Comment by icxa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icxa | Hacker News Reader

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I'm pretty up to date on the science myself, and I still consider myself anti-GMO for a host of reasons, little to do with the science. My objections are more philosophical.

two primary reasons: hubris and greed.

The hubris to think we know which varietals are the best and will continue to be the best. We may go all in on one species or variant and then turns out an unknown bacteria we have previously no clue about wipes out all of them. You never know, you need variety. Bacteria outnumber us all.

number two: greed. You worried about tech being consolidated into the big 5? how about this scientific research? you want our food, something we actually depend on, to be consolidated into 2-3 chemical companies? I don't.

Smaller reasons include: the power of being able to still survive on pure nature's means, and the freedom to do so. We don't realize it, but these things we do out here in the more advanced nations greatly impact the developing world, where a large portion of the world's population exists.

> The hubris to think we know which varietals are the best and will continue to be the best.

If they don't grow GMO Cavendish, they will pick some other variety and grow that everywhere, like they did after the Gros Michel went under. GMO doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for monoculture at all.

> the power of being able to still survive on pure nature's means

We haven't been able to do that since the dawn of agriculture. If modern agriculture disappeared tomorrow, the Cavendish plantations would not resemble Cavendish plantations very long, Panama disease or not.

The only problem I have with a "GMO Cavendish" is that it would likely be patented, which could create a company with some extraordinarily powerful IP, which is very dangerous. But that's a problem with the law, not GMOs per se.

Many of us that are considered anti gmo are more anti patent for food genes rather than of anti gmo. The developing world mostly has agricultural economy now Western companies are trying to horn in that as well. A few years ago an American company tried to patent and stop Pakistan and India from selling a rice variety called Basmati by modifing it genes and trying to patent it. When its come to gmo the trust deficit in rest of the world is not just about the science but of the western companies and their patents.

Then don't call yourselves anti-GMO?

I didn't say we were anti-gmo rather we are labeled as anti-gmo despite our reservations being about the patenting systems rather than the science.

Literally all of the problems you mentioned existed before GMO was a thing. Companies have been patenting varietals since the 1930's. Patent trolling in agriculture is also quite old. E.g. the yellow bean patent debacle:

https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080507/full/453145b.html

GMO is tangentially related but few of the biggest overreaches in agricultural IP are directly tied to them.

I choose to avoid GMO products (it's my choice, right?). To do that, I have to be able to distinguish them from non-GMO products. That means labeling; and if GMO promoters are lobbying against labeling (and they are), then I'm against the GMO promoters. Unless GMO products are clearly labeled, I favour a ban on importing them at all.

As far as genetic modification in the lab being indistinguishable from genetic modification the way farmers have always done it (cross-breeding), here's the difference, in a nutshell: farmers have no method for cross-breeding a potato with a jellyfish (or adding genes from bacteria, or whatever). That is, the lab technique permits technicians to effectively create new species.

Now I'm OK (in principle) with new species appearing on the shelves; but I don't want to eat them myself, until they have been tested with the same rigour as if they were novel medicines. My choice, you see. If the GMO products are smuggled onto the shelves in disguise, then what happened to my choice?

Or, to put it another way, you can be for (or against) the broader concept of social media, with (or without) being against Facebook, by name, but in a broader discussion, this subtle distinction is easily lost. I'm for GMOs but against Monsanto and their seed DRM.

My biggest concern is similar, that a GMO banana is intellectual property and I detest the thought of large companies preventing people from growing their own food.

The most likely way large companies would prevent people from growing bananas would be by not making GMO bananas, and just letting disease ruin all the other varieties (if some varieties were resistant, then how could the existence of GMO versions prevent people from growing those?)

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