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Comment by iroh2727 | Hacker News Reader

“Generally considered” may not be good enough given that that general considerment is corporately influenced (in terms of research funding, media, narratives inside the industry, etc.).

I mean, I’m not an expert, but altering the expression of genes already present could be hugely dangerous in theory. These expressions are based on extremely precise feedback loops and interrelationships.

I guess we could use a coding analogy: if you’re using a statically compiled language and you make a code change that compiles and makes the unit tests you have in place pass, it probably works. But it might not… and in this case, what are the risks of the “might not,” especially when we’re layering these modifications on top of each other? And do we need to take such risks?

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This is an oddly anti-scientific view. We can test and evaluate the safety of the resulting GMO product.

Some of the most important and useful pharmaceuticals are GMO products, produced by genetically modified cells in bioreactors. Do you have an issue with those?

There is also the fact that we allow rampant and unregulated frankenfood production which is obviously harmful and purely profit driven (ie modern processed food production). But when it comes to GMO crops, which would improve the nutrition of the hungriest populations, suddenly it is too dangerous and must be banned. A privileged double-standard if there ever was one.

Yeah I'm definitely not an expert here, just raising the question. I guess compared to pharmaceuticals which are something we'd take only as a last resort/backup plan, is there extra danger in modifying the most basic of our food sources? Any unintended side effects that could happen or limitations to our tests?

(I'm definitely am in favor of regulation to prevent overprocessing of food too. So no double standard from my end there.)

> But when it comes to GMO crops, which would improve the nutrition of the hungriest populations, suddenly it is too dangerous and must be banned. A privileged double-standard if there ever was one.

There’s a big difference between making Cheese Puffs and genetically modifying a plant and releasing it into the wild.

The first is just irresponsible (unless you enjoy Cheese Puffs) but the second could possibly have major unintended consequences because there’s no way to account for all the variables.

As a somewhat unlikely example what if some poor third-world farmer plants some GMO and it kills their water buffalo, Buffalo Billy, who they rely on to plow their field?

I'm really not a fan of Round-Up Ready GMOs, but breeding plants already alters their genes and gene expression. Horticulture has radically altered every food we eat. The natural world already can't sustain 7 billion people, there simply isn't enough nitrogen in the soil. Fertilizer is the reason you and I are alive right now, and its a huge source of greenhouse gasses, so yes, we do need to take such risks.

A better coding analogy would be genetic algorithms versus intelligent fuzzing and manually patching.

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