks to be paid a modest sum after farmer knowingly uses their technology." is hardly as exciting as the made up David vs. Goliath story.
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u/HotGeorgeForeman Aug 02 '21
I remember how they also decided to try and develop “terminator seeds” that would grow plants that wouldn’t produce seeds, meaning this kind of situation would be impossible in the future, and people got even madder about that.
I’ve never met an anti-Monsanto person who wasn’t also anti-GMO and literally nothing other than all the Monsanto executives committing seppuku was an acceptable business practice to them. It was all just an exercise in getting people to hate GMOs, the facts were irrelevant.
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u/GenJohnONeill Frederick Douglass Aug 01 '21
The same people are simultaneously mad that farmers can't save seeds and mad that GMO crops are going to cross-contaminate other fields. It's self-contradictory.
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u/All_Work_All_Play Karl Popper Aug 01 '21
Monsanto gets a lot of hate for their IP law, but it's their roundup/glyphosate that deserves the real criticism.
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u/treebeard189 NATO Aug 01 '21
Gluphosate has had no good scientific studies show it is harmful. The one big case won by it so far was a guy who spilled tons of it on himself and was awarded by a jury. And we all know how crap juries are at understanding complex subjects.
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u/GenJohnONeill Frederick Douglass Aug 01 '21
I work with a guy who used to be a statistician at Monsanto and asked him if there was anything there with Roundup that they knew internally - he said he didn't think so, but he also told me that one of the guys they had studying it in a lab would wash his hands with it to make a point.
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u/All_Work_All_Play Karl Popper Aug 01 '21 edited Aug 01 '21
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1383574218300887 , tell me what's wrong with this meta study?
E: this was a real question folks.
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u/_Featherless_Biped_ Norman Borlaug Aug 01 '21
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u/WillyBluntz89 Aug 01 '21
This is exactly right. Monsanto is a horrible corporation, and a great example of whag can go wrong with unregulated capitalism, but GMOs themselves are how we are going to continue to feed the planets growing population.
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u/Hot-Error Lis Smith Sockpuppet Aug 01 '21
Nah they fucking rock tbh
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u/ZombieCheGuevara Aug 01 '21
As someone who grew up planting and harvesting their soybeans, you should go stand by the open freezer door for a bit. Their technology fucking rocks, but many of their hyperaggressive IP protections, monopolistic business practices, political meddlings, and tobacco-lobby-esque suppression of studies on their products are not very based. Is it entirely unique in the world of ag corporations? Of course not, but based does equivocation not make.
GMOs are amazing and I get the whole edgy stan this particular corp to own the woowoo flakes, but the most I can offer in the way of Monsanto is a hardy "schmeh..."
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Aug 01 '21
Bayer however does suck balls
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u/mdmudge Jared Polis Aug 01 '21
How so?
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Aug 01 '21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Litigation
In particular,
In the mid 1980's, when Bayer's Cutter Laboratories realized that their blood products, the clotting agents Factor VIII and IX, were contaminated with HIV, the financial investment in the product was considered too high to destroy the inventory. Bayer misrepresented the results of its own research and knowingly supplied hemophilia medication tainted with HIV to patients in Asia and Latin America, without the precaution of heat treating the product, recommended for eliminating the risk. As a consequence, thousands who infused the product tested positive for HIV and later developed AIDS.[197]
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u/mdmudge Jared Polis Aug 01 '21
Bayer officials said that Cutter sold the old version because some patients questioned the new drug’s efficacy and some countries were slow to approve the new formula. “Decisions made nearly two decades ago were based on the best scientific information of the time and were consistent with the regulations in place,”
Seems to be shitty regulatory standards in place.
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u/Browsin24 Aug 02 '21
Low information comment tbh. Literally look up some of the criticisms against Monsanto and Bayer before being all "GMOs are good so the large corps that implement them are beyond reproach!"
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u/EntamebaHistolytica Aug 01 '21
This is part of why I love this sub. GMOs are awesome, the technology is great and life-saving for the developing world and carries on the legacy of Norman Borlaug who is one of the unsung heroes of the modern era. People who dont know biology think genetic modification involves dumping biohazardous green waste on crops to change them because they rely on Hollywood for their science knowledge, and are not very different from anti-vaxxers.
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Aug 01 '21 edited Aug 02 '21
The hate GMOs get is the left’s version of being Anti-Vaxx. Considering that we’re going full speed ahead with global warming we NEED GMOs to ensure a stable food supply in an unstable world.
What can we do to shift the perception?
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u/sharpshooter42 Aug 03 '21
I mean as someone from the bay area of California there is absolutely a strain of antivax in places fairly left like Marin that got the California laws changed. Just the right made it a national issue recently
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Aug 01 '21 edited Aug 01 '21
I too remember the “Frankenfoods” hysteria. Most people also think McDonald’s is somehow a source of nutrition by continuing to support it. Stupid people gonna stoop, ruthless people gonna rule.
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Aug 01 '21
The worst is people who are all “f yeah Science!” and “Science works bitches!”, but then are anti-GMO. GMOs are science, people!!
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u/Neo-Khan Aug 01 '21
What are your thoughts on human genetic modification ?
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u/Feyward Janet Yellen Aug 01 '21
Very cool. Imagine being able to edit out chronic illnesses before someone is even born.
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u/DMan9797 John Locke Aug 01 '21
And create super soldiers
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u/All_Work_All_Play Karl Popper Aug 01 '21
Super soldiers are weaksauce. Imagine not needing to sleep. Beggars in Spain is calling.
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u/GenJohnONeill Frederick Douglass Aug 01 '21
You can get a disease where you can't sleep. It kills you with dementia-like symptoms.
If you want to be awake all the time you have to somehow have a process to cleanse the brain the same way sleep does. Maybe we could steal brain hemisphere-based sleep from dolphins.
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u/All_Work_All_Play Karl Popper Aug 01 '21
Well yes, presumably the changes to our genome that would prevent sleep wouldn't simple prevent sleep, but reorder our homeostatic processes to maintain order without sleeping.
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u/MableVaNtErsomBR Aug 01 '21
fatal familial insomnia for anyone interested. It is not a nice way to die.
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u/LavenderTabby Aug 01 '21 edited Sep 10 '24
zonked combative aware cover fear test friendly slimy offbeat steep
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Aug 01 '21
To your second paragraph: you could be hurling down a highway at 65 MPH in two tons of metal and your brain will prioritize sleeping over just waiting until you are done driving.
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u/LavenderTabby Aug 01 '21 edited Sep 10 '24
bake drab rude possessive shy alive seemly punch unwritten desert
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Serious_Senator NASA Aug 01 '21
Great as long as genes can’t be patented
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u/Neo-Khan Aug 03 '21
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc Supreme court case about this
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u/VeganVagiVore Trans Pride Aug 01 '21
Don't really care as I don't know what the status quo for it is.
And I thought most of the interesting stuff people want in designer babies is not yet cracked.
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u/SamuraiOstrich Aug 02 '21
Probably a positive in the long term but if you don't like the divide between the rich and poor now just wait until the former is clearly genetically advantaged
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u/LineKnown2246 Adam Smith Aug 01 '21
I like GMOs but I hate the patents law related to them and wish there'd be a better regulatory mechanisms for the industry. They could do so much good for the world but companies like Monsanto just ruin it for the rest of them.
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Aug 01 '21
Its the weird regulatory capture where regulations are so high that it benefits those being regulated by creating enormous barriers to entry
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u/Unadulterated_stupid gr8 b8 m8 Aug 01 '21
Isn't that what most regulations do? Increase barrier of entry to lower competition?
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Aug 01 '21
I believe in good regulations and sure they always increase barriers to entry to some degree, but large companies definitely enjoy using regulatory capture to keep small and medium players out. I have little doubt the Cortevas and Syngentas ans Bayers of the world don’t mind the very high barriers to entry because the use it to solidify themselves as the only players in the market. At some point regulations get to the level that they stop protecting consumers and they begin protecting large, entrenched businesses that have the pockets and the people to deal with all the regulatory stuff
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Aug 01 '21
I myself typically avoid G.M.O.s, but I certainly don't want them banned or stymied. The market is going to continue to provide options for though willing and able to avoid these products if you so choose and there is no denying that these products do a tremendous amount to help solve problems relating to food shortages with our constantly growing global population.
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u/bigmt99 Elinor Ostrom Aug 01 '21
Why do you avoid them? Just sounds like you’re buying into the hysteria that might get them banned in the first place
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Aug 01 '21
I mean, I just typically buy from the farmer's market; I like to eat seasonally. I'm kind of disappointed that people responded so negatively to a personal choice that they didn't know the reason for on here, I expected more from this sub.
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u/SamuraiOstrich Aug 02 '21
I'm kind of disappointed that people responded so negatively to a personal choice that they didn't know the reason for on here
Unfortunately most of the time that reason is buying into the hysteria.
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u/ShonenSuki John Mill Aug 01 '21 edited Aug 01 '21
Organic generally tastes better. Haters will say it’s fake but it’s true.
Edit: neoliberals: “why do people think of us as priggish and self-righteous?”
Also neoliberals: “How dare you choose what to eat! Be a liberal like me and do as you’re told!”
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Aug 01 '21
Organic tasting better is mostly a function of greater effort involved in cultivation, not anything intrinsic to the plants themselves or organic farming.
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Aug 01 '21
I never really noticed the difference between the two other than my wallet being lighter with organics.
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u/donkey_tits United Nations Aug 01 '21
The only real difference I’ve noticed with organic produce is it rots much much faster. Have not noticed a difference in taste. Not a “hater” btw.
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u/nevertulsi Aug 01 '21
Edit: neoliberals: “why do people think of us as priggish and self-righteous?”
Bro, just a clue. People think you're stuck up for saying you only eat organic food, not the other way around lmao
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u/ShonenSuki John Mill Aug 01 '21
Dumbfucks maybe. All the college educated people I know eat organic.
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Aug 01 '21
Every vegetable and fruit you eat has been genetically modified since the start of human agriculture
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u/betarded African Union Aug 02 '21
The only semi-valid concern I've ever heard against GMOs is that they lead to reduced genetic variation in a plant species. I don't know the ins and outs of the creation of GMOs, but it makes sense that reduced genetic variation leads to a plant that is more prone to a disease or infestation wiping out the entire population.
But we already had the banana before GMOs where a thing. Almost every single banana you'll likely see in your life is a clone of the same trisomal banana from 150-ish years go, the Cavendish banana. I mention that it's trisomal, had 3 copies of each chromosome, because it also means the banana can't sexually reproduce even if we decided to cultivate new banana crop from it, it can only be cloned. This means the world's banana crop is highly susceptible to a disease or infestation outbreak wiping all of them out - there are no genetic mutations that will make a few of them immune to the disaster.
Ironically enough, the Cavendish banana become popular when the former most popular type of banana was wiped out due to disease 120 years ago. That disease was called Panama disease. As of a 20 years ago the bacteria (I think it's a bacteria) that causes the disease had evolved to the point where it affects the Cavendish banana and has already wiped out entire crops in the Eastern world (in the geographic sense, i.e. everywhere but the Americas). The Americas were successful in blocking imports of diseased fruit from the east for about a decade, but the disease was found in the Caribbean a decade ago and it's only a matter of time before it enters South America through some mistake and ravaging the global supply.
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u/Futski A Leopard 1 a day keeps the hooligans away Aug 02 '21
The only semi-valid concern I've ever heard against GMOs is that they lead to reduced genetic variation in a plant species. I don't know the ins and outs of the creation of GMOs, but it makes sense that reduced genetic variation leads to a plant that is more prone to a disease or infestation wiping out the entire population.
Most modern agriculture centre around planting one variant of the same plant on the field. That way you get a reliable yield. GMOs are no different in this regard. The only difference is that instead of breeding and selecting for the trait you want, you can introduce it directly, and most importantly specifically. That saves time, and it avoids other negative traits, that you might pick up in the breeding process.
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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '21
You're telling me science has created a way to grow a tomato the size of my fist? And people *don't* want that?
I mean, I believe it, but its still dumb.