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Comment by i_cannot_hack | Hacker News Reader

The authors of the website really undermine their own point by including a lot of "hysterical" comments that are still reasonable warnings or complaints, were completely reasonable at the time (things change!) or are just sensible questions.

The sections on computers includes an article matter-of-factly informing about a virus being found on 3000 computers. Calling the virus a time bomb is not hysteria - it was literally designed to be one. And surely computer viruses are an even bigger problem today?

The clipping titled "Perils of the lazy age", which predicts that people sitting down in front of the television instead of chopping firewood will make people "unable to stand on their own feet" sure is obnoxiously written, but the sentiment is not wrong: Obesity and cardiovascular disease is basically an epidemic today.

If these are some of the best examples of past hysteria, I guess we should listen more to those we consider hysterical today?

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I'd blame obesity on diet before I'd blame it on television. Six of one, half dozen of the other though. The entire food chain is GMO and soaked in poison.

What’s the issue with GMO? How is it different from cross-breeding and husbandry which we’ve been doing for millennia?

(I’m asking honestly.)

First, it's a bit of a red herring, the biggest issue IMHO is the synthetic pesticide use which correlates it. Many plants are primarily GMO to make them pesticide-resistant. The issues with pesticides you may be aware of.

Another issue is that often GMO correlates with patentry, terminator seeds, IP lawsuits, and so on. But that's also a tangential issue.

The main issue is that, just like anything new, it puts us in the "beta testing in production" area, where the product being tested is "things which none of our ancestors have ever encountered, evolutionarily" and production environment is "our bodies".

Atrazine and glyphosate were also believed to be safe to use. We now know that Atrazine causes Parkinson's and glyphosate causes cancer. Fruits and vegetables now have half the nutrition they did 20 years ago. This is due to herbicides decimating the soil fertility. The pessimists were right.

Last I heard they were still considered safe to use, if environmentally damaging, by scientific sources. Could you provide citations, so I might update my knowlege?

Similarly, my understanding was that soil depletion (caused by farming methods) and crops optimized purely for high yield (via breeding or otherwise) are problems causing nutrition drop in foods. And that neither are problems solved simply by going organic or GMO free.

The EPA uses bogus studies funded by the pesticide industry. Independent studies have found links to cancer, birth defects, and more.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/epa-atrazine-herb...

There is a trove of studies showing the harm so I'm not sure you're being genuine. If you really can't find anything on Google I'll help.

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